Hendaya opened the small door carefully.

A music box made with mirrors tinkled on the cupboard floor. Inside the box, an angel with open wings turned slowly in a hypnotic trance. The sound gradually petered out as the mechanism unwound and the angel was left suspended in mid-flight. It was then he noticed a reflection on one of the mirrors in the music box. One of the figures he had taken for plaster corpses when he came in had shifted.

Hendaya felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He spun around and fired his gun three times at the figure silhouetted against the bright light. The layers of paper and plaster that made up the effigy were ripped apart, leaving a cloud of dust floating in the air. The policeman lowered the weapon slightly and strained his eyes. Only then did he notice a gentle movement in the air next to him. He turned, and when he tightened the revolver’s hammer again, he recognized the dark glow of two penetrating eyes emerging from the shadows.

The nib of the pen perforated Hendaya’s cornea and cut through into his brain, so deep it scratched the bone at the back of his skull. He collapsed instantly, like a puppet whose strings had been severed, his trembling body stretched out over the books.

Alicia knelt, snatched the weapon he still held in his hand, and, using her feet, pushed the body toward the balustrade. Then she kicked it over the edge and watched it fall into the abyss, still alive, and smash against the stone floor with a dead, humid echo.

21

Isaac saw her come out of the labyrinth. She limped slightly and held a gun in her hand in such a natural way, it made his blood run cold. He watched her approach the place where Hendaya’s body had crashed against the marble floor. She was barefoot, but didn’t hesitate before stepping through the pool of blood that spread around the corpse. Leaning over Hendaya’s body, she looked through his pockets and pulled out a wallet. She examined it, keeping a wad of notes and discarding the rest. Then she felt his jacket pockets and drew out a set of keys, which she also kept. After glancing dispassionately at the dead body for a few moments, Alicia grabbed something sticking out of Hendaya’s face and pulled hard. Isaac recognized the pen he’d given her barely an hour earlier.

Slowly, Alicia walked over to Isaac. She knelt down beside him and unlocked his handcuffs. Isaac, trembling, not realizing that his own eyes were brimming with tears, searched hers. Alicia gazed back at him impassively, as if she were trying to make clear to that poor old man that she was not a reincarnation of his lost daughter.

She wiped the pen on her nightdress skirt and handed it to him. “I could never be like her, Isaac.”

The keeper dried his tears but said nothing. Alicia offered him her hand and helped him get up. Then she walked over to the little bathroom next to the keeper’s room. Isaac heard the water run.