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loved. Always its image will stay with me, even if I live until the end of time.
    â€œDo you see, Lapin?” she cried when the lights had gone, when she could shake back her cloak and I could leave my hiding place, for all was dark once more. Tears as hard and clear as diamonds streamed down her pale cheeks. She was weeping a fortune, and why shouldn’t she? Had she not just been deprived of the first treasure of her heart?
    â€œDo you see what he has done?”
    â€œI see,” I said. “Now what shall we do?”
    At this, she laughed, and the sound was wild, matching the sound of the wind as it rose. The secondthe Lady Mina had stepped away from her mother it had started, answering the call of the storm in my mistress’s heart.
    â€œLapin,” die Königin der Nacht said. “The name which means rabbit.”
    â€œIt does,” I said. “But that does not mean I have the brains of one. I’ve understood for many years now the real reason you brought me here. It was because you feared this day would come.”
    â€œThen you know what I would have you do,” she said.
    â€œI do,” I answered. “But I warn you, I don’t think this has ever been done. I cannot truly control what I may call. Furthermore, once I have begun, you cannot intervene on your daughter’s behalf. It must be that which I summon, or nothing.”
    â€œI know these things,” die Königin der Nacht said impatiently. “Why do you waste time telling me what I already know?”
    â€œI just want us to be sure,” I said. “There’s always the chance that what I call will end up being even worse than what her father has in mind.”
    â€œImpossible,” die Königin der Nacht proclaimed. “For I think you see my daughter truly, and I know you love her well. Both those things, I fear, are more than I can say for the Lord Sarastro. Bring my daughter the one who will set her free, as you brought the one who lulled her to sleep so long ago.
    â€œDo it, Lapin. Play the bells.”

What Luapin’s Bells Summoned
    What would have happened if there’d never been a storm?
    If there’d never been a storm, I might never have heard the bells. And if I’d never heard the bells, I would never have entered Mina’s life, an event that changed the lives of all
    I wonder about these things sometimes.
    Foolishness, of course. If something is meant to happen, then it will. That’s just the way the world works. There’s no use trying to stop it or get around it. You probably know this for yourself. Fortunately, not everything that happens carries the same weight as everything else. Was I meant to hear the bells and enter Mina’s story when I did? Absolutely.
    Was I meant to eat the last piece of royal chocolate birthday cake before my younger brother, Arthur, could get to it, when I was ten and he was seven-and-a-half? Probably not. All that was required for that to happen was a willingness to get out of bed and creep down cold stone stairs in the middle of the night.
    I can hear Mina’s voice laughing in my ear.Chiding me. How can they follow your portion of this tale when you haven’t even told them who you are? And so I suppose I’d better get that out of the way. Things are no doubt confusing enough with so many different people telling you what happened.
    I am a prince, and my name is Tern.
    A tern is a seabird, something like a gull. Not even my parents have a good explanation for why this is the name I was given the day I was born. Neither of them had ever seen the sea before. The land my father governs lies many miles from any coast. Rivers we have in plenty. Also lakes, streams, swamps, and ponds. But you could ride for days on end on the swiftest horse in my father’s stables and still not catch a glimpse of the sea. Yet a seabird is what I was named for.
    If you decide to seriously press my mother, tell her you refuse