Chapter 21

What followed was a deep sleep that only a thoroughly sated or truly inebriated person would have, or perhaps the sleep of a person who had both conditions, and Pierre didn’t wake up until the early afternoon. He stretched lazily in bed before realizing where he was—somehow, he had ended up back in his boarding house room. He thought idly about the night before, then remembered Antoine’s final words...something along the lines of goodbye. He must have left on his travels again. But he’d only just returned, which made Pierre sad.

He turned on his side to see his bedside table; on it, there was a folded letter and a pendant. He reached for the letter curiously, opening it to read some sort of farewell message from Antoine. He sat up in bed immediately, so quickly that he felt dizzy. Had he read that right? 

Goodbye? 

As he re-read the letter, painful, stabbing, burning feelings of deep loss hurt him in the chest, claws of grief tightening around his heart. 

Ant