I looked down at my hand, still pockmarked with scars from the burns, and suddenly I was back in the dragon’s lair, then the lava was chasing me, Farthing racing ahead, the eggs clanking at my chest. My neck prickled with sweat as I could feel that heat again. Too many memories today. I suddenly became aware Mr. Darwin was calling me.

“Covington. Syms. Covington! You look like your body is in England but your head somewhere else entirely.”

I had never quite gotten over the injury to my eardrum. I was now partly deaf in that ear, but I didn’t like to remind Mr. Darwin when he complained I wasn’t listening. Especially as he had plenty of his own ailments to deal with. The young master was either strong and hearty or laid low with chest palpitations and headaches. Nothing in between.

“Sorry, sir—”

“No matter,” he said, tugging on his whiskers. “Do you recall the small birds you preserved for your own collection, in the Galapagos?”

“The finches? I do. But your own specimens were the best examples.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, impatient, his eyes red-rimmed from long hours at his desk. “But I labeled those myself and I’m afraid they are incomplete. Did you mark yours with the exact location and island?”

“Of course, sir. Just like you taught me,” I said.

“Well, thank the blazes you are a better student than I am a teacher. The ornithologist, Gould, from the Royal Society has agreed to sketch and identify them for me, and my own records are sadly lacking.”

I opened a drawer in my bureau and found the logbook where I kept a neat record of my own small collection with dates, locations, and sketches. I found the correct page and handed it to Mr. Darwin. Seeing my drawings jogged my memory. The fumarole, the water …

“There’s something else, sir. When I was on Narborough I observed a very similar bird, eating a yellow flower on a prickly pear. Its beak was longer and had more of a point to it than I’d seen before.”

My master looked up; there was an ink stain on his lip, and his fluff of hair stood on end. “Cactus flower? Can you remember well enough to sketch this bird for me, in detail?”

“Yes, I think so, sir,” I said.

“I’d like you to do that now, then, Covington. Right away,” he said.

I took out a piece of drawing paper. Mr. Darwin nodded and went back to his studies.

Farthing raised her head from the windowsill and gave a low hoot. She had been lazy lately, spending many hours laid out like this, as though soaking up the watery sun. Either that or by the fireplace. I wasn’t sure England suited her, or me either after five years at sea. I ran my finger around the inside of my collar, starched and itchy.

Mr. Darwin muttered. Farthing flicked up her head, then leaped to the floor and raced to the door. She scratched, hooting and growling.