Enrique found himself wanting to show the boy other objects merely to experience his reaction to them. “Would you like to see canopic jars? They used to hold the organs of Egyptian royalty!”

The boy gave a small gasp.

Uh-oh.

“Wait, I—”

But it was too late. The boy had run down the hall, disappearing through the doorway. Enrique tried to ignore the sharp sting he felt as he turned away. He thought that would be the last he’d see of the boy, but a few minutes later, he heard a rush of approaching footsteps. He turned slowly to find at least a dozen children staring up at him. At the front, the blond-haired boy looked out of breath and excited.

“We want to see the canpopic jars!”

“It’s canopic,” corrected Enrique automatically.

He looked at the sea of shining, expectant faces. Even his best audience had never looked so enraptured.

“Heinrich says they used to hold the organs of Egyptian royalty, but that can’t be right,” said one girl, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She paused hopefully. “… Can it?”

Enrique walked slowly to the canopic jar, touching it lightly. “Heinrich is correct. Our tale begins about five thousand years ago…”

Children, Enrique soon discovered, were ravenous.

Once he had told them about the religious significance of canopic jars, they wished to know about gruesome underworlds and what monsters lived there. Then they wished to know about the gods and goddesses of different lands, whose names they had never heard. Every reveal was met with applause and wonder. There was never a point at which they seemed bored by his lecture. And with every new piece of history or new story, Enrique imagined he could actually see their imaginations flex in new directions.

Eventually, the children’s curiosity even turned to him.

“What happened to your ear?” asked one of the children.

Enrique touched the light linen bandage over his wound. It no longer ached, and yet the absence of his ear was something that still caught him by surprise.

“I heard he fought a bear who was guarding the treasures and that’s how he lost it…”

“That’s a lie!” said another. “Bears don’t guard treasures. Dragons do.”

Enrique laughed. The children had dozens of questions, and he could scarcely get through them all one by one.

“Tell us another story!” said one.

“Are there mummies here? Have you seen one?”

“Can I see a mummy?”

Enrique had only just quieted them by beginning the tale of the Egyptian god Osiris—an abridged version of course, for it was not entirely suitable to children—when a tall, dark-skinned woman wearing a ruff of fur walked into the halls.

“I found them!”

A horde of adults followed after her, shouting out the names of their charges.

Oh dear, thought Enrique. If these parents were furious at him and asked for his name, Enrique resolved to introduce himself as Séverin Montagnet-Alarie.

One by one, the parents fetched their children.

“No, I want to stay!” said one girl. “We were learning about mummies!”