I will not describe them again; it is enough that they were there, at her feet, in the middle of a public terminal, and that they left nothing to be denied.

Chloe let out a strangled shriek, her hands flying to her mouth.

And Julian’s face drained of every last drop of color as he understood, finally, all of it: that I was not hiding at the back of any train, that I had not been humbled, that the manila envelope he had never known existed had reached his family two days ahead of him, that everything was already over.

“Nora,” he gasped.