“I’m glad you told us,” Maxine says. “We’ll make a plan in the morning. We’ll go see your trash can of a father. Or we’ll find another professor. We’ll figure this out together.”

I’m relieved she’s taking my confession so well, but it doesn’t lessen the weight of my guilt.

“I don’t want to draw you into the mess I’ve made.” I scrub a hand across my wet face and will the embarrassing tears to stop falling.

“Well, we’re in it,” Lena says. “We’ve been in it since that night in the woods. There’s no getting rid of us, even if you fling yourself into the great beyond.”

“Wait, yes, can we please revisit a few particular details of your tale? Like when you so casually informed us of the dead living beyond death,” Maxine says.

She’s joking to relieve the tension, but next to me Oliver is standing stock-still and tense.

“You really spoke to him?” he breathes. “And your magic… I wish you’d told me.”

I turn to face him for the first time since I began my story. He’s pressed his lips together in a thin line; his face has gone pale. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” I mean it. I am.

The train pulls into the station with a lurch, and we step off. My skirt has dried.

The Parisian early evening glows gold, and all around us swish the fine silks of those on their way to dinners and entertainment. The music of an organ grinder floats by, nearly lost in the chorus of voices.

But Oliver doesn’t seem to see any of it. He goes to speak to Pascal without us. They stand across the platform, too far away for us to hear them, looking small under the domed roof of the station. Oliver towers over Pascal, who looks up at him. I cannot hear his words, but he’s talking with his hands, like he’s pleading. I don’t know about Lena and Maxine, but I do believe Pascal when he says he didn’t know about Finn. Finn’s words about the universe wanting us to be together rattle around uncomfortably in my head. Perhaps some things really are inevitable.

Oliver bids Pascal farewell with a brief handshake and crosses the platform back to us.

“He swears he didn’t know.”

“And?” Maxine prompts.

“And I believe him,” Oliver says matter-of-factly. His confidence puts an end to the conversation.

Maxine harumphs, but there’s no real malice in it. I think she and Lena know that it doesn’t particularly matter what Pascal was or was not aware of. What is done is done. The reunion of our little study group from the woods of Forest Park has happened and there’s nothing we can do to undo it.

CHAPTER TEN