Enrique shook his head. He did not want to be rude. And besides, he would love to see the creatures from his grandmother’s tales. Maybe if he was very polite, they would come out and say hello to him. He even tried to see them. Once, he had stayed up all night watching the hallway outside his bedroom, convinced that if he simply waited long enough, a dwarf would appear in the shadows and ask him what he wanted. Enrique planned to give the dwarf a gift of rice cakes that he’d stolen from the family breakfast table, and then he’d ask to be taken to the grove where the enkantos lived. There, he would make a trade.

“The enkantos love a good bargain, anak,” his grandmother used to say, lowering her voice as if she were letting him in on a secret. “For your most precious memory, they might give you a bag of gold. For the length of a young bride’s hair, they will give her immortal beauty for a year.”

Enrique had sat by her feet, enchanted. He remembered her reaching down, tugging gently at his ear.

“I once heard of a farmer who gave an enkanto his ear, and in return, he could see the future.”

Enrique brightened. “If I give the enkanto my ear, will I see the future too?”

“Why would you wish to see the future, anak?” His lola laughed. “What a terrible burden that would be.”

Enrique disagreed. If he could see the future, he would know when his elder brother Marcos was planning to tease him. He would know when his mother planned to bring home puto bumbong before anyone else, and he could help himself to the best pieces. And most importantly, he would know who he would be. Perhaps a sea-faring pirate with a deadly crocodile pet who adored him and ate all his enemies …

Enrique’s future would be clear, and all he had to give up was a little part of himself.

But now, Enrique had made that sacrifice. Or rather, someone had made it for him. He stared at the gilt mirror on the far side of the library wall, turning his head one way and another before looking around at his scattered notes and research. He had given up his ear, but his future was no clearer.

History was all around him, and yet he had no idea where he belonged within it. He was lost. For all that he had dreamed of leaving a mark on the world, the world had marked him and kept moving.

A sound by the doorway startled him. Enrique looked up to see Zofia in her black apron. Soot had gotten smudged on her pale cheeks, but for some reason, it only drew attention to the vivid blue of her eyes and the Christmas red of her cheeks. Her candlelight hair had slipped out of its braid, and for a moment, he had the bizarre urge to feel it between his fingers … to wonder if it would feel, somehow, like light on his skin.