Page 4 of A City of Hearts and Feathers

"I'm fine. She's… She can be a lot of work sometimes," Zoe replied, embarrassed that he'd been dragged in their family drama.

Kerem laughed softly. "She always was high-spirited. Your hair color is the same as hers, but that's where the similarity ends."

"Thanks. Who's Kahil?" Zoe asked, pulling on her leather jacket. It wasn't the name of any of her cousins that she knew of.

"Oh, he's a friend of the family. I'm sure he'll be around at some point. Nothing to worry about. Shall we go?" Kerem said. He pulled out the handle on her suitcase and wheeled it to the door.

Zoe double-checked her locks and turned the lights out. "Let's get out of here."

It wasn'tuntil she was in the air, somewhere over Europe, that Zoe's common sense finally caught up to her.

What the hell are you doing running away to Istanbul?She had pushed down her yearning for the city and her father years ago. Now she was about to throw herself into a past she could barely remember. Would it help her get over her grief? Or ensure she would never recover?

Zoe tried to squash her unease, hiding it from Kerem, who sat beside her. They were in first class, so she signaled to the flight attendant and ordered another red wine.

"You're making the right decision, Zoe," Kerem said, not looking up from the newspaper he was reading on his iPad.

"Is my freakout that obvious?" she asked. She forced her leg to stop jumping and accepted her wine from the flight attendant. She would've loved a Valium to mix with it.

Kerem patted her arm, and the touch reassured her. "You're doing great with all of this. I actually thought you would be far more upset over it."

"That will happen later, when I'm alone," she replied. It wasn't a joke. She would get to Istanbul, find the nearest shower, and have a meltdown. "I should have returned to Turkey earlier. I really thought Mom had sold the bookstore after Dad's death. I didn't question it."

"You were a child who witnessed something terrible, Zoe. It's natural that you wanted to move on from it."

Zoe stared up at the air conditioner vent like it might have some answers for her. "Kerem, can you tell me something to distract me?"

"Like what?"

"Anything. I don't know. In his letter my dad mentioned something called the Order. What's that about?" Zoe didn't remember her parents being a part of any orders or even religious groups.

"The Order of Saint Christóphoros. We were friends of your father when he was alive," Kerem said, pushing back a curl that had escaped from his swept back hairstyle.

"You are a part of the order too?"

"For many, many years now."

"Are they like the Freemasons? That kind of thing?"

Kerem laughed. "Something like that. They are good people, Zoe. If you wish to meet them while you are home, I can arrange it."

Zoe chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I don't get it. Dad wasn't religious. Why would he be in the order of an Orthodox saint?"

"His involvement wasn't about religion, but contacts and friendships. Don't let it concern you too much, Zoe. Focus on the bookstore first. Worry about everything else later," he replied and went back to his paper.

Zoe drank wine and read for the remaining two hours of their flight. Her mind was exploding with questions, but Kerem was right. She needed to focus on the bookstore and getting her scattered emotions under control.

That plan lasted right up until they were driving from the airport and into Istanbul itself. Zoe was excited, admiring how green the forest was on the drive in. Once they reached the city, her heart started to hurt as memories flooded her mind. She kept breathing, focusing on the craziness of the drivers and fighting back tears. This was the city of her birth, and something tugged deep inside of her that said she was home.

The streets narrowed as they reached the Tarlabasi neighborhood, and Zoe got flashes of memories—walking thehills around Galata Tower with her father beside her, eating gelato at a cafe, going to shop at a tiny convenience store with Anita.

They pulled up in a side street with a cafe and restaurant directly across from them.

Zoe couldn't move from her seat. Her whole body locked up like she had sleep paralysis all over again. Kerem opened the car door for her and offered her a hand to help her out. She took it, her heart racing as she looked at the bookstore. The indigo blue paint had faded, but the bronze sign on the shop's door shone brightly—Kartal Rare Books. Someone had papered up the windows in the front, but other than that, everything appeared the same. Zoe was going to throw up.

"Here are the keys," Kerem said cheerily, pulling them from his pocket and passing them to her.

"I don't… I don't know what to do," Zoe admitted to him.

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