“Of course I’m not scared,” she said, still gripping the boy’s arm. “I’ve ’ad Rosa since she was just a petit ’op. She would no sooner bite me than she would join the Paris Opera. Sneaky little urchins who follow me, on the other ’and—” She smiled and brought her face close to the boy’s face, close enough that she could have bitten the brim of his cap. “She eats them up without a thought.”

The boy swallowed hard but was not foolish enough to wriggle out of her grip. “Please, ma’am, you are Miss Regina Archambault, aren’t you? They told me to look for the, uh, the—”

“The fat Frenchwoman with the albino ’ippopotamus?” Archie deadpanned.

“Uh, yes, miss. I—I have a letter for you. Please don’t feed me to your hippo, ma’am, I didn’t mean to sneak—”

He raised a trembling hand with an envelope in it. Her name was written on the outside in familiar, spiky lettering. Archie released his arm.

“Well, then, that is something else altogether.” She grabbed the letter. “Would you like to pet a ’ippo, boy?” He looked nervously at Rosa’s tusks. “She will not eat you. Not unless I tell ’er to. Just make a lot of noise as you walk up, so you don’t startle ’er—’er eyes, they are not so good.”

The boy glanced between Archie and the pink-eyed hippo. “I’ve never heard of a blind white hippo before.”

“Well,” Archie said, “the ’opper that bred ’er was going to kill ’er when ’e saw. ‘What use is a blind ’ippo?’ ’e said. But I knew better—she is the finest ’ippo in all the world.”

The boy stared at Rosa, awe plain on his face. “Her name’s Rosa?”

Archie ran her thumb under the seal on the envelope. “Oui. Let ’er smell your ’and, then you can scratch behind ’er ears.”

As the boy approached the beast, tentatively placing a small hand against her snout, Archie read through the letter.

“Well, well,” she whispered to herself. “Winslow, you old connard,” she said, not looking up from the letter. She murmured to herself as she read it through again. “Ferals . . . eight thousand . . . a full year? Non, that can’t be—oh, oui, I see now . . .” She turned to the boy, who was staring at Rosa’s tusks with rapt fascination as he rubbed her nose. She looked him over, taking in his dull, patchy hair and his anemic complexion. She wondered if he slept in the streets, or if he hadn’t escaped the orphanage yet.

“Miss Archa-Archim—”

“Call me Archie.”

“Miss Archie? You said you had her since she was just a hop, right?”