The summer of 1993 clamped down on Lyon like a blacksmith's vise. By dawn, heat already shimmered above the Rhône's murky waters, distorting the medieval facades of Vieux Lyon into wavering mirages. Along Quai Saint-Vincent, market vendors arranged wheels of Comté cheese beneath faded awnings, their cries of "Fraises! Cerises!" cutting through air thick enough to chew.
Lydia Shaw pedaled through the chaos on her rusted Peugeot bicycle, teeth tearing into a stale baguette. The crunch echoed in her ears—a meager breakfast between night shifts at La Blanchisserie Bleue and today's Baccalauréat finale. Her threadbare backpack held three treasures: Descartes' Meditations, a waterlogged sketchbook, and a one-way train ticket to Paris hidden in the lining.
«Four hours sleep. One river. Two lives. Three hours till freedom,» she chanted inwardly, swerving around a street sweeper hosing down fish guts.
Near Pont de la Guillotière, sunlight glinted off a speeding Citroën DS's chrome bumper. Inside, banker Philippe Dubois shouted into a car phone: "Non! The merger must close today—"
SCREEEEEECH—
The sedan fishtailed into Sophie Lacroix's bicycle. Her son Luc's wicker seat tore loose as they sailed over the stone parapet. For three suspended seconds, Sophie saw only the cloudless sky. Then the Rhône swallowed them whole.
"AU SECOURS!" A fishmonger's scream ripped through the market.
Lydia reacted before conscious thought. Her baguette tumbled onto cobblestones as she vaulted the railing. The river's chill punched her ribs—a brutal shock after the baking streets. Below the surface, an eerie silence reigned. Sunlight pierced the emerald depths like cathedral beams, illuminating:
A drowned pigeon caught in plastic netting
Luc's blue sweater billowing like jellyfish tentacles
Sophie's pearl necklace scattering like albino tadpoles
«Not again. Never again,» Lydia thought, kicking toward the boy.
Six meters down, Luc floated motionless. Bubbles escaped his lips—tiny crystal orbs racing toward the surface. Lydia hooked his collar, kicking off a mossy boulder.
Too light, she realized with dread. Like carrying hollow bones.
At the surface, dockworker Henri Bisset leaned over the quay. "Donne-le moi, petite!" His tattooed arms hauled Luc up. The crowd gasped as Henri flipped the boy over his barrel chest. Three thunderous thumps—then Luc vomited river water onto the cobbles, wailing for his mother.
"MAMAN! OÙ EST MAMAN?"
Lydia treaded water, scanning the river. "Elle revient!" she promised, already diving.
Sophie had drifted into the navigation channel. Lydia fought the current, muscles screaming. The banker's wife thrashed in slow motion, waterlogged skirts dragging her deeper. Her manicured fingers clawed at nothing.
Grasp from behind, Lydia remembered from her sister's drowning. Drowning victims drown their rescuers. She locked an arm around Sophie's ribs. The woman fought—elbow catching Lydia's jaw. Stars exploded behind her eyes.
"LÂCHE-MOI!" Sophie gurgled, river filling her lungs.
Lydia headbutted her spine. "RESPIREZ!" The blow stunned Sophie limp. Kicking toward fractured light, Lydia prayed to river saints her grandmother whispered about.
They broke surface to roaring cheers. Henri hauled Sophie onto the quay where butcher Marcel performed CPR. "Un! Deux! Trois!" he chanted. On the fifth compression, Sophie convulsed, spewing greenish water onto Marcel's bloodstained apron.
Across the street, café owner Gaston dialed emergency services. "Ambulance! Pont Guillotière! Vite!" His rotary phone's click-clack echoed through the suddenly silent market.
Lydia climbed onto the stones, dripping and shivering. Mud streaked her knees where she'd scraped against algae-slick rocks, the navy-and-white stripes of her Lycée uniform now resembling a Pollock painting. She glanced at Saint-Nizier's clock tower—7:48 AM.
Merde. Moreau locks gates at 8:00 sharp.
Philippe Dubois staggered toward her. "Vous... vous êtes..."
Lydia cut him off coldly: "Your phone call nearly murdered them."
His face crumpled. "The merger—"
"Lives > deals," she spat, tasting Rhône silt and bitterness.
Ignoring the crowd's questions, she remounted her bicycle. "Pardon! EXAM!" she yelled, weaving through flower stalls. Behind her, Jacques Dubois (no relation) scrambled into a France 3 van, Betacam whirring.
