“You’ll have to ask Margaret,” said Calvin. “She’s the one who sees what’s going on inside everybody’s head.”

They sat on the porch, watching bees and hummingbirds raid the flowers in the garden. Soon Calvin began to amuse himself by making the bees’ wings stop flapping. He’d point to a bee and then it would drop like a stone. A moment later, dazed and annoyed, it would start to buzz again and rise into the air. By then Calvin would be pointing to another bee and making it fall. Honoré laughed because it was funny to see them fall, to imagine their confusion. “Please don’t do it to the hummingbirds,” Honoré said.

He regretted at once that he had said such a foolish thing. For of course that was exactly what Calvin had to do. He pointed. The hummingbird’s wings stopped. It plummeted to the ground. But it did not buzz and rise back into the sky. Instead it struggled there, flapping one wing while the other lay useless in the dirt.

“Why would you break such a beautiful creature?” said Honoré.

“Who makes the rules?” said Calvin. “Why is it funny to do it to bees but not to birds?”

“Because it doesn’t hurt the bee,” said Honoré. “Because hummingbirds don’t sting. Because there are millions of bees but hummingbirds are as rare as angels.”

“Not around here,” said Calvin.

“You mean there are many angels in Camelot?”

“I meant there are thousands of hummingbirds. They’re like squirrels they’re so common.”

“So it is all right to break this one’s wing and let it die?”

“What is it, God watches the sparrows and you’re in charge of hummingbirds?”

“If you can’t fix it,” said Honoré, “you shouldn’t break it.”

Calvin glowered, then pushed himself out of his chair, vaulted the railing, and knelt down by the hummingbird. He fiddled with the wing, trying to straighten it. The bird kept struggling in his grasp.

“Hold still, dammit.”

Calvin held the broken wing straight, closed his eyes, concentrated. But the fluttering of the bird kept annoying him. He made an exasperated gesture, as if he were shaking a child, and the bones of the wing crumbled in his fingers. He took his hands away and looked at the ruined wing, a sick expression on his face.

“Is this a game?” asked Honoré. “See how many times can you break the same hummingbird wing?”

Calvin looked at him in fury. “Shut your damn mouth.”

“The bird is in pain, Monsieur le Maker.”

Calvin leapt to his feet and stomped down hard on the bird. “Now it’s not.”

“Calvin the healer,” said Honoré. Despite the jesting tone he was sick at heart. It was his goading that had killed the bird. Not that there was any hope for it. It was doomed to die as soon as Calvin made it fall from the air. But even that had been partly Honoré’s fault for having asked Calvin not to do it. He knew, or should have known, that would be a goad to him.