There was something Séverin was not saying. Enrique opened his mouth to ask when Séverin cleared his throat abruptly:

“I’ll see you at supper,” he said. “Enjoy your brooding.”

“I will,” said Enrique, frowning as Séverin beat a hasty retreat down the hall.

For the next hour or so, Enrique tried to avoid brooding altogether by triple-checking the state of various artifacts, and yet the same question kept cropping up in his thoughts.

How did he plan to find his way?

Dream Laila had suggested searching for the thing that filled him with light, but what did that mean? Traveling out into the world? Taking up a new hobby?

It was around then that Enrique heard soft footfalls behind him. He turned to find that a young boy, about ten years old, had found his way into the hallway and was now poking the wings of the golden half-human, half-bird kinnara statue.

“Do not touch that!” said Enrique, striding over to him.

The boy, a rather serious-looking child with pale skin and a mop of icy-blond hair, stared defiantly back at Enrique. “Why not?”

Enrique opened his mouth, then closed it. For some reason, the boy reminded him of Zofia, golden and stubborn. And his curiosity reminded Enrique, oddly enough, of himself. He knew there were plenty of wonders to be found on L’Eden’s premises. To venture into this particular gallery meant that the boy had first chosen to spend time in the library instead of outside on a bright, early spring day.

Enrique nearly winced to remember the trouble he had gotten into when he’d been this boy’s age.

“You’re lucky I don’t have a tsinela,” he muttered.

The boy frowned. “A what?”

“Never mind,” said Enrique, sighing.

The boy scowled, and Enrique remembered making a similar expression whenever he anticipated that someone was about to yell at him. He had hated being scolded and much preferred when someone would explain something to him instead.

“Do you know how old this statue is?” Enrique asked, pointing at the gold kinnari.

The boy shook his head.

“At least seven thousand years old.”

The boy’s eyes widened. Why did children have such wide eyes? Enrique could not explain why he continued. “Would you … like to hold it?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically.

“Very well,” said Enrique. He drew a spare pair of gloves from his pocket. “It’s very important when we handle such objects to treat them with the utmost respect. You are holding a piece of time, and you must be precious with it.”

Solemnly, the boy drew on the gloves. He gasped a little when Enrique lowered the statue into his hands.

“This is called a kinnari,” he said, “a half-human, half-bird creature. They were thought to be guardian spirits who watched over humans in times of danger. Rather like angels.”

The boy’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “There’s more than just angels?”

Enrique was rather stunned. He had braced himself to be refuted on the spot, or to be on the receiving end of a sneering response that angels could not possibly look like the golden statue in the boy’s hands. But children were different. For all their small stature, they seemed far more willing to accept the expansiveness of the world, whereas adults seemed to lose that gift with age.