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Collette lowered her eyes "No"

"But then why are you here?" I asked "Why are you in hiding? No one knows about you You didn’t even come to her funeral"

"I did attend"

"I saw you, then," I said, realizing that it was Collette on the coast that day as we sailed away "But you weren’t on the boat You were on the shore"

"Annette and I weren’t close"

I shookto understand "But every time I saw you on the street you acted like you didn’t want to be seen"

She put down her"When have you seen e’s burial The second time hen your car stopped at an intersection I wanted to talk to you, but you vanished The third time, I ith Noah at a bakery in the old port, when you walked by We followed you dohere you took an elevator into the underground When we made it to the tunnels, we couldn’t find you anywhere"

Collette didn’t say anything for a long ti between us Finally, she spoke "Why have you come here?"

Noah’s eyesyou?" she said, her eyes wild

"We were looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters," I said finally

Collette coughed

"You know it?" I said, studying the way her eyes widened, the way she shifted her weight

"You’re asking a dangerous question," she said softly "Looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters can only bring death--just like your parents’,in confine for the Liberum"

"It’s too late," I said "They already found us"

Aspassed over her face Her body grew tense as her eyesfrom us to the"Did they follow you here?"

"What do you know?" I said

"Did you bring the panicked

"It’s possible," I admitted "Please, tell us what you know There isn’t ave me a level look "I’ll show you"

We followed her down a corridor and one set of stairs, until ere in an old cellar

"We all became friends at Gottfried--your mother, Annette, Cindy, me That’s where we first heard about Les Neuf Soeurs Like everyone else, at first ere just intrigued, but as we did more research, we started to believe that the secret still existed, hidden by the mysterious ninth sister And what started as a hobby turned into an obsession

"We traveled all over Europe--France, Italy, England --looking for any kind of inforh all of the French Monitor archives, looking for a talented girl of seventeen who had lived around the ti The problem was that we had focused our entire search on France, since that’s where the Nine Sisters had come from It never even crossed our est "

Collette walked to a hutch in the corner of the cellar She opened one of the drawers and took out what looked like a box of loose leaf tea Lifting the lid, she reave this to iven it to her, and that it was incredibly important I keep it safe"

With that, she handed it to me The paper was so worn it was almost transparent It was addressed to Alma Alphonse in France I remembered the naht sisters as murdered Gently, I opened the envelope and re it on the counter It was faded and creased and sed with oil, as if it had been folded and unfolded dozens of tiht-hand corner was embossed with the crest of a canary

April 2, 1732

Cher Alrave mistake with Ophelia Her doctor at the Saint-Laurent says she is responding well to treat her in Montreal, I aes In confidence, she confessed to me that she often desires to kiss people, and her mood fluctuates between rapture and severeto tediuive to her kind, and speaks of suffering froh it is unclear hom she is in love The only person she seems fond of is her doctor, Bertrand Gottfried

She has taken an unusual fancy to water Her nurses say she studies it day and night, staring at the basin in her roo by the fountain, a practice which is in stark contrast to the vigor and discipline she held as first rank Monitor No doubt this is a reaction to the fire; however,

I have asked them to remove her from St Clément for the safety of the other students Doctor Gottfried expressed interest in taking her to the A a new hospital for the Undead, though I wonder if it will help I implore you to consider the safety of our discovery Ophelia Hart has changed tooof you to consider the option of putting her to rest