This is where the uncomfortable nag of uncertainty comes in. Was that little colony by the lake a gift for me? Or was it the remnants of what Finn was able to scrounge up of a life after all he’s done? He looked so uncomfortable at the mention of the Sons of Saint Druon, I get the impression he fled New York in fear rather than leaving it on his own accord.

For all the space Finn has taken up in my brain this past year and a half, I’ve given little thought to what his day-to-day life must look like. I’ve been holed up in Haxahaven, slowly transitioning from student to teacher. It’s a quiet life, one filled with novels and buttered toast and chalk under my fingernails. The days pass so similarly. It was easier to picture Finn D’Arcy as a vague threat, a shadow in the night, rather than a person who eats and drinks and thinks and feels. There’s something embarrassing about the mundanity of his life on the shores of the lake after his turn, however brief, as the leader of New York’s Sons of Saint Druon.

“No,” I finally speak. “He didn’t tell me what he was building. I wouldn’t have believed him anyway.”

“Is that why you needed to speak to him alone?” Maxine asks. There’s a hint of sarcasm in her words, but I can tell she’s genuinely curious.

The dirt path turns to stone as we approach the small country train station.

Only a few other day travelers mill about the platform. Some sit on simple wooden benches; others lean against the metal pillars. The open-air station is little more than a platform.

My mouth is open and I’m thinking of a way to answer Maxine’s question, but Oliver stops me.

“Frances, may we have a moment?” The words are polite, but stretched thin, like he’s a bowstring seconds away from snapping. The muscles in his neck and his jaw are tense with effort.

My voice is small as I reply, “Yes, of course.”

Lena and Maxine throw me a questioning glance. “I’ll just be a minute,” I say. They nod, their faces sketched with half-hearted concern.

Oliver and I take a few steps away from the group toward the back wall of the train station, near the ticketing booth, tucking ourselves away from the other travelers.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

I brush off his concern with an unconvincing shrug. I’ve never been good at being casual. I’ll never be breezy like Maxine or self-assured like Lena.

“I thought it was nothing,” I lie.

“I thought we’d moved past the need for secrets like this, Frances. I didn’t think we lied to each other anymore.”