“You’d probably like my father,” Lena says. “He’s a carpenter. He’s funnier than me.”

“And your mother?” I ask. Lena doesn’t speak often of her family back home and I fear it’s because she doesn’t think we’d understand them.

“Oh, she’s very serious. A bit more like me. The toughest woman I’ve ever met. Taught me how to do proper beadwork and to always keep my knives sharp.”

“She sounds terrifying,” Maxine says.

Lena laughs. “She is. Loving though, too. She knows all about the two of you.”

“What does she think?” I ask.

Lena laughs. “That you’re bad influences. She’s correct.”

I love Paris in the morning. The whole city smells like baking bread. It makes it easy to forget why we’re walking and who we’re walking to.

Rue de Vis is just as sleepy as it was the last time I was here. Just rows and rows of still, storybook houses covered in vines.

Saint Bosco’s sits right in the center of the street, the crown jewel of an idyllic neighborhood.

It’s made of white limestone, blending in with the other buildings on the street. The eaves are decorated with weather-worn ornate carving. Set into the center of the facade is a massive arched window. Dark green English Ivy and pale purple wisteria crawl up the walls, draping themselves over the massive oak front doors.

The lawn is a perfect verdant green dotted with neatly trimmed hedges.

The building is beautiful in the ordinary way all buildings are beautiful in this city.

You’d never guess what resides inside.

The gate is locked. Maxine sees me tug on it and mutters “briseadh” under her breath, unlocking the gate with a thunk. I know she’s trying to help but it’s embarrassing that I’m incapable of performing the simple spell myself.

There are a few students milling about on the lawn. Their uniforms are a deep cobalt blue, the boys in suits, the girls in ankle-length skirts and white high-necked blouses with a blue tie around their necks.

One of the girls, the tallest one, with a hard line in her jaw, stops us as we approach and asks a question in French. Maxine volleys a response, just as quick.

The girl narrows her eyes as her friends stand behind her, but doesn’t stop Maxine as she marches through the doors.

The morning is a brilliant blue, but stepping into the front hall of the school is like snuffing out a candle; all at once, the world goes dark and cold.

There are a few students in similar cobalt uniforms in the hall, their steps echoing off the marble floors, like the students out front. They stop in their tracks, a worried look in all of their eyes. One leans over and whispers to a friend behind his hand; another scurries up the stairs like a spooked animal.