Antoinette and Etienne sat on either side of me on my bed, as I stared down at the folded-up letter.

In the hall, Etienne had glimpsed the name at the top of the letter and asked aloud if the office had been mistaken, so I let go of my last few ridiculous secrets and let him come along. I hadn’t even read the thing and I already couldn’t get over something: Chloe was on the envelope, but Marie was written inside. The school must have been easy enough to track down (he’d seen me with the ultra-recogniseable Antoinette and Remi, after all), but who did the writer ask to get my fake name? Did he let my ‘identity’ slip to anyone in his search?

“Go on, read it,” Antoinette said.

“It’s weirding me out too much!”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” She held out a hand. I passed the letter over. Antoinette gave it a quick skim, screwed up her eyebrows, and then read aloud.

Marie,

What a relief it was to see you safe. That’s the most important part of this letter, so I hope you make it at least this far before tossing it away–!

After all that’s happened, you’d be within your rights to do exactly that. Hear me out for a moment. I see you’ve run away as usual and you haven’t been subtle. Your classmates know you and are quick to talk about you, Chloe–they’re happy to give away your name to anyone who asks.

“He was here?” I shuddered.

“That’s not the part I’d be worried about,” Antoinette said. “He clearly knows more about you than even you do.”

So forgive me for worrying–! You always loved your books more than socializing with your family’s connections. You’re not prepared for this. While I’m sorry the situation got so terribly out of hand, and I’m sorry you had to deal with it, running off isn’t the best solution. Not like you’ll listen to me. Be careful that you don’t make such a mess as ‘Chloe’ that you can’t sweep it up as ‘Marie.’

I would say that you can reach out to me for help at any time, but I don’t want your new friends having any way to find my address or usual spots. You decided to associate with a Delphine, so I think you’re on your own. You saw how that went before. Don’t try to finish your mother’s work–the damage to the publishing factory set her back more than those scorned Delphine memoirs could ever recoup. You’re definitely not tough enough to get back at Georges for anything.

By the way, as I asked around for you, I learned the Laflamme kid goes to that school. Be careful not to tip him off to who you are–or else you’ll have no hope of escaping La Belle Lavande without a serious mess. It’s that family’s fault we’re in this situation in the first place.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Once again, glad to see you safe.

Your cousin

We all sat in silence for a moment, Antoinette’s recitation hanging in the room like a fog. I finally broke it by saying: “Okay, what the hell.”

Etienne smoothed the thighs of his trousers. “You’re…you’re certain this is about you?”

“Totally positive. And so is he.”

“And you’re certain you don’t remember anything…?”

“He doesn’t seem to think so! He apparently thinks I remember his damn name! ‘Your cousin.’ Please.”

Antoinette gave me a keen look, scanning my eyes for any sign of flashbacks and flower-exploding breakdowns. I shrugged at her. Marie was not answering my calls.

Satisfied, Antoinette moved back to rereading the letter, murmuring key phrases–key names–under her breath. As she did so, I told Etienne a scattershot collection of what memories I did have and what Antoinette and I had learned throughout the months. When I’d finished, I patted his shoulder.

“Antoinette’s secret seems like small potatoes now, doesn’t it,” I said.

Antoinette said, clearly not listening to us, “So much of this bothers me, but most of all–why does he sound so casual? He’s ‘glad to see you safe’? He last heard of you possibly being burned to death and he’s giving you advice like some overbearing parent.”

Unless he never expected me to actually be killed. I agreed with her; the tone was totally off. “He seems to think I ran away to continue something my family started. We got more clues, and no conclusions.”

Etienne asked, “May I?” and got his turn with the letter.

Antoinette stood up to get her notebook and a pencil. She read over Etienne’s shoulder as the three of us pointed out phrases whose reasoning we didn’t understand–which was most of it.

“Laflamme.” Etienne shook his head. “There could be about a thousand reasons why he’s concerned about the Delphines–no offense–”

“None taken.”

“But Sylvain? What on earth could that be about?”

“His father’s arrest,” I said, because this was a pre-written story, after all, even if it was starting to burst free of its seams in a way I really didn’t like. There was one big thing that connected Sylvain to the core of the plot, so everything had to lead back to that. “Do you know if the Gagnons and the Laflammes worked together or anything?”

“I know next to nothing about him at all. I only learned recently from Remi about Sylvain’s father,” Etienne said with a guilty tone.

I groaned. It was clear that I needed to talk to Sylvain about this, against my ‘cousin’s’ advice, but I’d been neglecting the guy since I got here. Simply put, I didn’t have nearly enough friendship points with him to make any conversation about his family productive.

Antoinette said with a frown, more like an offer than a declaration, “I’ll speak to him.”

“Will you?”

“I still have some scraps of favour with him. And if I have to lose it all because forced this topic for your sake, well, it will be worth it.” Antoinette wrote one last line on the notebook. She was about to close it but I stuck my hand in the pages, catching sight of what she wrote.

‘the damage to the publishing factory set her back more than those scorned Delphine memoirs could ever recoup.’

Just earlier, the guys had told me about the memoirs from non-immediate Delphine family members about how they were cut out of the inheritance and the business. I’d wondered what the fallout of that could be, and I guess it was that?

“The Gagnons messed with the Delphines, didn’t they? Or the other way around? Who knows how far back that goes.”

Antoinette shrugged. “Looks like my first impression of you as a saboteur was right, after all. You just didn’t know it.” There was no venom there, just a dry smirk–I expect when you’re a Delphine, you get used to things like this. “I’ll pretend I’m interested in Sylvain’s father for my own reasons. You keep the letter. I’ll speak to the Chapelle girls so neither of them give that cousin of yours the way to your room, in case he decides a letter isn’t enough.”

I was warmed by her immediately taking action. “Should I write him back?”

“Not so fast. If you want to write him back, I expect to help. Remember how we agreed to handle this whole situation?”

I nodded. “Together.”

“Together, Chloe.” She handed the letter back to me, our fingers brushing. “Stay put. I’ll come back soon.”