Paris rose before them like a mirage of smoke and stone, the towers shimmering above the river's haze. After weeks on the road, the city seemed both familiar and foreign — a place that promised everything and delivered only what one could carry. The troupe crossed the Pont Neuf at dusk, their wagon rattling over cobbles slick with rain. Street vendors called from beneath their awnings; beggars pressed close with open palms. The air smelled of chestnuts and mud and the faint sour tang of wine spilled on stone.
For Isabelle, it was a return. She looked out from beneath her hood with dry eyes, her mouth set. Once, Paris had meant beginnings — now it meant survival. 'The city doesn't change,' she said as they passed the lamps flaring along the quay. 'Only the fools who think it will.'
Joseph smiled faintly but said nothing. He could feel her distance, the cool armour that had grown since Bram's betrayal. Whatever tenderness had flickered between them once had hardened now into resolve. Isabelle laughed less and worked twice as hard, her voice clipped when she spoke, her kindness practical and never promised.
For Edwin, everything was new. He leaned from the wagon to take in the bridges, the arches, the endless rise of rooftops. 'It's like the world's been built twice over,' he said, wonder softening his voice.
'Aye,' Joseph murmured, watching the spires dissolve into dusk. 'And every stone sold twice before that.'
They found rooms near the river — cheap, draughty, but high enough to see the smoke twist over the rooftops at dawn. Below their window, the city moved like a living thing: carts creaked, boys ran messages through the fog, and the bells of Saint-Germain tolled the hours as if counting the city's heartbeats.
They played wherever a crowd would stand still long enough to listen — in courtyards, on market steps, in the corners of taverns thick with pipe smoke. Sometimes Isabelle sang; sometimes Rik juggled knives while Joseph beat the rhythm on a drum worn to the rim. The laughter that followed was uncertain at first, then warmer, as if Paris too had been holding its breath since winter.
After one show in a wine yard near the rue Saint-Honoré, Joseph stood watching the coins glint in Isabelle's hands. The takings were modest, but they were more than Antwerp had offered in months. 'We'll eat tonight,' she said, tucking the purse into her coat.
'And drink?' Joseph asked.
'Only if it's cheap.'
He laughed softly, and even she allowed a ghost of a smile.
For all its noise and smoke, Paris offered something none of them had known since the Carnival — a fragile kind of belonging. They were still wanderers, still uncertain, but no longer lost. The laughter that rose from their small stage was unsteady, perhaps, but it was real — and for now, that was enough.
By the second week, the fog had lifted from both the river and their spirits. The troupe had settled into a rhythm — performances by evening, odd jobs by day — each of them finding, in their own way, a place to stand. But it was Edwin who changed the most.
He had begun to draw openly, without apology. At first it was the faces in the taverns — men bent over cards, women laughing too loud, the curve of a hand holding a cup. Then came the markets and the bridges, the endless wash of light across the Seine. He sketched on anything he could find: scraps of paper, the backs of playbills, the lid of an old crate. His lines had grown bolder, more certain — no longer the secret work of a merchant's son, but the expression of a man beginning to belong to himself.
Joseph watched him one morning as they sat on the steps of a fish market, the city already awake around them. Edwin's charcoal moved fast, sure. 'You'll wear the paper through,' Joseph said, half-smiling.
'Then I'll use the walls,' Edwin answered without looking up.
There was no arrogance in his tone, only quiet conviction. The hesitance that had once shadowed him was gone, replaced by a strange calm — the stillness of someone who had finally found the right direction, even if he couldn't name it.
Sometimes, after the day's work, Joseph would find him by the river, sketchbook balanced on his knee. The Seine shimmered with dusk light, shifting from pewter to rose.
'It changes every moment,' Edwin said once. 'You can't trap it. You have to choose which moment to love.'
Joseph nodded, though he wasn't sure he understood. Perhaps it was the same with people, he thought — with the ones you left behind, and the ones you carried with you.
When the drawings sold — a few coins here, a meal there — Isabelle handled the payments. She never said much, only kept a running tally on the corner of a crumpled ledger. Yet sometimes Joseph caught her watching Edwin's hands as he worked, her expression unreadable.
'You think he'll make a living at it?' she asked one evening as they packed up after a performance in the square.
'He already does,' Joseph said.
'For now,' she murmured. 'Paris loves a dream until it costs too much.'
Her tone wasn't cruel, only tired. Since Bram, she had spoken of love and trust as if they were trades she no longer wished to barter in. Still, she saw something in Edwin that stirred both envy and protection.
