With our heads bent over the table, I steal a glance at Alexandre and realize how close we are. A slight warmth creeps from my chest up my neck to my cheeks. “Is that her?” I whisper. “The raven-tressed lady? And are these Delacroix doodles?”
Alexandre leans in closer still. “I think so, but there’s no signature. I have . . . What’s that word you Americans use? A hunch?”
“The pencil strokes, the look on her face . . .”
Alexandre’s eyes widen. “There’s something else.”
He straightens and removes another file folder with no particular flourish. But I find myself holding my breath, waiting for the fireworks to explode from a humble paper sleeve. Another letter. This time to Dumas’s son—Alexandre Dumas, fils. The edges are ripped, whole paragraphs are unreadable, dried traces of ink stain the page, and there’s a tear through the center that someone seemed to have tried to fix years ago with tape. Tape. An archivist’s nightmare. But some sentences remain, traveling through time to find us here.
It’s dated 1870. The year Dumas died.
“Holy crap,” I say, too loudly. The archivist shushes me. We’re the only other ones in here, and she shushes me. No wonder she didn’t want to help me.
Alexandre flashes her a warm smile in apology before he answers me. “The words in the letter, cherchez la femme. It’s one of his most famous lines, part of it anyway, from Les Mohicans de Paris. Cherchez la femme. Seek the woman. But the treasure line isn’t from the book, so what does it mean?”
My heart skips a beat. What if the treasure is the lost Delacroix? What if it’s something even bigger? What could be bigger than that? This could be everything. “And that’s your directive? Seek the woman, find the treasure?”
“I want the truth. There are so many family rumors about Dumas and his various affairs, but this . . . Even his use of that phrase, cherchez la femme. Did this mystery woman inspire the phrase or even the story itself? It rouses my curiosity, you know?”
Yes, so aroused, I think. Wow. At least I didn’t say that out loud. I nod but try not to look at him—it’s the only way to calm my rapid breathing. “Where are the instructions? And why is a letter from Dumas to his son in a Delacroix archive?”
“My questions exactly. I asked her”—Alexandre nods toward the archivist—“and she suggested that the Dumas family sold some of the letters between Dumas and Delacroix to the Delacroix estate. This letter got mixed up in the files.”
“But maybe it wasn’t a mistake? Maybe the treasure is related to Delacroix after all? But then the instructions would have to be here, too, right?” I can’t disguise the urgency in my voice, the panic.
Alexandre shakes his head. “I’ve looked in every Delacroix file they have from those years, and . . . nothing. My uncle couldn’t find anything even remotely resembling directions to any possible treasure in any other archive, either. He’d never even heard of it. That note was sitting here, ignored, all this time.”
“Another dead end.” I bury my face in my hands. I’m scared to be hopeful, maybe even afraid to try. I don’t know if I can take slamming into a brick wall again.
Alexandre places a hand on my shoulder. “Khayyam, finding this treasure would mean a lot to my family—more than I can say. I’m not giving up. I’m taking it as a challenge, not a dead end. Would you like to join me in my quest?”
I bite my lower lip. I’m getting ahead of myself. There are almost no actual facts or clues to go on. But this could be a chance to fix everything I’ve screwed up in my life this last year. I imagine myself walking into the head judge’s office, throwing my paper onto her desk after I’ve discovered a missing Delacroix. I’ll be the toast of the art world. And Zaid—the beautiful boy, my problematic fave, whose ghost simply refuses to stay locked in the remembering closet of my mind—will fade away into the past instead of floating around us, all afternoon, every time I look into Alexandre’s sparkling sienna eyes. Maybe I’ll be able to leave Zaid in the dust like the artifacts in these archives. Maybe Dumas has unwittingly reached forward into the future to give me this directive so I can save myself from myself. I don’t believe in fate or things happening for a reason, and I’m trying hard to not view everything through romantic rose-colored lenses.
But none of that matters because I’m here right now. And I have nothing left to lose.
I nod at Alexandre. “Cherchez la femme.”
Leila
The door to the Room of Ablution creaks open. Valide steps in, clacking her carved ebony cane against the tile, the single ruby in its center shining a beam of purple-red as the morning light streams and bends through it.
She scowls at me. “What are you doing at this hour?”
I turn to her, naked. “As you see, I am preparing myself for the Pasha. He has summoned me.”
Valide harrumphs. “God knows what he sees in you, feckless girl. Girl who has failed to bear him an heir.”
“Perhaps you should ask him.”
“You may be the favorite for now, but there is treachery in your velvet eyes, and one day he will discover it.” She glowers at me.
“But that day is not today. Today I am called to serve Pasha, and I do so humbly. But I must first finish my ablutions and ready myself, as he prefers. I wouldn’t think you’d want to interfere in that.”
She narrows her eyes at me and cackles. “Shameless barren girl. I suppose you think my son honors you with the ancient title of haseki, that like Süleyman the Magnificent, he would elevate you to wife. I’m afraid you may find your confidence is woefully misplaced. You’re merely an expendable object of desire. One that is easily replaced.”
Khayyam
Alexandre gave me his key.
Well, his key code, anyway.
In Paris, most apartment buildings have exterior doors that lead into a courtyard where you can access the main doors for the actual building. It’s common practice to give visitors your building code since a lot of the doors facing the street don’t have buzzers. But knowing this doesn’t prevent my heart from racing or my fingers from hesitating. To steel my nerves, I picture the imaginary high five Julie would give me for not chickening out. I enter the four digits with shaky fingers and wait for the mechanical click that tells me I can push the door open.
I take a breath. I’m two flights of stairs away from meeting Alexandre’s parents. And I’ve only just met him. I’ve never faced a meet-the-parents-of-a-guy-I-like scenario. I already knew Zaid’s parents from before we hooked up. I don’t even know Alexandre’s parents’ names, and I guess they’ll expect la bise? Because a handshake would be weird. What is the protocol for meeting the parents of a cute French boy who you have not kissed—yet—and who could maybe help course-correct your entire life? That’s not in any guidebook or handbook for understanding French culture. I’d say my desire to puke is several orders of magnitude greater than any moment I had going to Zaid’s place. I should’ve limited myself to one pain au chocolat this morning.