“She doesn’t like it when you show your teeth,” said the keeper. “Jenny. This is Mr. Darwin, come to visit you.” He fastened the door to the building behind us, then unlocked the door to her caged area and passed Mr. Darwin a green apple. My master stepped inside the cage and surprised me by sitting down on the floor. He held out the apple on the palm of his hand like he might be feeding a horse. Jenny came over to him, sniffed at the apple, but did not take it.

“She has recently been fed, sir,” said the keeper.

Jenny turned back to the bars where I was waiting, fascinated. I took the handkerchief from my pocket and held it out to her, raising my eyes at the keeper, who nodded his permission.

The little orangutan snatched the handkerchief and sniffed it without taking her sharp gaze from me. I chuckled but kept my lips closed this time, and she pouted her lips in response, then rested the handkerchief on her head, looking up at it. I looked up at my own cap, then took it off. Jenny took the handkerchief off her head.

Mr. Darwin got to his feet. “Well done, Covington. You see how she mimics; her behavior is quite childlike. I intend to study her as she becomes more used to me. But that’s enough for today,” he said.

The master’s voice was alive with passion, the same passion I’d seen when the first dragon egg hatched. The little ape capered around her cage, throwing my handkerchief in the air and watching as it fell, then picking it up again, over and over. She was so far from her jungle home, from others of her kind. I remembered how that felt and gripped the cold bars.

“You can keep the handkerchief, Jenny,” I said.

I approached Farthing’s enclosure in the same way as always, counting the dragons. Farthing was already at the bars and raced to my side. I crouched to greet her, and she nudged my hand until I scratched her cheek. Her ruff rose, but the scales didn’t quite align, and her eyes seemed dusty, dim. I counted the rest of the dragons, nine including Farthing—there was Sixpence, Quartz, Basalt, Granite, Magma, Slate, Obsidian, and Marble. Mr. Darwin had named them after rocks of the earth where they had been found.

Farthing snorted hot air into my palm as I waded to the back of the lizard enclosure in my heavy fisherman’s gaiters. Mr. Darwin spoke with the head keeper, taking notes. One of the dragons lay listlessly beneath a brazier of hot coals, mud covering his green scales.

“Quartz was like that all day yesterday, and hasn’t stirred today, sir,” called out the keeper.

I slopped over to Quartz through the mud and laid a hand beneath his chin. He snorted but didn’t open his eyes, not a slice of copper to be seen, even when I whistled. The smaller of his claws was white and shiny, so we had named him after the crystal. I stroked this claw now.