I started the next day, too excited to wait, but…

The building was too big.

L’Institut de Parfumerie Élite was a French academy in the States, and one of the biggest.

I stood on the marble steps of L’Institut de Parfumerie Élite at 7:42 a.m., clutching the canvas bag Kross had bought me the night before he dropped me off. It still smelled faintly of him—cedar and cold air and something darker I never had a name for. The scent was the only thing keeping my knees from ...