It’s Oliver who witnessed the true pain my father’s absence caused. It was he who taught William to tie a bow tie, and his father who taught them both to shave. He was there when I broke my ankle too. He heard me cry for my mother and father, and he held all the doors open as William carried me into our apartment building and stayed until the doctor came.

“Your dad…,” he whispers. “Oh, Frances, I wish I’d known.”

“He’s a professor at Saint Bosco’s, of all the things in the world.”

Maxine’s laugh is dark. “Like father like daughter.”

“I had to tell him about William. He didn’t know.”

Oliver looses a breath. “I’m sorry.”

Lena leans across the carriage and squeezes my arm softly. “Oh, Frances,” she whispers.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m fine.” I take a breath but it sounds like a desperate gasp. I didn’t realize quite how close I was to the edge of tears. “But things may not be… fine.”

“What do you mean? I’m also still not sure what this has to do with Finn.” Maxine’s voice is grave.

So I close my eyes and I tell them. I tell them everything my father told me about the veil between the living and the dead.

Which requires telling them every terrible detail of what happened in the basement of the Sons of Saint Druon that November night. The night we spoke to William, and Finn kissed me and stole my magic. The night the two of us might have altered the fabric of the universe inexorably.

I leave one detail out. Lena and Maxine know the truth of what happened to Mrs. Vykotsky, but I don’t have it in me to confess to Oliver, too. His eyes are always so soft when he looks at me. He treats me like someone who is worth loving. I’m not ready to let go of that just yet.

Golden sunlight dances in from the train window, painting the inside of my eyelids red.

I’m lucky. Maxine, Lena, and Oliver are good listeners.

They let me spill my guts like I’m vomiting. It burns just as badly on the way up.

It’s easy enough to gauge their reaction by the speed of their breathing and the way it hitches in their throats.

I don’t realize I’m crying until Oliver brushes a tear from my cheek.

“That’s why I needed to speak with Finn. I know it’s my magic that is bound to the veil, but then it has to be his, too. I can feel something going wrong and I can’t stop it.” The words are coming faster, in hiccupping sobs.