'He believes in beauty,' she said softly. 'Lucky fool.'
Joseph turned to her. 'So did you, once.'
'That was before the fool stopped believing in me.'
She said it lightly, but the words hung in the air. Joseph didn't answer. The truth was, they were all chasing something that had once slipped away — only Edwin had caught his.
That night, as they climbed the narrow stairs to their rooms above the cooper's yard, Joseph glanced through the open door. Edwin sat by the window, sketching by candlelight, the soft scratch of charcoal steady as breathing. The wax burned low, throwing long shadows across the page — a half-finished study of a bridge, a lamplighter, the shimmer of reflection on water.
For the first time, Joseph saw not a runaway merchant, nor a lost youth, but an artist at work. The quiet determination in Edwin's face reminded him of Katelijne — the same stillness of purpose, the same grace held beneath restraint.
He stood in the doorway a moment longer, then turned away. The sounds of the city drifted up from below — wheels on cobble, laughter, a woman singing far off in the dark. Paris was wide enough, it seemed, for all their ghosts.
The rain returned before the week was out, soft and persistent, turning the lanes below their window into rivers of mud. The troupe rehearsed indoors, their instruments and laughter muffled by damp walls. When the others had gone to market, Joseph stayed behind. The room felt too still without their noise — only the drip of rain from the eaves, the low creak of the shutters.
He sat by the narrow window with a sheet of paper spread before him and began to write.
Dearest Katelijne,
Paris has swallowed us whole, but gently. The days pass in a blur of music and markets. We play in courtyards and taverns, anywhere that will hold a crowd. Sometimes they pay in coin, more often in wine. But there is laughter again, and for that I'm grateful.
He paused, tapping the quill against the inkpot. The air smelled faintly of candle wax and wet cloth. Across the room, Edwin was hunched over his sketchbook, brow furrowed in concentration. Charcoal dust clung to his fingers, his cuffs, even his cheek.
Edwin has found his peace, Joseph wrote. He draws everything — the markets, the faces, the sky. You would not know him now. He's no longer burdened by shame or duty. He speaks of Antwerp rarely, but when he does, it's with gentleness, not regret. I think he's forgiven more than he realises.
Outside, the bells of Saint-Germain began to toll. Joseph dipped the quill again.
I think often of you. Of the house by the river, and the quiet courage with which you faced it all. I promised once that I would return not as a fool, but as a man who could stand beside you. I mean to keep that promise. The road has stripped much away — pride, certainty, even fear — but what remains feels honest. Perhaps that is what growing older means.
He let the ink dry, reading the words back only once. They felt clumsy and small beside what he wanted to say, but he had learned that truth did not always need adornment. He folded the letter carefully and sealed it with the stub of wax kept for such things.
'Writing again?' Isabelle's voice came from behind him. She was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, her hair damp from the rain.
Joseph smiled faintly. 'I thought you'd gone to market.'
'Too wet,' she said. 'Besides, you make better company than the fishmongers.' She nodded toward the sealed page. 'She'll be waiting, then?'
He hesitated. 'I hope so.'
'Then be sure she waits,' Isabelle said quietly. The words were half a warning, half a kindness.
She crossed to the hearth, crouched, and stirred the coals back to life. For a moment her face was lit with the same warm glow that used to follow her laughter, before Bram, before all the leaving.
'You'd best find a courier before the ink fades,' she said, without turning.
Joseph slipped the letter into his satchel and looked once more to the window. The rain had eased, leaving the rooftops gleaming like slate. Somewhere below, a street fiddler began to play a tune he almost recognised — a lilting, half-remembered melody from Antwerp's Carnival.
For a moment, Joseph closed his eyes. He could almost smell the river, the woodsmoke, the faint scent of her hair when she turned toward him in the fog. Then he stood, squared his shoulders, and reached for his cloak.
There was still a world ahead of them — and promises yet to keep.
He lingered by the window after Isabelle left, the letter still warm beneath his hand. Paris stretched beyond the glass, veiled in rain and light, alive with noise that felt almost like possibility. Below, a boy ran through the puddles, laughing as though the world had already forgiven him. Joseph smiled faintly. Somewhere beyond the city, the road waited — winding, uncertain, but open. He thought of Katelijne at her desk, of the light that might fall across her hands as she read his words. For the first time in many months, he felt the ache ease. Whatever paths lay ahead, they were no longer bound by shame or fear. The promises they had kept — and broken — had led them both here, where the light found them still.