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‘It seems so,’ he says. ‘I believe I know where she is—I spoke with her this afternoon.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ Genevieve says, although she hardly has anything to thank him for—but she is pleased, all the same, to sense that she has influenced him.

He huffs, although his cheeks are slightly pink. ‘It’s not. . . It’s nothing. Your persistent goodness is influencing me, for all I wish to ignore it.’

‘Perhaps you have been good all along.’

He mutters, ‘Perish the thought,’ and offers her his arm. She stares at the silver embroidery on his sleeve.

‘Well?’ he asks.

‘Well?’ she echoes.

‘Are you coming, mademoiselle?’

‘Certainly, monsieur,’ she says, delighted, and she places her hand in the warm crook of his elbow.

He smiles at her, a smile as small and precious as a gem. She smiles back.

Then, through the golden doors, they steal away.

Up the stairs, her hand in his. Leander knows where they must go; he knows he should have left Genevieve behind. But to abandon her there at the banquet, surrounded by every temptation the Château has to offer—he couldn’t bear it. He is growing soft. Or perhaps he has always been soft, and this is the first time he has had occasion to notice it.

As they ascend, their footsteps echo against the marble steps, sounding something like water dripping from a rooftop. Genevieve’s hand slips down from his elbow and finds its way into his own. Bold, he thinks, but he allows it. It’s dark outside, and the Château has lit its lamps. Many of the lights are covered by shades of stained glass, casting pools of colour across the floor. Their many-faceted glimmer resembles insectoid eyes staring out of the walls.

They continue until they’ve reached the third floor. A turn down the hallway, another turn—Leander trusts that the Château will bring them where he wants to go. He’s cooperating, after all, with his mother’s twisted vision for this particular auction: the lovers brought together, only to be torn apart. She has named him aptly for the task.

A door appears at the end of this corridor, white and four-panelled, with golden accents. The knocker is a woman’s face, hinged at the crown of her head, surrounded by a halo of sunrays. Leander takes this knocker gently, raps it against the wood, and says, ‘Nursery.’

Genevieve looks up at him with confusion. Her hand is still in his, all her fingers wrapped around his thumb as if she is afraid he will pull away. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Announce the room before you opened the door.’

‘It. . . I’m used to it.’

‘Is it an American custom?’ He blinks down at her instead of answering. She squares her shoulders. ‘I have been meaning to ask you more about yourself, seeing as I know so very little—’

He pries his hand from hers. ‘Not now,’ he says, and he pushes through the door before she can reply.

The room is exactly as it was in the miniature, one wall painted carefully with a fresco of fluffy clouds and flying doves, the other leafed entirely in gold. The silk-curtained window is open, emitting a light, jasmine-scented breeze. A crib stands at the very centre of the room, crowned with a blue chintz canopy embroidered with daisies. And collapsed on the rug beside it is Saliha Sultan, her purple skirts spilling about her like watercolour paint, her shoulders trembling with sobs.

Genevieve exclaims and falls to the floor beside her, laying a palm on Saliha Sultan’s back. Leander looks inside the crib, scans the floor—there is no sign of a figurine. But there is a child’s toy lying at the edge of Saliha’s skirts, a little wooden doll. It is simplistic but beautifully wrought: a soldier with a curved sword and a toy hat, his face frozen in an unseeing smile.

Genevieve stretches out her arms. Saliha Sultan glances at her through eyes red and bleary with salt, then falls into her embrace.

Genevieve rubs her back and holds her, hums lowly under her breath, a tune that echoes, somehow, the melody Leander often plays upon his mandolin. Leander watches the two of them entangled, made one by grief and empathy. It is so human it hurts to witness. By contrast, he has never felt quite so aware of his own monstrosity; his eyes and skin have returned to normal, but, after Orestes returned his head to his neck that morning, Leander had found that one of his back teeth had forgotten its shape. It was serrated and sharklike, lustrous as a pearl. It remains that way even now, biting into his tongue and drawing blood when he closes his jaw.

‘Saliha Sultan,’ Leander says, and she looks up at him. ‘Where is your figurine?’

Genevieve turns a furious gaze to him, and Leander winces. ‘Is empathy such a slippery thing,’ she demands, ‘that you men simply cannot grasp it? She is distressed, Leander. Can these questions not wait?’

It’s an inconvenient time to realise it, but he loves the way his name sounds in her mouth. Her accent makes it linger, consonants that are harsh in his voice softened in hers. He wants her to say it again, but he doesn’t know how to contrive it. Instead, Leander opens his mouth to defend himself, but Saliha Sultan interrupts before he has the chance.

Her voice is quiet and strained, throat clearly raw from weeping. ‘I threw it out the window. The figurine.’

‘It was porcelain,’ Leander says.