The city of light dazzled her senses. Elsa had secured a place as a student at the famed Académie Julian, a private art school known for welcoming women artists and fostering avant-garde ideas. By day she toiled diligently in the academy’s sculpture studio, learning new techniques in stone carving and anatomy, and by night she wandered the lively boulevards, drinking in inspiration from every corner.

Even as she immersed herself in Parisian life, the memory of her sister Martha remained, her guiding muse. In the studio, she would close her eyes before a fresh block of clay or stone and whisper a few words to Martha, as if inviting her sister to sculpt with her in spirit.

As Elsa’s studies continued, she found a rhythm—walks to class, visits to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore (founded in 1919 by her friend Sylvia Beach), dinners with fellow artists and students. Soon Spring infused the air. The tall windows of the academy were thrown open to the April breeze. The scent of damp clay mingled with cherry blossoms drifting in from the courtyard. Students murmured in French and English. The scrape of palette knives and the rhythm of chisels gave the studio a kind of heartbeat.

With her sleeves rolled to the elbow, and her hands sunk deep in a block of warm clay, Elsa stood at her workbench. Her apron was dusted with plaster, her forehead smudged where she’d pushed her hair back with a careless wrist. The model—an older woman with a proud chin—was perched nude on the platform in the center, slowly rotating as the wheel beneath her creaked. Forty students encircled her in varying states of concentration, some glancing nervously at their instructors.

Elsa was sculpting the curve of the model’s shoulder blade when a new presence entered the room—an energy shift, subtle but distinct. She looked up, pushing a strand of hair from her cheek, and saw a tall man standing in the doorway, speaking sotto voce to Pascal, the master sculptor and director of the atelier.

The man was striking—six foot four at least, with a lean, loose-limbed frame and dark, intelligent eyes that scanned the room with amused detachment. He wore a rumpled tweed coat and carried a leather satchel, the edge of a newspaper poking out from the flap.

A journalist, she guessed. He caught her staring, and Elsa quickly looked down at her sculpture, cheeks coloring. When she glanced up again, the two men were striding across the room toward her.

“Madame Spaulding,” said Pascal in his thick Provençal accent, “may I introduce my son? Claude Blanchard. He writes for Le Crapouillot and thinks he is important.”

Claude gave a quick bow, then smiled, a grin full of irony and ease. “I only write what others are too polite to say,” he said in his crisp French, then switched to English. “But I am told your sculpting says more than most newspapers.”

Elsa laughed softly. “Only if you like the shape of old bones and ruined shoulders.”

“I do,” he said, still smiling. “They tell the truth better than most politicians.”

Pascal rolled his eyes and moved on to another student, leaving Claude to linger. Elsa wiped her hands on her apron. “You make a habit of wandering into studios?”

“Only when they house something worth seeing,” he said, gesturing toward her half-finished bust. “Or someone.”

She quirked a brow, half amused, half wary. He was bold, but there was something behind it—an earnestness, maybe. Curiosity without expectation.

“I’m Elsa,” she said finally. “Elsa Spaulding.”

“I know,” he said. “My father says you work like a woman twice your age.”

She laughed. “He’s not wrong.”

“Do you take coffee?” he asked.

“I do.”

“Then let me take you for some. Not now—after class. There’s a place on Rue de l’Odéon. Bad croissants. Wonderful conversation.”

Elsa hesitated only a moment. “All right.”

**

The tables outside the Café Leon were mostly empty that afternoon. Claude ordered café noir and a glass of water for them both and leaned back in his chair. Elsa sat across from him, wearing slacks and a light sweater.

“You’re the first sculptress I’ve met who doesn’t talk about Rodin within five minutes,” he said.

She raised a brow. “I’m not sure I like him.”

Claude clutched his chest in mock agony. “Sacrilege.”

“I like Camille Claudel better,” Elsa said. “My dear friend Maud Daggett, a sculptor herself, introduced me to Claudel’s work—it’s grief you can touch.”

Claude studied her then—not the way a man sizes up a woman, but the way a writer observes a story taking shape. “You carry grief like an artist,” he continued. “That’s a compliment.”

She didn’t answer right away. The small tin sugar-spoon in her saucer trembled slightly from the vibration of a passing carriage. She thought of her sister, and the photograph of the two of them she still carried in her satchel, tucked next to her worn copy of Jane Eyre.

“I lost my older sister, Martha, when I was sixteen,” she said quietly. “In childbirth. She would have been an artist like me.”

Claude’s face softened. “My sister, Colette, died in the flu epidemic. Five years ago. She wanted to be a composer.”

They both sat for a moment in silence.

Elsa asked, “Does your mother speak of her?”

“All the time. Sometimes to her,” Claude said. “Maman keeps a portrait of Colette over our piano.”

Elsa felt an unfamiliar ease, a certainty that hinted at the beginning of something special. And he was a journalist, just like Martha’s husband, John.

Outside, the sun slipped below the rooftops. The bells of Saint-Sulpice chimed the hour. And Paris, as always, held its breath between shadows and laughter.