She wore no adornments at all except for a gold pendant, a tiny lyre that had belonged to her mother. Although the pendant was beautiful, the antique lyre finely wrought gold, for Evangeline its value remained purely emotional. She had inherited it upon her mother’s death. Her grandmother, Gabriella Lévi-Franche Valko, had brought the necklace to Evangeline at the funeral. Taking Evangeline to a bénitier, Gabriella had cleaned the pendant with holy water, fastened the necklace around Evangeline’s throat. Evangeline saw that an identical lyre glimmered at Gabriella’s neck. “Promise me you will wear it at all times, day and night, just as Angela wore it,” Gabriella had said. Her grandmother pronounced Evangeline’s mother’s name with a lilting accent, swallowing the first syllable and emphasizing the second: An-gel-a. She preferred her grandmother’s pronunciation to all others and, as a girl, had learned to imitate it perfectly. Like Evangeline’s parents, Gabriella had become little more than a powerful memory. The pendant, however, felt substantial against her skin, a solid connection to her mother and grandmother.

Evangeline sighed and arranged the day’s mail before her. The time had arrived to get down to work. Choosing a letter, she sliced the envelope with the silver blade of her letter opener, tapped the folded paper onto the table, and read it. She knew instantly that this was not the sort of letter she usually opened. It did not begin, as most of the regular convent correspondences did, by complimenting the sisters on their two hundred years of perpetual adoration, or their numerous works of charity, or their dedication to the spirit of world peace. Nor did the letter include a charitable donation or the promise of remembrance in a will. The letter began abruptly with a request:

Dear St. Rose Convent Representative,