“How are you faring in New York?” he asks, inspecting my face as if he can read the answer there.

“Fine,” I say, thrusting my hands into my pockets as I step over the pieces of a crumbled stone. “I didn’t plan to come back so soon, but I’m on a special mission from Gold.”

He nods. “Theodore actually invited me to return to New York. Claimed I had a lot to teach them, especially now that some new issues have arisen, or so he said. But I told him that once in a lifetime is my limit for transatlantic trips. Not that I didn’t enjoy it. I just don’t like to be that far from home.”

“Yes, well, he sent his emissary instead,” I say. “I’m sure she’ll have a lot to ask you. I was planning on translating, but just discovered she speaks perfect French. So it seems I’m only serving as chauffeur.”

“Whatever the reason, I’m more than happy to welcome you to my home. You were the first revenant I ever laid eyes on. That day marked the beginning of my life’s true path.”

We walk up a narrow set of steps and into Bran’s grassy back garden to see Louis carrying a tray of food out the back door. He places it on a round white garden table that’s been set for lunch. “You’re back,” he says in French, “just in time for sandwiches.”

Ava steps out with a pitcher of water. “Where do you want me to put this?” she asks Louis in French. She turns and, seeing us, yells, “Oh, hello!”

Bran looks up, and when his eyes meet hers, it’s like everything stops. And then restarts in slow motion.

Bran ducks his head and raises a hand in front of his face, like he’s shielding his eyes from a blinding light. “An aura that blazes like a star on fire,” he murmurs.

Ava gets this look on her face like she’s just gotten word that someone died. The pitcher in her hand starts shaking, splashing water on the grass. She slowly leans over and sets it on the table, and then stands again to face Bran.

She’s in shock, but she’s not confused, like I am for a few seconds before the realization dawns on me.

Ava suspected. Gold suspected. That’s why she’s here, to consult Bran not as guérisseur, but as VictorSeer.

“Jules,” he says, turning his head to squint at me from behind his raised hand. “You’ve brought me another Champion.”

THIRTEEN

AVA DIDN’T CRY IN THE CAR WHEN SHE TOLD ME about her death. Or even when she described her fiancé’s betrayal. But she’s crying now. She stands there hugging herself, tears rolling down her cheeks, and chin raised, like she’s ready to face her doom.

I make a move toward her, but Bran gets there first, squinting so hard his eyes are practically closed. He puts his arms around her, and she lets him lead her into the house. “Louis, bring Ava some water,” he calls, and Louis scrambles for the pitcher. I follow them into an old-fashioned parlor set with overstuffed chairs and jam-packed with odd objects. Bran deposits Ava onto a couch that has so many pillows there’s barely room to sit. He yanks an ancient crocheted blanket off the back of it and wraps it around her shoulders.

Her face is in her hands now. I look frantically around the room, spot a box of tissues between a golden hand reliquary and a stuffed fox, and leap for it. “Thank you,” Bran says, taking it from me as he wedges himself between the pillows next to the weeping girl. “If you could perhaps give us a bit of time . . . ,” he suggests.

“Are you sure?” I ask, feeling suddenly responsible for leaving Ava with people she’s barely met.

“Go ahead. I’ll be fine,” says Ava from behind her fingers. So I go.

Louis’s making his way into the house with the glass of water, his face etched with concern. He obviously has no clue what’s going on but looks eager to help. I’m the only one here without a role.

I brush out past him and look at the lunch spread on the table, but feel too weird to sit there by myself with Ava having a breakdown just yards away. So I grab a sandwich and set off among the menhirs.

I end up walking to the beach, a mile away, and sit on a boulder watching the waves as I eat. Now that the initial shock of discovering that Ava is a Champion has worn off, I’m trying to understand why this news is so traumatic for her. I run back over the story she told me in the car and realize she’s spent the last fifty years keeping people at arm’s length. Living a convenient distance from the Warehouse, but not in it. Mingling with her kindred when she felt like it—obviously enjoying the contact when she was there—but able to go home to a life by herself. She’s been trying for a quiet existence—the opposite of what she had at the Factory. No drama. No limelight. No one to count on who could let her down. Self-sufficient.

Now all that would change. She would once again become the center of attention. The entirety of New York’s bardia—and probably kindred farther away—will be looking to her to lead them. This has got to be the very last thing she would want.

I finish my sandwich and walk for miles along the coastline, killing time. Thinking. A few hours pass before I make my way back, taking a different path in order to pass the famous gargantuan menhir locals call “the Giant.” I finally find it, not far from Bran’s, standing on its own in the middle of a field. And there, at its base, is Ava, legs bent up against her chest, chin on her knees, lost in thought.

I walk over to her, the setting sun casting my elongated shadow at her feet, and she lifts her head. She’s composed now, the tears long gone.

“May I?” I ask, gesturing to the ground in front of her.

“Be my guest,” she says.

I lower myself to sit cross-legged facing her. My legs almost touch her feet, but I am careful not to get too close. She gives me a sad grin.

“Not the news you were hoping for?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “But not a complete surprise. Things have been happening for a while. My vision changing. My perceptions altering. I didn’t know what it was at first, so I didn’t tell anyone about it. But then, when the New York revenants you took to the battle in Paris returned with stories about Kate and her powers, I went to talk to Gold.

“He informed me of the Champion’s ‘qualifications’ as per Gaspard: anterior powers of persuasion, perception, and communication, and the rest. It all seemed so vague—like it could apply to anyone.”