The Stars That Guide Us: A New Adventure - A TSTGU Novella

【Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ １１】

The next day, we bid farewell to Avdol and Iggy and returned to Belgium to collect Rita's carriage before making our way to France as per Polnareff's suggestion.

"I'm not sure how long this is going to take before we actually find a lead, so we'll make base at my place in Paris. Y/N and I will cover the northern part of France, and you, Rita, can cover the southern part. I suggest staying in each area for a good few days before moving on to the next area," Polnareff suggested.

"There's a lot of places in France, so say if we stay in each place for a maximum of a week at a time, you're looking at spending at least a year in France alone," Rita said.

"Hopefully, if we can find a lead, it shouldn't take as long," I pointed out.

"Okay, here's the plan. We'll spend a year in France, if we find nothin' within that year, we move onto the next place, spend a year there, and so on," Rita concluded.

"Sounds like a plan," Polnareff and I said in unison with a nod.

Two days after returning from Egypt, we finally made it to Paris.

Rita stopped the carriage outside of a white terrace house with iron bar fencing surrounding the front of the house. There were deep green vines crawling up the front of the house and circling around the windows.

"Is this the place?" Rita asked as she glanced over at Polnareff.

"This is it." Polnareff beamed up at the house and jumped off the carriage. "Home sweet home."

I jumped down from the carriage and stood next to Polnareff. "You've got a nice place," I commented.

"This is only the outside." The Frenchman grinned down at me and took my hand in his. "Come on, I'll show you around the place."

I nodded in agreement as Rita came to join us. Without further delay, Polnareff led us inside.

Upon entering Polnareff's house, we were greeted to a narrow hallway with a set of stairs at the end of the hall. There were three doors in the hall. Polnareff led us to each one to show us the lounge, kitchen and dining room, and a downstairs toilet.

He led us upstairs after showing us the three rooms downstairs. Upstairs, the hallway was slightly wider, and like downstairs, there were three rooms that branched off from the hallway and another set of stairs at the end of the hall.

"Those stairs over there lead up to the attic. There's not that much up there that would be interesting, so there's no need to take you up there." He pointed to a door to the left of the stairs leading to the attic. "That's the bathroom through that door there." His finger pointed to a door nearest to us on the left. "That's my room, and your room is through the door opposite my room, Y/N," he said as he pointed to the door opposite to his bedroom door.

I nodded and made my way over to the door that would be to my bedroom throughout my stay here. I opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was fairly big – big enough for a metal double bed with a scroll design, shell detailing and sparkling crystal-style finials.

Crisp white sheets were draped over the bed neatly and a bunch of white pillows were neatly piled at the top of the bed. At the foot of the bed, there was a turquoise fleece throw neatly folded up.

Next to the bed was an oak bedside table with a lamp perched on top, and in the corner of the room nearest to the door I was standing in was a matching wardrobe.

"This is just a guest room, so there's not much to it, but since we're gonna be here for a while, you're free to add to it to make it feel more like home if you'd like," Polnareff said from behind me.