The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

haystack. She knew what the roof she was hunting for looked like, but she didn’t know which side of the street it would be on, or how high it would be. She had to swivel her head back and forth and up and down constantly, and she was starting to get seasick after covering less than 1 per cent of the city.
And if she’s in some other city . . . some other country, working in an expat pub that gets
The Times
for its nostalgic clientele . . .
She couldn’t bear to think about it.
    All the evidence had pointed her here; the newspaper had only been one piece of it. Annette had been watching a sitcom on the BBC, and Jane was almost sure she had noticed an electrical outlet beside the girl’s bathroom mirror with the serious, flat-footed triangle of UK sockets. And the double-decker buses that occasionally rolled past her on the street really did resemble the blur of red that had rushed by the pub’s window in her vision. While none of this was conclusive, Jane’s instincts had all told her the same thing. And shouldn’t a witch’s instincts count for something?
Maybe if I start walking with my eyes closed, my magic will just . . . walk me there.
She blinked a few times experimentally, took half a step forward, and then jumped back as a white-striped Mini thundered past where she had just been standing.
Not such a good idea with this traffic,
she decided, flipping her collar up against the damp chill.
    ‘I hope you
are
watching, André,’ she whispered petulantly as she passed a towering, four-sided obelisk. It was covered in columns of large hieroglyphs so old that some of them almost seemed to be melting into the stone. ‘I hope you’re just as confused by what I’m doing as I am.’
    Just then, something looked familiar, and she spun around to look more carefully. It wasn’t the cylinder-and-steeple roof that she was looking for – not even close – but she had definitely seen it before.
I was here,
she realized after a moment.
Elodie and I had tea right across from here, and I saw those gables and thought about what it would be like to live there. I wondered if I could get a work visa, or be licensed as an architect in England with my French degree.
She and Elodie had giggled and evaluated each handsome man who passed by for his potential as a lover, or possibly a husband. Jane had wondered aloud what Gran would think of her living so far away: moving to Paris had already enraged her cautious guardian as it was. With her usual buoyant confidence, Elodie had insisted that Celine Boyle would be happy as long as Jane was, and, for an afternoon, Jane had let herself believe it.
    She threaded a path through some cobblestoned streets, still following the course of the river but no longer in sight of it. This time, it wasn’t her magic she was trusting to guide her: it was her memory. She knew she had never seen the mysterious roof from her spell before, but she felt lost and alone and she suddenly desperately needed to be somewhere familiar. Gran was gone, Malcolm was missing, Dee and Harris were an ocean away together, and Jane’s friendship had already cost Maeve far too much to ask for more.
I have no one,
she sighed, biting her lip. She longed to feel sure and in control of her steps, and to belong somewhere without having to feel like she was walking a tightrope with an inner-ear infection.
    Her feet moved faster as she started to recognize more and more of her surroundings. The buildings were set farther back from the street now, behind walls and gates, and at least half of the women on the wider sidewalks reminded her of Elodie’s excruciatingly well-dressed mother. Occasionally, a colourful flag hung from over a gated doorway, signalling an embassy or consulate of some distant nation. She knew the area was popular with diplomats, and although she couldn’t remember the exact order of streets, she guessed that she was getting close.
    Two cross-streets later, she noticed an extremely familiar flowering cherry tree, turned instinctively back towards the river, and found herself half a block from the Dessaixes’ house. She drifted towards it almost involuntarily. Elodie’s parents had always invited Jane to visit the house whenever she wanted, and she felt a bone-deep longing to be inside, nursing a cup of orange tea in their sun room. She could see the corners of a couple of its glass panels from where she stood. A gust of wind blew some cold drizzle down the back of her neck, and she felt tears