It was a tense few days as they approached France. Oliver had spent the last several months learning French from her to some success. At Le Havre, the French officials didn’t give give them any trouble --- Estella had ordered Oliver to talk as little as possible because his accent was so poor any native speaker would recognize him as foreign if he spoke. The male authorities clearly found her over talkative for all her answering over him, but it was better than them interrogating them on why they’d enter a continent on the verge of all-out war. To justify their arrival in France at such a pivotal moment, she and Oliver created a story about some fake parents they were to get out of the country.

  “You know Saint-Tourre is near the western front, no?”

  As if she didn’t know geography. Estella barred her teeth. “Yes, but my elderly parents you see…”

  The official stepped away from her, suddenly holding their stamped documents at arm’s length. Good.

  Passage into western France thankfully hadn’t completely shut down. They got to Paris with little issue for their line change. The train station was achingly familiar, the neo-classical architecture was like a siren song, luring her to the arches and eaves. Beyond the windows, she could see the line of buildings with their grey stone and wrought iron decorated with blooming flowers that belied the dark nightmare knocking on their door.

  She knew exactly how to get to the witch’s quarter from here, right to Jacques’ door. Maybe leave a note. Peek through the windows. What did the ground floor look like now? Did he have a secretary? She imagined him alone in the front room, occupying a lonely desk.

  If she could see him, for only a moment…

  The raw wound in her chest ached like a cavernous hole. She thought about her family every day, were in her every choice. Oh, but to see Jacques again! That wry, teasing smile. The fluid was he moved, like water over a riverbed, or like a cat slinking in underbrush. The familiar comfort of his presence.

  A warm hard on her elbow drew her thought back to the present moment, to the train station. Oliver was watching her with an indecipherable expression. It was soft and welcoming.

  “Let’s go see him,” he said quietly.

  It was pure indulgence, a kindness that she didn’t deserve. She sank her teeth into his sweetness.

  This was time traveling through an urban area, Oliver follower her around like a lost puppy. It was empowering to be on home turf. Paris was a thriving, expanding city long before the Sun King, but its old street plans lay largely undisturbed. So, when Estella told the driver to drop them off at the Rue Mouffetard he knew what she meant.

  At the edge of the fifth arrondissement, Estella gripped Oliver’s hand. The passage into the witches’ quarter was seamless to her, but to a newcomer the trip though the magic film that hide its existence could be disorienting. Occasionally, a human will find their way to the quarter, looking lost and confused. Someone always takes them to the nearest case where they are given a finger of cognac and a swift ride to Notre Dame.

  Stepping on to the street was like coming home. The same cafes, the same market, the same offices and homes with their stoops and floral arrangements decorated the quarter. And why wouldn’t they? The people living here could live centuries.

  She stood on the stoop to her second home, peering through the windows like a potential client uncertain if they had the right address. His office in the quarter was unmarked. Why would he need a sign? Everyone knew who he was and anyone who didn’t could easily find someone who did. Besides, clients rarely came here. He had an office in the city but had all his messages redirected here.

  Through mustard yellow curtains, she could just make out the shape of the man she called a brother but was the closest to a father she’d ever had. It was a scene painfully familiar and yet not at all. The room was wrong, it was clean, and he worked alone. He was bent over a desk, sifting through stacks of paper. Cases? Letters? Pleas? Was her letter there, lost in the desperate cries for help?

  Oliver’s arms were suddenly supporting her as she struggled to control her breathing. Her chest was cracking at the fissures. She missed him so much. If she could just… maybe… Oliver’s hands covered her’s, which was raised to knock on the door. When had she moved? When had her knees buckled?

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “If you truly believe that’s a good idea, I will let go. If not, then we should leave, Estella.”

  Knowing not to know, but unwilling to leave with no contact, she laid her palm flat against the door and took slow, even breaths. Nel. Fuori. Nel. Fuori.

  She would mean nothing to Jacques except as another lost soul in a sea of lost souls. The Jacques who took care of her when her grandparents died wasn’t here. He didn’t know her from a little girl. Didn’t comfort her, didn’t raise her, didn’t encourage her to tag along with him to Paris because she wouldn’t leave Saint-Tourre any other way.