"Suit-la!" Jacques barked at the driver. "Cette fille est de l'or télévisuel!"
Lydia ducked into a traboule—a secret Renaissance passageway known only to locals. Jacques lost her at Place des Terreaux where student protesters blocked the street with burning exam papers. "À BAS LE BAC!" they chanted. Lydia swerved around the flames, Sophie's pearl necklace burning in her pocket—torn loose during the struggle.
Lycée Descartes' wrought-iron gates groaned shut precisely at 8:00 AM. Professor Moreau adjusted his spectacles, satisfaction curving his thin lips. The click of the lock echoed like a guillotine blade.
CRASH!
Lydia's front wheel jammed the closing bars. The impact reverberated up her arms. Moreau's eyes traveled from her algae-caked saddle shoes to the leech clinging behind her ear.
"QUEL CIRQUE!" he hissed, nostrils flaring. "Vous puez la mort, Mademoiselle Shaw."
"Professeur—une voiture a écrasé une cycliste! Je les ai sortis du Rhône!"
Moreau's chuckle was glacial. "Rescued swimmers? Next you'll claim—"
"NOUS CONFIRMONS!" Élodie Marchand emerged from the France 3 van, microphone gleaming. Jacques's camera light hit Lydia like interrogation lamps. She recoiled into thorny rose bushes.
"ARRÊTEZ!" Moreau shielded his eyes. "Pas de tournage ici!"
Élodie flashed credentials. "Préférez-vous être 'le professeur qui a brisé une héroïne' au journal de 20h?" She nodded to Jacques, who played footage on his viewfinder: Lydia headbutting Sophie in the murky depths.
Moreau paled. His fingers brushed his lapel where a Vichy-era medal hid. "Exceptionnellement..." he conceded, keys jingling. "Seulement cette fois."
Bac happens once, Lydia thought, bowing with theatrical humility. And I'd rather wrestle Rhône carp daily than repeat terminale.
"Casse la baraque!" Élodie cheered as Lydia righted her bicycle. "Rends-nous fiers!"
Lydia skidded into the Salle des Grands as Moreau distributed papers. Thirty heads swiveled—none faster than Gavin Sterling's. His Montblanc pen froze mid-air when their eyes met.
He sees everything, she realized. The leech. The mud. The way her uniform clung to trembling skin.
Yet something shifted in his gaze—the restless tension he'd carried since his mother's mysterious disappearance last winter finally stilled. As Lydia slid into the last seat, she caught his almost imperceptible nod. Approval? Or pity?
Gavin Sterling wasn't just Lycée Descartes's untouchable "Ice Prince." He was:
Heir to Sterling Pharmaceuticals' empire
Fencing champion who'd disarmed national contenders
The boy who'd rewritten their history textbook's colonial chapter
Their rivalry began at 14 when Lydia bested him in the Pan-European Mathematics Olympiad. Since then, their battles raged in exam halls, debate clubs, and the graffiti-streaked bathrooms where they left differential equations instead of insults.
Now, as Moreau wrote "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" on the blackboard, Gavin's eyes flickered to Lydia's bleeding knuckles. She hid them under the desk, fingers finding Sophie's pearl in her pocket.
«Why does his attention feel like sunlight through prison bars?»"Analyze Rousseau's concept of the noble savage through a post-colonial lens."
Lydia's pen hovered. Water dripped from her hair onto the paper, blurring the words. In her periphery, Gavin was already writing—his script precise as surgical sutures.
Focus, she commanded. But her mind replayed:
Luc's blue sweater dissolving in green water
Sophie's pearls scattering like tears
Jacques's camera devouring her panic
A crumpled ball of paper landed on her desk. Unfolding it, she found not an answer, but a charcoal sketch: herself emerging from the Rhône, hair streaming like Medusa's snakes. Beneath it, Gavin's handwriting: "Les monstres ne sont pas ceux qu'on croit."
The monsters aren't who we think.During the essay's third page, Lydia examined the pearl's luster: iridescent despite river grime. Her blood froze. She'd seen identical pearls at Gavin's mother's neck in society photos—before she vanished.
Outside, ambulance sirens wailed. Moreau paced the aisles, smelling of cheap brandy and regret. Lydia pressed the pearl to her lips, tasting secrets. Gavin watched her from across the room, sunlight catching his signet ring—a serpent coiled around a sword.
What did you throw into the river, Sterling?
As the clock struck noon, Lydia wrote her conclusion: "Rousseau's noble savage drowned in colonial rivers. But who held him under?"