In five days, Rat has already had a chance to get pretty sick of her newfound brother—quite a feat, considering he’s only home for about two minutes before it’s his bedtime. She hadn’t realized what an easy ride she had with Morgan—the kind of kid brother you actually have to beg to come and bother you.

Right now, all Rat wants to do is read her book.

All her initial eagerness to get out and explore London has been succeeded by utter exhaustion. Rat can’t remember ever having been so tired. It feels as if all the force required to get her and Morgan away from Mas Cargol and into England has been drained from her, leaving a deep bone-aching weariness she can’t seem to shake. No sooner does she get out of bed in the morning than she’s ready to crawl right back under the covers. All she feels like doing is reading, eating, sleeping.

In her previous life, Rat never read a book for pleasure. But here, everybody reads, and she, almost by inertia, has followed suit. Her father, Rat’s discovered, has a large collection of French books from his student days, the kind of books you see in libraries. She’s picked out the thinnest volume in the shelf she could find. It was written by a boy who died when he was twenty. It’s called Le Bal du comte d’Orgel, and it’s about a married woman who falls in love with a young man who’s not her husband.

Rat has just reached a particularly engrossing part. She looks up, blinking.

“So what were you expecting me to look like?”

This is the deal: Rat speaks French, Artemio speaks English, and only if she’s completely lost, resorts to French. In fact, Artemio’s French is fine, thanks to the hag-nanny and summers spent with his cousins in Normandy, but he considers the language fussy and effeminate. At school, he studies Latin, which apparently is more manly. And Morgan he won’t talk to at all, having decided, as he’s confided to Rat, the boy is “a bit ‘dodgy.’”

“Dodgy?”

“You know, street.”

“Oh, I don’t know—more like Fleur Delacour.”

“Like who?”

“Haven’t you seen the Harry Potter films? You know, the head girl of that French sorcery school.”

“Oh yeah, it’s just that you say the name a little strange.”

“That’s what I thought you would look like. Blonde, dazzlingly beautiful.”

Rat puts down her book, a surreptitious smile twitching the corners of her mouth. “Am I not beautiful?”

She’s succeeded in momentarily discomfiting Artemio. He snorts, but doesn’t know what to say.

“And you, Artemio? Are you beautiful?”

“Men aren’t supposed to be beautiful.”

“I think they are. Morgan is beautiful.”

Artemio snorts again.

“What did you say? I don’t understand,” she persists, slyly.