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dropped the monkey and turned on him, enormous eyes veined with red, lids swollen.
    He hooked his arm over the peak of the dollhouse roof and hoisted himself halfway out of the water. He fished the monkey out and gathered the quivering creature to his chest.
    â€œBad girl,” he sputtered, so angry he could barely find breath. “Very bad girl!”
    She retreated to the edge of the roof and curled her thin arms around her knees. Her nose was puffy and red just like a human’s.
    â€œLeblanc,” she sobbed. “Leblanc gone.”
    She hadn’t mentioned Leblanc in days. Sylvain had assumed she’d forgotten the old man, but some hounds missed their masters for years. Why had he assumed the little fish would have coarser feelings than an animal?
    She was an animal, though. She would have drowned the monkey and toyed with its corpse. There was no point in coddling her—he would be stern and unyielding.
    â€œYes, Leblanc has gone away.” He gave her his chilliest stare.
    Her chin quivered. She whispered, “Because I am a bad girl.”
    Had she been blaming herself all this time? Beneath the mindless laughter and games she had been missing Leblanc—lonely, regretful, brokenhearted. Wondering if she’d done wrong, if she’d driven him away. Waiting to see him again, expecting him every moment.
    Sylvain clambered onto the dollhouse roof and perched between the two chimneys. The monkey climbed onto his shoulder and snaked its fingers into his hair.
    â€œNo, little one. Leblanc didn’t want to go but he had to.”
    â€œLeblanc come back?”
    She looked so trusting. He could lie to her, tell her Leblanc would come back if she was a good girl, worked hard, and never caused any problems. She would believe him. He could make her do anything he wanted.
    â€œNo, little one. Leblanc is gone and he can never come back.”
    She folded in on herself, hiding her face in her hands.
    â€œHe would have said goodbye to you if he could. I’m sorry he didn’t.”
    Sylvain pulled her close, squeezing her bony, quaking shoulders, tucking her wet head under his chin.
    There was an old song he had often heard in the mountains. On one of his very first hunting trips as a boy, he’d heard an ancient shepherd sing it while climbing up a long scree slope searching for a lost lamb. He had heard a crying girl sing it as she flayed the pelt from the half-eaten, wolf-ravaged corpse of an ewe. He’d heard a boy sing it to his flock during a sudden spring snowstorm, heard a mother sing it to her children on a freezing winter night as he passed by her hut on horseback. The words were rustic, the melody simple.
    Sylvain sang the song now to the little fish, gently at first, just breathing the tune, and then stronger, letting the sound swell between them. He sang of care, and comfort, and loss, and a longing to make everything better. And if tears seemed to rain down his cheeks as he sang, it was nothing but an illusion—just water dribbling from his hair.
    -10-
    Sylvain stood on the roof of the north wing, the gardens spread out before him. The fountains jetted high and strong, fifteen hundred nozzles ticking over reliably as clockwork, the water spouts throwing flickering shadows in the low evening light.
    The gardens were deserted as any wilderness. Inside, everyone was preparing for the evening’s long menu of events. Outside, the statues posed and the fountains played for the moon and stars alone.
    Sylvain was taking advantage of this quiet and solitary hour to do one final check of the velvet pipes. He had already felt every inch of the new connection, examined the seams all the way to the point where the fabric sleeve dove off the roof to disappear through a gap above a garret window.
    Bull and Bear waited by the main reservoir, watching for his signal. There was no point in delaying any further. He waved his hat in the air. The sleeve at his feet jumped and