Griffon is just hanging up when I walk out the front door. “Janine thinks you’re a genius, in case you were wondering,” he says. “She was calling a Sekhem meeting before we even got off the phone.” He matches his step to mine as we walk down the street. “I think she’s going to want you to be a part of this.”

I nod. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Griffon walks in silence for a few steps, but I can tell there’s something more he wants to say. “I . . . I never did apologize.”

My heart races at the words I’ve been wanting to hear. “For leaving you alone with Christophe,” he continues, and I look away to hide my disappointment. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him glance at my neck. The bruises are gone, but I know he can still see them in his memory. “I never would have, if I had any idea what he was.” There’s pain in his eyes, and I see him swallow hard. “I trusted him. I trusted him enough to leave you with him.”

“You didn’t know,” I say. “Nobody did. Christophe was good at hiding who he was.”

Griffon shakes his head. “But I should have known. At the break-in at the Swiss lab, one of the best Iawi Sekhem was killed. We all thought it was outsiders. But putting the pieces together now . . . I’m sure it was Christophe.”

“It’s always easy to see things after the fact. It’s not your fault.” It seems like it’s just moments before we’re in front of the ice cream store. Neither of us says much, lost in our own thoughts as we order and walk back out onto the sidewalk with our cones.

“You didn’t get the bacon,” Griffon says as we walk slowly down the street. He feels like a stranger to me, like we’re miles apart. “I’m a little disappointed.”

“Peanut-butter curry was calling me today.” I take a lick from the bottom, feeling slightly better with the sharp sweetness flooding my mouth. “Want a bite?”

“Sure.” He leans down and takes a small bite out of the side of my ice cream. I take a bite right after him in the same spot. This is as close to kissing him as I’ve been in a long time.

“I thought you hated peanut butter,” I say. “I’m trying to be more flexible,” he says. “Want some strawberry jalapeño?”

I shake my head. “Too spicy. And a little weird.”

We walk in silence, one of those times where you’re not really walking to get anywhere, just walking to be somewhere. I stop and look into the window of a jewelry store. Hanging on a velvet board are a bunch of necklaces, the one in the middle a silver ankh with a purple stone. I reach up reflexively before I remember that I’m not wearing one anymore.

“Yours is gone,” Griffon says, and I’m not sure if it’s a statement or a question.

I nod slowly, still staring into the window. “I gave it back.”

Something seems to shift in Griffon as we stand there looking at the display. “Let me get that one for you.” He glances over at me. “For your birthday next week.”

I feel myself blushing. “You remembered.”

“August twenty-seventh,” he says, glancing at me.

“Of course you wouldn’t forget,” I say. I look back at the necklace. “Thanks, but no. I’m going to get another one, but I want to wait until I find one I love. And then I’m going to buy it myself.”

He nods as though he understands and turns away from the window. “Two truths and a lie,” he says.

I can’t help but smile. “Okay.”

“I broke my leg so badly the first time I went snowboarding, they had to get a sled to carry me down the mountain. Totally embarrassing. And painful.”

“Aw!”

He shakes his head. “Shh. Not done.”

“Sorry.”

“When I was five, I shaved my legs because I thought they were too hairy.”

A laugh slips out as I picture that, and he gives me a look.

“And my newest Akhet skill is the ability to rewind time.” His face is serious as he looks at me. I hold his gaze a beat longer than I need to before I turn away, my heart pounding.

“Too easy,” I say. “Nobody can rewind time.”

“Doesn’t stop me from wishing I could,” he says.

“And the beauty—and the curse—of being Akhet is that we can never forget. Any of it.” There’s a silence as the words settle between us.

“Right,” Griffon says, squinting into the distance. “It’s such a nice day. Do you want to go down to the beach? We could ride along the Great Highway for a little while before I take you home.”

I think about how it feels to ride behind him, the sun shining on the water beside us. “I’d like that,” I say as we walk back toward the recital hall. “But I need to make a stop first.”

Griffon looks at the shiny blue convertible with the white interior and the big silver bass clef hanging from the rearview mirror. “This is yours?”