“Is there something …” He barely knew how to ask. He had vague fears, knowing there was something mysterious about the dogs’ origin. Harry had been unfailingly polite and informative. But wasn’t that always the way with villains? “Are the dogs … are they normal?”

“Normal?” Harry’s expression was the textbook definition, in High Gothic font, of scoffing. “Hardly.”

“Oh,” Leland said quickly.

“Dog breeding is a careful sport. It’s like winemaking also. It’s science and art, with much brutality and heartache behind it.” As if offering a biscuit, he added, “There is also love.” Harry continued: There were bloodlines in place extending to the 1890s, stud books with lineages as pure as kings’. Every weakness had been accounted for; every strength mated to strength came with great difficulty. “I was part of a vision, yes?” Harry had made himself comfortable on the edge of his cot by sitting with his back upright, one arm braced against his knee. Several days had gone by since he could shave his head, so silver hairs made a stiff glaze across his skull. “We wanted to make a race of perfect dogs.”

Lee thought there would be more. The words seemed to have great import. Harry looked to Lee for a reaction.

“And what happened?”

“We accomplished this.”

Harry’s hard blue eyes checked Lee’s to ask if he understood. A cold feeling crept across Lee’s chest. Sitting down, he took his tiny dogs into his lap.

Harry swallowed. “My wife and I, we managed.”

“What does ‘perfect’ mean?”

Harry looked as if he was trying to remember something he’d seen outside his bedroom window once, years ago. His knuckle was in his mouth. Then his hands were before him, and he was counting off on his fingers: “Loyal and kind and protective and intelligent and strong and brave and selfless and attentive,” which left him with both thumbs. He put them atop his head as if they were dog ears. “This was our joke, I’m afraid.” So the creeping worry that he’d been harboring monsters was wrong. They were just good dogs. Lee arranged himself so Harry could touch two tiny foreheads. Harry said, “Dogs make me believe in natural orderliness. They can’t exist in chaos, and they thrive with direction. You can teach them.”

“I don’t think so,” said Lee.

“The girl will be remarkable, as I say, her coordination extraordinary even by my standards, and the boy will give her company. That you have become their mother so soon means they have bonded with you, and—”

“They have? But I don’t—I’m not—” He had wanted only one thing in his life. This was not it.

“And feeding at a human breast will make them even more bonded to people, I think. They will always know they are dogs, but when they look at you, they will see no difference between you. You’ve become a pack leader.”