It was to avoid those thoughts and sensations that she’d returned to work. Until the ground dried out, they could not extract the rock and complete the berm. It behooved her to keep on task—or at least to keep busy. She changed into her working clothes and went to the stables. Nobody was around when she made her way to the stall at the rear of the building, but she could hear male voices and the sound of metal being pounded and guessed the men were in the forge.

The stall she was using was the largest in the stables and the one kept for foaling. It had been constructed with huge double doors that opened out into a small enclosure. With the doors open the light was perfect; the doorway was also large enough that there had been no problem bringing in the stone, which meant—in theory, at least—taking the statue out would be equally simple. Not that transporting a block of stone and finished sculpture were anything the same. She would not finish it completely but would leave in a few sections of rock that supported the more delicate parts of the statue.

This was her most ambitious project to date. While she’d worked on statues of this dimension and complexity for Monsieur Favel, she’d not designed one from its inception. But she was a skilled sculptor and knew this was not beyond her ability.

She’d made several wax figures, not stopping until she’d produced exactly what she wanted. Her samples were perhaps a foot and a half high, just large enough to provide her with a ready reference while she worked. Because she could not use a pointing machine, which she had used often for Favel when he wished to make multiple copies of a popular statute, she had divided the block of marble into a grid. She’d also copied grids onto paper, and from each angle, and had reduced the sculpture to one-eighth its size. These were not methods Favel had used but she’d seen other sculptors employ a variety of tricks to work on projects that were larger than life.

She’d been teasing Mr. McElroy about the classical theme she’d chosen to carve. She was not sculpting Judith and her notorious trophy—not that the notion had no appeal. Instead, she’d chosen something that would suit the parterre, in which the statute was destined to be on display. She’d thought about Mr. Lockheart and his unusual house, about the man himself, and what it was he represented. She’d chosen, after much consideration, the under-represented Greek Titan Coeus, a son of Uranus and Gaia, one of the four pillars that held Earth separate from the heavens. Coeus was often associated with inquisitive minds and intellect.

Among the Titans he was best remembered for having been banished to the underworld, breaking his chains, but remaining in Hades as the eternal companion of Cerebus. Serena had decided to represent him in his “pre-fall” state.