Morning entered the carriage before the announcement did.  

Soft gold light spilled across the seats, and somewhere beyond the window the skyline of Paris began to rise—gray, layered, half dream.  

Aiden woke first. He blinked, disoriented, then smiled at the sight of Mira still asleep, head tilted against the glass, hair tangled with sunlight. Outside, the train slowed, the hum beneath their feet turning to a patient tremor.  

“Mira,” he whispered.  

She stirred, opened one eye. “Already?”  

“Almost.”  

“The world doesn’t wait anymore.”  

“Good. We’d never catch up.”  

The conductor’s voice slid through the carriage: *Prochain arrêt, Gare de Lyon.*  

She rubbed her eyes. “Paris sounds tired already.”  

“It’s jet lag from history.”  

They gathered their bags, stepping into the narrow aisle. The air smelled of dust, coffee, and arrival.  

The platform unfolded like a sentence too long to end.  

Crowds moved with purpose; announcements echoed overhead.  

Mira held the railing as if it might translate the noise for her.  

“This city talks in plural,” she said.  

“It never learned how to be quiet.”  

“Perfect for us.”  

Outside the station, light fractured on wet cobblestones. Cars honked in multiple languages. A street violinist played something that might have been hopeful if it hadn’t been so fast.  

They stood for a moment, letting the city measure them. Then Aiden hailed a taxi.  

The driver glanced in the mirror. “First time?”  

Mira answered, “This life, yes.”  

The man laughed. “Bienvenue.”  

Their hotel was near the Seine, narrow and unapologetic. The hallway smelled of linen and old rain.  

In the room, two windows opened to rooftops tiled like broken mirrors. Mira set her bag down, stood by the glass.  

“Smaller than I imagined,” she said.  

“Cities always are when they stop being dreams.”  

“Does that make them worse?”  

“More accurate.”  

He looked around. “We could have stayed in Lumièra.”  

“And missed what?”  

He smiled. “A higher rent for the same uncertainty.”  

At noon they walked along the river, pretending not to be tourists. Bridges arched like practiced gestures. Street vendors sold books and memories of books.  

Mira stopped at a stall displaying old postcards. One caught her eye—a faded photo of a woman reading beside a café window.  

“She looks like me,” she said.  

Aiden peered closer. “Same expression, different century.”  

“She seems content.”  

“She’s probably late for something.”  

They crossed Pont Marie, their footsteps mixing with the music from an accordion player. The sound carried over the water, melting into traffic.  

“Do you ever think we make too many beginnings?” she asked.  

“Only when we forget they’re supposed to continue.”  

“Continuation sounds like work.”  

“So does love.”  

The gallery waited in the Marais, white walls and echoing floors.  

Camille met them at the entrance, all grace and control.  

“Mira,” she said warmly, “you came.”  

“I blame him.”  

“Good. I invited both.”  

Inside, the air smelled of paint and applause. Aiden’s sketches lined the walls—some from Lumièra, some new. In the center hung the harbor piece, brighter under Paris light, as if distance had edited it.  

Mira stared. “It looks different here.”  

Camille nodded. “Paris adds punctuation. You breathe it differently.”  

Aiden said nothing. His eyes traced the curve of the flame he had drawn months ago.  

People gathered, murmuring in several languages. A critic asked for Mira’s reading time. She blinked. “Now?”  

“Now,” Camille said. “The audience is restless.”  

Mira stood beside the painting, notebook in hand. The crowd hushed. Her voice, when it came, was steady but not rehearsed.  

> *Observation #66 — Some cities speak in mirrors. You see yourself coming before you arrive.*

She paused, glancing at Aiden.  

> *Observation #67 — Distance doesn’t measure miles. It measures who waits for you to return.*

Silence followed, the kind that meant understanding. Then applause—not loud, but real.  

Camille smiled. “You always knew how to end softly.”  

Mira exhaled. “I’m learning not to stop too soon.”  

That evening, after the crowd dissolved into twilight, they walked back toward the river. The air carried wine, rain, and conversation. Streetlights turned the water to melted bronze.  

“Your words fit the city,” Aiden said.  

“Too well. I might disappear in them.”  

“I’d notice.”  

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”  

He laughed quietly. “You’re allowed to like this place.”  

“I do. But it doesn’t know me yet.”  

“Then we introduce you tomorrow.”  

They reached Pont Neuf and leaned against the railing. Below, the river moved with deliberate indifference.  

“Do you miss Lumièra?” she asked.  

“Every hour. But missing means it mattered.”  

She nodded. “Then it did.”  

Back in the hotel, the room felt less foreign. Mira sat by the window writing while Aiden rinsed his brushes in the sink. The city hummed outside, alive but polite.  

She wrote:  

> *Observation #68 — Arrival isn’t the opposite of leaving. It’s the moment both exist at once.*

Aiden looked over her shoulder. “We’ll need bigger notebooks.”  

“Or shorter truths.”  

“Impossible.”  

“Exactly.”  

She closed the notebook and watched the lights along the Seine flicker like slow applause.  

For the first time in weeks, the silence between them felt complete—not empty, not paused, but full.  

Outside, Paris kept speaking, and this time, she didn’t mind listening.