Konstantin shook his head. “I don’t think so. Most cultures have them. I think it’s how they explained autistic children before science.”

Isla hadn’t thought of that before. “Goodness,” she said, thinking of the legends of the children, so beautiful but so strange behind their seal eyes. “That’s so sad.”

“Well, it comes on at about that age . . .” He stopped himself. “It’s not always sad, though, is it? Just different.”

Isla thought of Flora’s train-obsessed big brother Hamish, who had never been able to leave home or really be trusted walking down to the shops by himself, but was adored by everyone.

“I suppose you’re right,” said Isla. “They must have been so frightened, though.”

“Oh, I think people are very frightened now,” said Konstantin. “They think it’s an evil doctor with an injection.”

“They do,” said Isla, pondering. “Gosh.”

The ding on the timer slightly startled them both, speaking about changeling children under a dark and freezing moon.

Together they jumped up and rebuttered and folded their dough companionably, chopped it up into twelve crescents each, then popped the trays in the hot oven and refilled the coffee machine.

“This can’t be good for you,” complained Konstantin. “This is a heart attack amount of butter. Why aren’t the French all dead?”

“Because it’s good butter,” said Isla soothingly. “That’s the other great thing about Mure. Everything we make here is pure and local. There’s a cow, there’s some rain—”

“Quite a lot of rain,” added Konstantin.

“And some grass, and salt from the salt pans, and there you are.”

“Okay,” said Konstantin, breathing in the warming scented air. “If that tastes as good as it smells, you’ll absolutely have convinced me.”

This time he brought Isla a coffee, and they sat together, and he let her tell him all about the myths of the land—the princess who stepped onto the iceberg to escape the Vikings, the witches who ran ships aground—and he told her about the trolls of the great dark forests and the elves who came to give strange gifts in his northern homeland. And then finally the croissants rose up, warm and steaming and light as a feather and absolute miracles, and they added, to their giggling shame, even more butter, and ate one, which was too hot, and then another, frankly, because they couldn’t help themselves, they were so airy, crunchy on the outside and yielding and miraculously light underneath, the most ambrosial things Isla thought she’d ever tasted, and the smell even drew Gaspard down from upstairs, who entered the kitchen with his eyes closed, saying, “Vraiment? It cannot be true. I am in Lyon, no?” which was as high a compliment as he could possibly give, and then they had to hide them to keep them for the art ist, and Gaspard suggested they both get up and make croissants at four A.M. every day, and of course they chorused, “Noooooo,” but they were both a little disappointed nonetheless that he didn’t insist.