Coffee with milk.
The French had style in spades, but they had a lot to learn about breakfast.
She settled for café au lait, examining the passersby through the window in hopes of spotting a familiar face. When more than half an hour had elapsed, a small amount of worry tickled her thoughts. She pushed it aside and waited another fifteen minutes.
No sign of Nathan.
Raya opened her bag and retrieved the directions he’d left for her at the convention, scanning the words that filled the page.
Yes, she’d taken the right train from Paris.
Yes, she’d gotten off at the right stop.
Yes, she’d found the cafe and had been waiting promptly at—
Raya slapped her forehead.
The instructions didn’t say “7:00 a.m.” They said “7:00 p.m.”
The small amount of worry bloomed into a bouquet of concern. How could you go for a hike so late in the evening? No wonder she’d assumed the time meant early morning, not sunset. Nature was bad enough when you had plenty of light to navigate by, let alone when you were staggering around in the dark.
Perhaps it was a typo.
She read all the way to the bottom of the page and found the hotel where they were staying.
That settled it. She’d track them down and make sure she wasn’t left behind, typo or not. A big breakfast would have to wait. Raya dug out the phrasebook and motioned to the waiter. “Bonjour, monsieur. Wait—hold on—I’ll get it.” She flipped the pages. “Où est—I know it’s in here somewhere—”
The waiter regarded her with saintly patience.
“L’hôtel! Où est l’hôtel?” She pointed to the hotel information printed on the paper.
He peered at the paper, then unleashed a torrent of French accompanied by a complicated set of gestures.
“Slower, please.” She rubbed her forehead. “Strike that. Can you draw a map?” Raya picked up a pen and squiggled it in the air.
“Ah!” he said. He flipped the paper over and drew a creditable map of the streets surrounding the cafe, carefully placing a star over her destination.
“Thank you! Merci!” She blew him a kiss and walked out of the cafe with a spring in her step.
While crossing the nearby square, the scent of fresh crepes wafted through the clean morning air. Raya found her footsteps veering toward the crepe stand without conscious thought.
Several stuffed crepes later, she followed the hand-drawn map to a hotel adjacent to the grand chateau. She did her best to look like she belonged as she crossed the lobby to a small outdoor garden with cafe tables, hoping she would discover the witches having breakfast.
No such luck. Her shoulders sagged as she considered her options. Would they really have left without her? Or was the paper correct, and the hike not scheduled to take place until it was nearly dark?
Surely it was too early to bother Nathan—but then, she’d come all this way.
She scribbled his name on the paper and carried it to the front desk. “Nathan Lorde?”
“You are friends?” the clerk asked in English.
Raya nodded enthusiastically and tried not to look like a serial killer.
“Your name?”
Raya gave her name.
The clerk picked up the phone and dialed. She said a few words in French, then switched to simple English. “You have a friend here.” She paused. “Raya.”
