“Breakfast is ready,” said a thin serving girl with the high, bright voice of an aria and bowed.

Mr. Fox and Mrs. Fox bowed in answer, slinking past her to find their seats. Lord Petty, his brothers-in-discard, followed after in a neat queue, looking for all the world like the guilty marching themselves to the gallows.

“I had a dream too,” said Lord Petty without even a scratch of warning, his voice booming through the steepled halls. He lowered his cutlery and the clatter of their descent was as loud as musket shots. “I dreamed that I went yestermorn to your castle, and I found it in the woods, with high walls, and a deep moat, and over the gateway was written:

Be bold, be bold.

If Lord Petty had thought to entice apprehension from Mrs. Fox’s expression, or tease fear from Mr. Fox’s lidded regard, he would go to his rest unslaked. Their countenances remained serene. Sighing, Mrs. Fox pushed aside her plate of roast lamb, the polished blue ceramic heaped high with charred broccoli florets and reams of gravy.

“It is not so, nor was it so.”

But Lord Petty would not be dissuaded from his keening declamation, his grief lettered in its delivery. “And when I came to the doorway, over it was written:

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.

“It is not so,” said Mr. Fox and then together with his wife, they spoke as one, the words intoned with all the weight of prophecy: “Nor was it so.”

“And then I went upstairs, and came to a gallery, at the end of which was a door, on which was written:

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,

Lest that your heart's blood should run cold.

“It is not so, nor it was not so,” said the Foxes, now with pity in the lilt of their faces. Outside the lancet windows, the light grew bruised, as though the sun was suddenly curtained by an encroaching storm. But the color was wrong, as was the quality of that glow, its texture, and the smell of air, damp earth and still water, menaced with its eldritch promise.

“And then,” Lord Petty launched himself from his seat, roaring as he did, no more guile to be seen, no more subtlety. “And then I opened the door, and the room was filled with bodies and skeletons of poor dead souls, all stained with their blood!”

“It is not so, nor it was not so. And God forbid it should be so,” chorused the foxes, their shadows limbering like animals.

“I then dreamed that I rushed down the gallery, and just as I was going down the stairs I saw you, Mr and Mrs. Fox, coming up to the hall door, dragging after you a poor young man, rich and beautiful!”