I made a face. “I expected gargoyles, Nick Wallace Tour Company.”
He smiled. “And gargoyles you shall have, mademoiselle.”
I melted at the way his voice caressed “mademoiselle.” I’d missed that so much. It didn’t sound the same over text. He took my hand and walked me to the balustrade, then pointed down. Six feet below us, a stony herd of elongated figures—birds, lizards, monks, dragons, and even squirrels—jutted from the building. I focused on a long-necked dragon with a channel carved down the length of its back and an obscenely gaping mouth. Nearby, a miserable-looking monk wore the expression of someone for whom all the ale quaffing was about to turn into ale spewing.
I turned to him. “Are they all supposed to look like they’re throwing up?”
“That’s how the original stone masons carved them. They’re downspouts for the rain gutters. It rains, water collects and runs down the channels in their backs and out their mouths.”
I gave himYou’re jokingeyebrows. “You’re telling me a bunch of stone carvers spent ages making these things so that when it rained it would look like the whole church was puking?”
Nick nodded happily. “You gotta love the medieval sense of humor.”
I shook my head, but I was laughing. I’d thought that a cathedral would be all churchy splendor—as unapproachable as God. How great that there were parts of it that made you know it was meant for people.
We lingered in the gallery for a long time, searching for the most bizarre chimeras and seeing how many different gargoyles we could find. Then, finally, we climbed up through the bell tower to the very top of the cathedral. We stood on the narrow walkway and looked at Paris far below, a pattern of dirty-beige, slate-gray, copper-green, and terra-cotta rectangles. Sun glinted off the Seine, and I picked out the landmarks I knew: the Louvre, the Montparnasse Tower, the Eiffel Tower. I thought of Quasimodo, yelling, “Sanctuary!” as he rushed Esmeralda to safety inside the cathedral. For me, it wasn’t the cathedral that felt like sanctuary; it was Paris itself. The city at my feet was home. I could see my future from up here.
Chapter 19
Six Weeks Ago
I made it back to school, giddy with the secret of my unauthorized field trip, just in time to meet Madame Dupuy for the walk home. She asked me how school was, and I told her I’d learned a lot of fascinating stuff about Notre-Dame. Officially not a lie. I also said how much better I felt since Dad had let me come back to class. Just getting out of the apartment made me feel hopeful. It made me feel like I wasn’t being punished for what had happened.
“You do know that is not your fault, yes, Mademoiselle Tosh?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps not my fault, but who needs a chaperone everywhere she goes, and who’s walking around free?” She muttered something about the cops, and I felt enough like normal Tosh that I let myself believe for a few minutes that they’d find Le Bec. I hadn’t felt this hopeful since before the attack. Smoking changed the game for me. It calmed myclamoring senses, soothed my sparking brain, and quieted my craving for blood without ruining my sense of smell forever. It let me relax my vigilance against v mode a little and be more like my old self. When we stopped at the butcher shop on the way home, I didn’t stare longingly at the slabs of raw meat on display. I didn’t imagine how satisfying it would be to tear into one of those lumps of flesh. I didn’t spiral into a feeding frenzy from the smell of blood hanging in the air. I just waited, looking at my phone, while the butcher sectioned a rabbit for her. I felt a tickle of hope.I can do this, I thought.I can control v mode and keep my life. It’s going to be okay.It could be a chronic condition, treatable with the right combination of nicotine and vigilance. As long as I took regular smoke breaks, I’d be safe around people. I could live the life I was meant to. Five hours later, over dinner, Dad blew everything up.
“I asked work to transfer me back to my old position,” he said, putting his knife and fork down.
“What?” I thought I hadn’t heard right.
“You’re not safe here, so we’re moving back to Oregon.”
I stared at him, horrified. He didn’t mean it. Hecouldn’tmean it.
“I told the company what happened to you and how it’s affected you. They were very accommodating. I’m pushing for us to leave as soon as possible—a week, two at most.”
I was shaking my head. “I don’t want to leave. I love Paris.”
“Tosh, you almost died. You’ve been moping around the apartment; you picked at your dinner; you’re not taking an interest in anything. You need a safe space. You need counseling.”
“I ate all my dinner.” I was outraged. It had tasted like nuclear waste, but I’d choked down every bite, because keeping my stomach full felt like a way to keep some of the v mode cravings at bay. How dare he not notice that? “And they have counseling here, although I wouldn’t need it if you hadn’t locked me up in this apartment and kept my friends away.”
He gave anI’m trying to be patient with yousigh. “Your friends aren’t safe. They aren’t good for you. And we’re living in a city with a predator on the loose. Did you know he attacked someone else last week? I worried every day this week that something would happen to you while you were at school. I just can’t live this way.”
“You could have worried about that last year, too.” I wanted to shout it at him, but my voice was still recovering, so I kept it soft and even. Plus, if he had to work a little to hear me, he’d really pay attention. Cole had taught me that trick.
His eyes went wide in surprise. “I—Last year?”
“Yeah.” My voice didn’t waver. Soft and steady. “I wasn’t safe in Portland, either.”
“What do you mean? You never said anything. What happened?”
“I fell asleep on the bus after a tournament. I woke up because Cole was…He was grabbing me.”
“Cole?”
I nodded.
