his entire world hadn’t just been turned upside down. “Um. Yes.”
“He and Sebastion moved a few weeks ago. Actually, he said he was leaving some stuff for you with Mason. Uh, Dr. Ivon.” Todd gave him a worried look. “Are you alright?”
Xan couldn’t help his half-hysterical laugh. “No. I mean. I mean, yes. Um. Jesus, I didn’t realize Luca was the…I didn’t realize we’d met before.”
“But you were his dog-walker,” Todd said, then something curious came over his face—almost angry. “He didn’t tell you?”
Xan shook his head, and his voice was barely a whisper. “Can you show me where Dr. Ivon’s office is? I should probably get my stuff.”
Todd didn’t say anything as he walked Xan back into the offices, nor did he say anything when the short, polite man passed over the meticulously packed box of things that Sebastion had clearly put together in his neat, fastidious way.
Xan took it home and didn’t look at it for two days, but eventually the clawing sensation in his gut forced him to unpack everything. He almost passed over the journal Sebastion had been keeping, but something told him to open the first page and he saw the dedication.
Alexander the Great,
You’re going to do amazing things, and when you do them, I hope you can remember all the ways we thought about you.
He didn’t cry, but there was an ache that lived in the back of his throat as he devoured every page, over and over until almost every word was memorized. They were letting him go—at the very end. They were saying their goodbyes and moving on, and Xan felt a moment of panic before he breathed through it and then took his first step forward.
He thought about mailing his own journals he’d been keeping, because he wanted them to read them some day. But he wasn’t ready yet. So instead, he tore a page out, wrote his letter, then set his hopes on them like a paper lantern with wishes for the gods.
Then he got on a plane, and now he stood on the platform at the station, waiting to see if there was anyone else waiting for him at the end of this long, heart-aching journey.
He decided he hated Paris in the summer. In fact, he loathed it. There was no peace to be found anywhere, crowds of people pushing against him on all sides. He shopped a little at the Champs-Elysée after climbing the ten billion steps to the top of the Arc du Triomphe. Then he stood at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and stared up before walking away. Notre Dame was flooded with people, so instead, he browsed the army-green stands of the bouquinists and bought a couple of candle holders for his new place.
It was at Napoleon’s Tomb when he was finally able to get his first real breath. He visited the massive, over-sized coffin for a few moments before ducking around the corner and getting lost on a winding path that took him to a small ticket booth with a sign reading Musée de l’Armée. Through the archway he could see a full knight’s armor and not a single soul hovering, so he paid his euros, took his little ticket stub, and slipped into the cool air of the stone rooms.
He found himself entranced mostly by the way the light filtered in through the foggy windows, and how it reflected off the glass cases holding swords and weapons that had long-since been retired. Normally, he’d sit and stare and think about the past. He’d try to envision the men who had wielded them and the blood spilled.
He might have wondered how many of them died while holding them clutched tight in a fist. And how many had retired peacefully only to have the remnants of their past donated for people like him to gawk at. He’d always felt a little bit weird about museums—so much of the history felt stolen more than respected, but there was a sort of calm about that place, and he knew a lot of it came from the fact that he was alone.
As he came to a case showing knight’s armor mounted on a horse, he heard the sound of a man clearing his throat, and he turned to see the ticket-taker. He was young, pretty, Mediterranean with short curls and dark eyes. He had more of a smirk than a smile, and he stepped a little too close into Xan’s space.
“American, right?”
Xan raised a brow at him.