Rylin spun back toward the vestibule, ready to jump onto the platform and write off this whole crazy day, maybe even go to Buza and beg him for her job back. But something stopped her. She watched, her eyes glued to the screen as the countdown fell to under a minute. Then she returned to the first row, her mind made up.
“Switch with me.”
“You know there’s no view out the window, except the sides of the tunnel,” Cord told her, but he was already unbuckling his magnetic safety belt and moving to the aisle seat.
“I don’t care about the tunnel. I just want to see Paris the absolute first moment that I can,” Rylin said, and settled in as the train began to accelerate.
The three-hour train ride passed faster than Rylin would’ve guessed. Cord ordered them croissants and café au lait, and she watched an old 2-D vid in French that she didn’t really understand, something about a Frenchman with a big nose who was in love with a dark-haired woman. “You know you can put that on in English,” Cord whispered, but she just swatted him away. She liked the way the French fell on her ears, mellifluous and soft. It sounded the way honey tasted.
When they emerged back aboveground and began speeding through the French countryside, Rylin pressed her face to the glass, drinking in every detail. None of it felt real yet. I wish Mom could have seen this, she kept thinking. She wouldn’t believe it either.
“Where to?” Cord asked when they finally stepped off the train and passed through the visitors’ bioscanner line, which cross-referenced their retinas with their digital passport profiles before letting them through. The late afternoon sunshine spilled in glorious golden pools onto the ancient-looking streets.
“The Eiffel Tower,” Rylin said automatically, reaching for her necklace.
“From one Tower to another. I see how it is,” Cord teased, but her gesture hadn’t been lost on him.
The Parisian streets had never been excavated and lined with the magnetic pieces needed to keep hovers afloat, so they got into an auto-taxi and started down the funny old cobblestone roads toward the Eiffel Tower.
They arrived just in time to climb the steps. By the end Rylin was racing like a child, gasping as she reached the upper platform. Dusk had settled over the streets of Paris below, making everything feel enchanted.
“Is it like you expected?” Cord asked, stepping up behind her.
Rylin thought of the virtual-reality headsets at the school library, of all the afternoons she’d spent waiting in line for one, just so she could do the Eiffel Tower simulation again. She’d played it so many times that by now she knew the whole thing by heart. Rylin curled her fingers around the railing, worn down by centuries of hands, and inhaled deeply, breathing through her mouth so she could taste the cool Parisian air. “It’s way better. It’s just … beautiful,” she whispered, watching the final rays of sun gilding the white dome of Sacré-Coeur. The streets below were a constant flicker of men and women and beeping electric autocars, everything cheerfully humming and disorganized, nothing like the ruthless efficiency of streets in the Tower.
“It is,” Cord said, but he was looking at her.
They wandered the wrought-iron structure until its six p.m. closing time, then started along the river toward the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés. They passed dozens of small bakeries that smelled like icing and spun sugar, and Rylin kept trying to stop, insisting that they get éclairs for Chrissa. “I have a better bakery,” Cord kept saying, leading her on through the winding cobblestone streets.
Eventually they walked up to a nondescript blue door on a corner. Rylin gasped when they stepped inside. It was a tiny space, richly decorated in exquisite antique mirrors and gold-leafed wallpaper. “Bonsoir, monsieur, mademoiselle.” The white-gloved ma?tre d’ nodded. “Welcome to Café Paris.”
Rylin looked curiously at Cord. “How did you know?”
“You told me, remember?”
They followed the ma?tre d’ into the dining room, illuminated by hundreds of candles that floated in brass candlesticks lifted by invisible microhovers. The dim light gleamed on gold plates, crystal champagne flutes, the jewelry sparkling at the wrists and necks of the other guests. In the corner, a violin covered in lavish scrollwork was playing itself. Rylin knew the movement was just for effect, the music streaming from tiny high-frequency speakers scattered around the room, but it was still magical to watch.
Maybe a little too magical, she thought, her rational brain kicking in. She realized, feeling suddenly foolish, that it was late and she was halfway around the world with a boy she really didn’t know that well. She started mentally adding up everything he’d spent today, and felt a little queasy. What did he expect from her, in exchange?
“Cord. Why are you doing all this?”
“Because I want to. Because I can.” He waved over a bottle of champagne and started to pour her a glass, but Rylin refused to be distracted. She was thinking back to when she’d met Brice, how he’d said Cord’s taste was improving, that she was “better than the last one.”
“If you think I’m going to sleep with you because of all this, you’re dead wrong.” She reached for her napkin, whose smartthreads had shifted to match the exact lavender of her jeans, and started to stand up.
“God, Rylin, I hope you don’t think that,” Cord said, and she settled back down, a little mollified. He broke out into a grin. “I promise, if you ever sleep with me, it won’t be because of ‘all this’”—he repeated her words, holding out both hands to indicate the restaurant, Paris, everything—“but because you can’t help yourself. Because of my devastating good looks and crushing wit.”