The first thing Tess saw when she walked into the dining room at the hotel was a boy, a little older than Tess, maybe fourteen, sitting at a round table covered with a white tablecloth. All the tables were set with elaborate dishes, silver forks and knives, linen napkins, individual teapots, and lovely china tea cups. The boy was having tea by himself. His plate was full and very arranged with a combination of tea sandwiches, three petits fours, and two small scones with whipped cream and raspberries ladled on top of each. And also, in front of him was a full cup of tea, the color of which seemed to indicate he’d added a touch of milk to it, the way Tess liked her tea, too—the English way. Max liked lemon—it was one of the differences between them.

The boy seemed—Tess couldn’t quite explain it—lost in thought. Tess couldn’t tell if he’d taken even one bite of a sandwich or a nibble of a scone. He was just staring straight ahead.

They sat down at the table just in front of him. Tess tried hard not to turn around and look at him. The waiter was on his way over to take their order. Tess had noticed the boy was elegantly dressed, with a black jacket and a white dress shirt, its cuffs visible, and what seemed to be silver cufflinks in his sleeves.

Max was starving—he was so hungry he wasn’t even going to make fun of the tea sandwiches, no comments about cucumber and butter on peculiar triangles of bread that weren’t even toasted. He wouldn’t complain out loud about Nutella, if that was one of the choices. (Secretly, he was certain that he wasn’t the only person who didn’t like Nutella.) He would not eat Nutella even if it was the only sweet available.

The dining room was half filled. Sitting next to them was an Indian family, two boys and their parents, speaking what Aunt Evie said was Hindi. The mother was wearing a beautiful royal blue sari with stars embroidered on the front. On the other side of their table, two women, who looked a lot like sisters, were also dressed up, wearing silk blouses and very long necklaces. One of the sisters had a large emerald pin on her collar and an even larger emerald on her middle finger. The large emerald was so deep green, it almost looked as if you could fall into it, the way a lake looks in a hidden forest, or if you looked hard enough at it, you might see an image, as if it was related to a crystal ball. Tess stopped herself from imagining that the emerald was sort of a mirror. But she did wonder if she would see anything if she looked deeply into the emerald.