I wandered the streets of Paris for hours, through rain that matched nothing inside me because I felt too hollow to weep. The city blurred around me—lights reflecting off wet cobblestones, the distant hum of automobiles, lovers huddled under awnings sharing cigarettes and kisses. I saw none of it. I was a ghost in my own body, moving without direction, without purpose, without any awareness of time passing.

  I don't know how long I walked before the rain stopped.

  Not because the storm had passed—it hadn't. But because someone had stepped close and raised an umbrella over my head.

  "Mademoiselle Giana."

  The voice was young, breathless, as if its owner had been running. I turned, slowly, and found myself looking at a boy—barely a man, really—with dark hair plastered to his forehead and eyes that held a concern far beyond his years. He was perhaps eighteen, finely dressed despite the weather, his suit clearly expensive though now soaked at the edges from his sprint through the rain. This young man would, in later years, become Silas's father.

  "Thomas," I whispered, the name foreign on my tongue. I had almost forgotten I had a steward in this lifetime. Almost forgotten there were people, the Silas family, who watched over me, who tracked my movements, who existed in the background of my carefully constructed mortal existence.

  He bowed slightly, a gesture so old-fashioned it looked almost absurd in the middle of a Parisian Street. "I have been looking for you for hours. When you did not return from the studio, I grew concerned." He stopped, swallowing hard. "I feared the worst."

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  I stared at him, this young man who had been assigned to me by my family that had served me for generations, had been my steward for only two years, thrust into a role he couldn't possibly understand. I had kept him at arm's length, as I kept everyone. He was efficient, discreet, and utterly aware of the truth of what I was.

  Yet here he stood, soaked and shivering, holding an umbrella over my head while rain streamed down his own face.

  "How did you find me?"

  He hesitated. "I followed the whispers. There's a studio—they say a young painter died there last week. They say a woman with dark hair came asking questions earlier at the Le Boeuf sur le Toit, and when she left, her eyes held nothing but lifeless sorrow." His voice grew softer, almost tentative. "I thought... I thought you might need someone."

  Something cracked inside me. Something I had kept sealed for days, held together by will and numbness and the desperate need to keep moving.

  "Thomas," I began, but my voice broke.

  He said nothing. He simply stepped closer, raising the umbrella to cover us both, and offered me his arm.

  I took it.

  We walked like that through the rain-soaked streets of Paris—an immortal woman who had just lost her love for the hundredth time, and an eighteen-year-old boy who knew who he is escorting, and stayed anyway. He didn't ask questions. He didn't offer empty comfort. He simply walked beside me, umbrella steady, presence solid, while the rain fell and the city slept and my heart slowly, painfully, continued to beat.

  When we finally reached my apartment, hours later, he lowered the umbrella and looked at me with those young, earnest eyes.

  "I do not understand what happened tonight, Mademoiselle," he said quietly. "I do not understand why you weep for a stranger, or why you disappeared for hours." He paused. "But I am your steward. Whatever you need—whatever this is—I will be here."

  "Thank you, Thomas," was all I managed.

  He bowed again, that formal, old-fashioned gesture, and disappeared into the rain.