“We’ll all miss her, dear,” Monsieur Dupuis said. Jane couldn’t help but notice he was holding Madame Foucheaux’s hand. She thought back to Gran’s apparent overreaction to the “fictional” romance in Jane’s diary, and wondered how much—if any—of it had ever been in her imagination. “And I promise to take good care of Honey.” Honey had never warmed up to Jane and Malcolm, but a few good meals and a thorough brushing courtesy of Gran’s neighbors had turned him into a generally pleasant and eminently adoptable dog.

“Thank you,” Jane said, her eyes downcast. A black thread was unraveling from the sleeve of the cheap black dress she had chosen randomly from Saint-Croix’s sole, dingy department store. One more thing coming apart at the seams.

For the past few days, she and Malcolm had feverishly prepared for Gran’s funeral. The coroner had discreetly (but a little too eagerly, as if he had a penchant for gossip) informed them that between Gran’s age and the cold, it was impossible to establish exactly when her heart had stopped. It didn’t matter, though. She was gone, and knowing exactly when it happened wouldn’t do a thing to change that.

The macabre story of the dead widow in the farmhouse had piqued plenty of interest around the area, and everyone in town had turned up for the funeral mass. Every last villager was now standing in the receiving line at the small stone church, offering Jane condolences in one breath while waiting hopefully in the next for a crumb about Gran’s tragic demise. Jane wished that at least one of the so-called “mourners” would have bothered to check on her grandmother in the last month, if they were going to act all caring now. Then again, Jane herself hadn’t stopped by in six years.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Madame Martine, a local artist who fancied herself eccentric, murmured. Jane gave her and her tie-dyed headscarf a wan smile. A headache was blooming behind her eyes, growing stronger with every “sorry.” The ancient church, damp and musky, echoed with words—both said and unsaid.

Perhaps if she’d come back sooner . . .

Such an odd lady . . .

Jane rubbed her temples, longing to block the voices that seemed to wander through her head at random.

. . . wonder how much the house will go for . . .

. . . girl was gone for so long . . .

. . . killed her . . .

If my child ever leaves like that . . .

The idea of mind-reading, as it turned out, was much more appealing than the actual experience of it. The magic from the ring still pulsed through Jane’s body, throbbing uncomfortably at unexpected moments. She didn’t know how to control her powers, and disembodied thoughts came in unpredictable, vivid flashes. She couldn’t even pinpoint whom they belonged to, and could rarely hear more than a snippet before her mind skipped away to eavesdrop on someone new. She felt perversely glad to be in mourning: no one would expect her to behave completely normally at a time like this. Her confusion, distraction, and startled responses to unsaid words didn’t seem too terribly out of place, even if they felt cringe-inducingly noticeable to her.

“You poor dear.” Madame Sandineau grasped her fingers, and Jane nearly gasped aloud at the influx of unwanted information that flashed in her mind: namely, that the sinewy fromagière hadn’t showered since Tuesday in order to conserve hot water. Jane felt a rush of vertigo as she watched herself through Madame Sandineau’s thoughts.

She carefully disengaged herself from the woman’s strong grip. That grasp confirmed Jane’s suspicion that her powers were amplified when she touched people. She couldn’t see a way to get out of that completely, what with the receiving line. She sighed. Her feet hurt, and the cheap dress was making her legs itch. I’m supposed to be able to move things without touching them, she thought glumly, longing to scratch them red. That would be a little more useful right now than the stupid mind-chatter.

“Are you doing okay?” Malcolm whispered in her ear. “Do you need to take a break?”

Jane shook her head, grateful for his comforting presence by her side. “It’ll be over soon enough.” Malcolm had been unbelievably attentive since their horrible discovery in the little old farmhouse, and if such a thing were possible, she’d grown to love and need him even more in the last eight days. Each morning he’d brought her breakfast and held her when she cried, and each night he’d stroked her hair until she fell asleep. He’d hired a team of movers to ship all her belongings to his parents’ house in New York, where they’d be staying until they found their own apartment, and he’d insisted on paying for the entire funeral. She hadn’t had a thing to worry about except for her grief . . . and her stupid, willful, uncontrollable magic.

Malcolm’s attentiveness had made her even more resolved to hide her new secret from him, and so she had flushed Gran’s note down the toilet as soon as she was alone. She ached when she watched the familiar handwriting disappear, but she already knew the contents by heart—and besides, Gran herself had warned Jane to hide the truth. Destroying the physical evidence was an unavoidable first step.

Unfortunately, the flickering lights and finicky heater in the squat little church strongly suggested that Jane wasn’t hiding nearly as well as Gran would have liked.

Suddenly, goose bumps rose on her arms and she got the chilling feeling of being watched. Looking up, she saw an old man with papery skin and wiry eyebrows in the back of the church. He was glaring at her, and she realized with a start that he was the strange man who was at the flower shop the morning they arrived in the village. She stiffened.

Malcolm lightly touched her back, but Jane couldn’t look away from the old man’s dark, unwavering eyes. A stab of rage pierced her mind, and a violent jumble of images that she couldn’t quite make out—a letter-opener maybe? a barking dog?—flooded her mind. She winced, and felt Malcolm squeeze her hand in concern. The magic subsided as quickly as it had come, and when she regained her bearings, she saw that the old man had left.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself firmly. He doesn’t matter. Soon she and Malcolm would be thousands of miles away. She didn’t have to worry about deciphering the secret feelings of some stranger from her hometown; she had to worry about protecting her fiancé from finding out that he was in love with a mind-reading freak.

“Please talk to me if there were a thing I can do. I loved your grandmother greatly,” the local constable said, resting his hand on Jane’s shoulder. He’d known her since she was a baby, and had always insisted on practicing his English with her—even, apparently, at her grandmother’s funeral. Jane fought the urge to snort, but it was quickly overshadowed when another voice, male this time, filled her head.

. . . killed that nice old woman herself for the inheritance. Those city girls are all the same—wouldn’t lift a finger for . . .

Jane winced and snatched her shoulder from the tight grip of the beefy, iron-haired constable. Suddenly she couldn’t stand being in Saint-Croix for another moment, couldn’t stand to hear another thought about what a horrid person she was or about her grandmother’s gossip-worthy reclusiveness. Most of all, she couldn’t stand to be so near the place that had filled her with this loathsome power.

She tugged Malcolm’s impeccable black cashmere sleeve. “We have to leave,” she told him. “Now.”

She wanted out of the village, out of Alsace, and out of France entirely. She was done being Jane Boyle, mysterious, ungrateful American orphan; that chapter of her life couldn’t be over soon enough.

Malcolm nodded, considerate as always, and she felt a tiny pang. Even though he would never know that she was deceiving him, she would work as hard as she possibly could to make it up to him. “I’ll take care of it. Meet me at the car.”

She turned and began to push through the crowd, muttering “Excuse me” in defiant English, and ignoring the shocked—and angry—looks from the congregation.

She emerged outside into the gray daylight, a little breathless. The old man from the flower shop was waiting across the narrow cobblestone street, and he didn’t look any less furious than he had before. A matching fury began to stir in her. How dare he? How dare he insult her grief and intrude on her mourning? Couldn’t he spare an hour or two to respect the dead rather than glare at the bereaved? Jane was seized with a sudden impulse to cross the street and make him explain himself. Just as she was about to step off of the curb, Malcolm came up behind her and looped his arm through hers. “This way,” he reminded her, kissing the top of her head, and the hard knot of her anger began to melt away.

She walked arm-in-arm with him to the car, leaving the angry old man—and everyone else in Alsace—behind her for good.