  He wouldn’t understand why she mirrored him.

  The man in the mirror was not her Jacques’ yet.

  Like Oliver, she and Jacques were out of step. She wasn’t his family, not here, not now.

  Palm to wood, she told herself all these things. That the only tie to any of them she had now was Saint-Tourre and her memories.

  Behind her Oliver stood, offering, as always, his steady support. She leaned back, only slightly, only until she felt his clothing lightly graze her.

  How did one live a life that is out of sync, out of step with everyone around them?

  She gazed at Oliver, still stood one step below her on the stoop and thought of her grandmother. How did Marguerite cope with this kind of pain? This very particular type of discomfort? For the first time, she questioned the loving marriage she had lived with. Oliver had shown over the last several months how to live in this time. The temptation to follow him into the future was so strong. If he hadn’t supported her going home, would she still choose the harder path? The one that leaves him alone?

  Is that what her grandmother did? Follow Timoteo’s footfalls because she lost her in the past?

  Oliver’s hands moved from lightly caressing her arms down to her waist, where he squeezed gently.

  “What do you want to do, Estella?”

  Eyes shining, she danced around him to the sidewalk. He followed her back to the train station, past the shops, the stores, and the people who she will know one day.

  The regional line to Saint-Tourre was vacant, the train felt almost as if it existed for them alone. She would have been afraid of other worldly visitors if it wasn’t for Oliver’s constant presence.

  Her home was a small village in western France, about halfway between Paris and Belgium, though located favorably towards what would soon become the capital. The train there took less than an hour to stop at the desolate station. Matthieu claimed to be the reason for the station’s existence --- he hated cars and bemoaned the decline in horse travel, much to Theodora’s amusement.

  It was a simple station befitting the rustic setting it served. In the next eighty-odd years the population would remain stable, so there was no need to grow the station. Only the necessary technological updates, which as far as Estella could tell amounted to new train cars.

  From here, they would cut through the fields and the forest. In a village so small, their presence would surely be noticed if they too the main thoroughfares and during a time of war, so close to the border, that might not be for the best.

  For anyone else, getting into Saint-Tourre without permission would be impossible. Layers of magical protection with blood magic underlying it all firmly cut off the world from breaking in. While it may have been Theodora’s brainchild, it was Matthieu’s blood that bound the border security. Only blood of his blood could simply walk onto the property. It wasn’t his fault he was wrong about that last point.

  It was strange, she thought, to break-not-break-into her home. She wasn’t welcome here by any of the home’s inhabitants, but she’d always considered the house its own creature with its drafts and structural groans, like a dog stretching in the sun.

  Holding Oliver’s hand, she guided him through the forest.

  “Trust me and stay one step behind me. The trees will trick you here. If I lose you, you will be on the other of the province before you realize it.” She spoke in English to him but being back in France reverted her accent. Her words came out thick, like honey.

  “Following your footsteps, Estella.”

  Following her. That is what he always did, wasn’t it?

  She pushed that line of thought aside. Approaching Saint-Tourre from the forest was new to her and she didn’t want to miss any magical nonsense. Just because the borders should open for her didn’t mean there wasn’t anything else – or anyone – waiting to spring.

  Ascending the last hill to reach the plateau the house sat on was riddled with natural obstacles. The forest was completely wild here, with thick undergrowth wrapping and tangling their feet. Low hanging branches caught them off guard, snagging their clothing and packs.

  It was obvious when they crossed the border. For Estella, it was as if the forest had suddenly tamed, receded into a view rather than an environment was moving through.

  Oliver, though, was not having the same experience. The trees and ferns and other underbrush came alive, reaching for him as if to drag him away; but any time the feral vegetation came near, it would immediately retreat. It was Estella, he knew, so he stepped quicker into her footfalls, more like a shadow than a companion.

  He would not be separated from her again, not until it was time.

  When they finally broke through the tree line, they were on the south lawn. Estella’s eagerness and joy at that point was unparalleled. Grinning madly, she jerked Oliver forward as her careful run turned into a frantic sprint across the grounds to the kitchen side door.