“We have zero doubts that’s true, darling,” Lena consoles her, her arm draped around Maxine’s shoulders. “But we fear the people of Paris don’t deserve the show you’d give them. Best leave it to the imagination.”

Maxine gives in easily, collapsing against Lena, burying her head in the crook between Lena’s neck and shoulder.

“One day you’ll all be sorry,” she says, but she’s laughing as she says it.

We stumble out of the club and down the cobblestone streets of Montmartre, arm in arm, stretched five people across, even Pascal, who is laughing hysterically on the end.

We’re not the only people out tonight. The city is awash with starlight and bustling with youths, free from the social constraints of daylight to laugh as loudly as they please.

The air tonight is thick and heady with unfulfilled promises, and though I have no idea where we are, I don’t feel lost.

It’s easy to brush aside the magic and the address, to pretend I’m a different person, one who hasn’t ruined so many things. If I pretend to be the kind of girl who is fun, perhaps I will become her.

Pascal drags us through winding streets, up and up so long my legs begin to burn. From this high, we can see the entirety of Paris sprawled out under us, sparkling little dots following the winding river, like something from a painting. Warm yellow electric lights on the top of the Eiffel Tower blink lazily, like lightning bugs in the darkness.

Finally, he stops at the top of the hill, at the white steps of a cathedral, glowing nearly blue in the moonlight.

It’s a specter on top of the city, looming above everything. There must be at least one hundred steps up to the entrance, which is bigger than any church I’ve ever seen in New York. It makes Saint Patrick’s look like a corner store.

The points of the onion-shaped domes reach up into the dark, disappearing into the small puffs of clouds floating gently above the city.

“What a night!” Pascal declares, collapsing onto the steps. The four of us join him, in varying states of wobbliness. Lena is a little unsteady on her feet. Oliver catches her by the arm and lowers her gently down.

Pascal grins and pulls an entire bottle of wine from inside his coat. I don’t think he’s far gone, none of us are, but by the look on his face, I’d guess he wants us to be.

“Did you swipe that?”

He shrugs. “It was on the bar, they weren’t using it. It was begging to be drunk! It would be an insult to let French grapes go to waste.”