In Paris on July 29, 1724, Addie flees into the night, wiping away tears and walking aimlessly because standing still feels unbearable. As she crosses the sleeping city, the air shifts with a forest-scented breeze, and Luc appears beside her, matching her step for step.

Addie confronts Luc for staying away for four years, and Luc teases that she should not expect him to make anything easy. He implies he can sense her weakness and arrives because her heart has faltered after Remy. Luc remarks on Addie’s clothes and needles her about the red dress she once wore “on my behalf,” revealing he watched her hope and loneliness from the shadows.

Luc escalates from taunting to threat, suggesting he could stop visiting and leave Addie to wander alone forever. When Addie points out that abandoning her means he would never get her soul, Luc shrugs that he has many others, and says it would be easy to forget her since everyone else already does. Holding Addie in place, Luc presses her to say yes quickly and yield her soul.

With Remy’s parting kindness and the weight of his coins still fresh in her mind, Addie steadies herself and refuses. Luc flashes anger, then vanishes, and Addie is left alone as night slowly breaks and the oppressive sense of his attention lifts.

At dawn, Addie climbs the steps of Sacré Coeur and watches July 29 become July 30. She remembers the book she took from Remy’s floor—La Place Royale—and struggles to read even a single line before the words blur under her curse. Instead of discarding it, Addie thinks of Remy’s joy in reading and resolves to learn, accepting that it will take a year of hard labor to decipher this first novel and far longer before reading becomes natural.