The first time he’s let me.

“The action figure was heavy,” he explains. “It had these weights in it, so you could make it walk along the bottom of a bathtub, that kind of thing. So I knew it was probably somewhere on the bottom of the river. It took three or four dives before I saw it, but when I dove down to get it, it was wedged under a stick or something. Took me a few seconds to get it free, and I almost had it when …” He clears his throat. “I don’t know, Cass. To this day, I really don’t. The current must have picked up. It did that sometimes. Churned up rocks and logs, sent them sailing low along the river floor. All I know is something hit me, something hard, and the world just … stopped.”

Jacob swallows hard. “And that was that.”

Four small words.

The difference between life and death. My head spins, reeling. I don’t know what to say, but I have to say something, and I know better than to say something like sorry.

I’ve only ever known Jacob the Ghost. What that really means is that I’ve only known Jacob from the point when he entered my story. I didn’t think so much about the fact that he had a story of his own. A whole life, short as it was, before we got tangled up, before he became my best friend.

Now it’s like he’s filling out in front of me, becoming solid. Alive.

“Did you ever try to go back to them?” I whisper.

“You’re asking me if I haunted my family?” Jacob grits his teeth. “No. I … couldn’t. Not at first. I couldn’t leave the river.”

Of course. It was his Veil.

“And then, after I met you, and I could leave … I was— I guess I was afraid of seeing them without me. Afraid it would hurt too much. Afraid I would get stuck there. Like the Mirror of Erisorn.”

I stifle a laugh. “Erised.” That’s the mirror in Harry Potter that shows someone what they want most, but Dumbledore warned Harry that people could waste away in front of it.

Jacob manages a small smile. “Yeah. Like that.” He looks down. “I really should read those books.”

“You really should.”

We both go quiet after that.

Jacob is done talking, and I don’t know what to say. I’m sad I didn’t know before. I’m glad that I do now. That he’s trusted me with this, his past, his truth, the pieces that add up to Jacob. And no matter what happens, I won’t let him forget who he was, who he is. What he means to me.

I lean against him, just until the air blurs between our shoulders, and this time, when I feel the slight resistance of his body against mine, it doesn’t scare me.

Your name is Jacob Ellis Hale, I think. You were born in Strathclyde, New York. Two and half years ago you dove into the river, and last year, you pulled me out.

You are my best friend.

In life. In death.

And everything in between.

Pauline is waiting for us back at the hotel, sitting on a plush seat beside our luggage and Grim’s carrier.

She stands when she sees us, elegant as ever in a white outfit and dark heels. She hands me a small parcel. My photos, developed by her father.

“Monsieur Deschamp sends his regards,” she says. “He says you have a special eye, and that you must have used some clever techniques to get the effects you did.”

I press the envelope to my chest. The truth is, I have no idea if my camera still works, if the magic lay in a specific part, like the original lens I lost. Or if it’s special because it’s mine.

Only one way to find out.

I turn through the photos as Mom and Dad check out of the hotel.

Among the “normal” photos is a shot of Mom and Dad in the Tuileries our first night, the carnival rising in the background, the light blurring faintly so it looks like fire. Then a picture of the two of them standing on a narrow street, admiring a window full of macarons. The crew setting up among the crypts in Père Lachaise, and Mom on a bench, hands spread as she speaks in the Jardin du Luxembourg. The opera, with its gleaming chandelier before it fell. A photo of Adele, beaming around the white stick of a lollipop on our way to Notre-Dame. And of course, our first trip to the Catacombs, the empty gallery leading to the tombs, and then the tunnels and tunnels of bones.

I’m proud of these pictures. They’re exactly what Mom and Dad asked for, a look behind the scenes at the making of their show.

But the paranormal shots, the ones I took beyond the Veil, are something else. Something more. I was afraid that the new lens wouldn’t work, but the magic of my camera clearly doesn’t belong to any one piece.

If anything, the images are getting clearer.

The Tuileries, the Catacombs, the cemetery at Père Lachaise—they show up in ghostly shades of gray, the images faint, underexposed but visible. The palace, traced with white from the searing heat of the fire. The tunnels, dark save for the faint glow of a lantern, the empty gaze of a skull.

There’s also the series of shots I took from the bedroom window of my hotel room when Thomas appeared on the street below. I remember him vividly, standing there, his red eyes tipped up. In the photo, though, the street looks empty, the sidewalk marked only by the ghost of a ghost of a ghost, a shadow against shadows, so faint no one else would know.

And then there’s the photo I took of Jacob, sitting atop the broken angel in Père Lachaise. The statue is striking in black and white, but the air over its shoulder is hardly empty. Instead, it bends like candle smoke, like the afterimage of a flash when you blink, ghosted onto the mottled branches between the tombstone and the sky.

It forms the shape of a boy, one knee drawn up, his face caught in the motion of turning away.

There’s no question, Jacob is getting clearer, too.

He moves toward me, and I tuck the photographs back in the folder before he reaches me. Pauline is coming, too. She kisses me twice, once on each cheek.

“It was nice to meet you, Cassidy.”

“Well, Pauline,” asks Dad, “did we make a believer out of you?”

She glances at me, her mouth drawing into a small smile. “Perhaps,” she says. “I will admit, there’s more to this world than meets the eye.”

We gather up our things, say goodbye to the Hotel Valeur (and the desk clerk, who seems particularly glad to see us go), and step out into the Paris sun.

As we make our way to the Metro, I can’t help but look down at the sidewalk and remember how much history, how many secrets, is buried beneath our feet.

“If you had to sum up Paris in one word,” says Mom, “what would it be?”

Dad considers, then says, “Overwhelming.”

“Enchanted,” counters Mom.

“Haunted,” offers Jacob dryly.

I think for a moment, but in the end, I find the perfect word.

“Unforgettable.”

As we wait for the train to the airport, Jacob wanders up and down the platform. I watch as he amuses himself by bobbing a child’s balloon, putting his hand through a musician’s amp as they lean against a pillar, playing guitar. He seems happier, lighter, after sharing his story. I feel a little heavier after hearing it, but that’s okay. That’s how friendship works. You learn to share the weight.

I stick my hands in the pockets of my jeans and feel the edge of something solid and square. I draw it out and freeze. It’s the data card I stole from the footage case, the one marked CAT for Catacombs. My heart thuds as I look over at Mom and Dad, who are standing together and talking a few feet away. I walk over to the nearest trash can, dropping the card inside.

That’s when I notice the man.

He’s standing on the opposite platform, the gulf of the tracks between us, and the first thing I notice is how still he is amid the sea of people.

He looks like a thin shadow in a black suit. He wears white gloves and a black hat with a brim that covers his face.

Until he raises his head, and then I see it isn’t a face at all but a mask. Smooth and white as bone. And a shiver runs through me, because the contours and angles are the same I saw a thousand times down in the Catacombs.

The mask is a skull.

Somewhere behind the open sockets there must be eyes, but I can’t see them. It’s as if he’s wearing a second mask under the first, one that’s solid black, erasing all his features.

My fingers go to the camera around my neck. I can’t take my eyes off him.

He’s so out of place amid the tourists with their suitcases and summer clothes that at first I think the man must be a street performer, one of those who stand perfectly still until you drop a coin into their bowl. But if he’s performing, nobody seems to notice. In fact, the people on the platform move around the man like water around a rock. As if they don’t even see him.

But I do.

“Jacob,” I whisper, but he’s too far away.

I raise the camera to snap a shot, but as I do, the man looks at me. He lifts a gloved hand to his mask, and suddenly I can’t move. My limbs are frozen, my legs dead weight, and as he pulls the mask from his face, all I see is darkness.