“I can understand that,” I replied, laying a hand on his free arm. “But your mom doesn’t know everything.”

Sven let out an unhappy sob and clutched the goddess tight to his chest.

“Oh, Sven, you’ll be all right. Give us the statue. I promise, you can still be an artist. You just have to give up on this particular piece, okay?”

Zeke leaned against the boulder on Sven’s other side and put an arm around Sven’s shoulder. “My sister is making a name for herself with her own ideas and her own talent,” he said. “That was my grandmother’s dream for us. And you know better than anyone that art is for dreaming. Give us back the statue now and we won’t report you. You’ll be free to keep doing … whatever it is you do.”

Sven considered this offer. His grip on the statue loosened. After a moment, he allowed Zeke to extract the goddess statue from his grasp.

We returned to the ballroom just in time to hear the Duchess resume her speech. We’d left Sven behind to mourn his art cycle. Mr. Gatewood was testing the microphone and watching the chandelier with a concerned look while the Duchess soothed worried guests from her throne. Zeke was carrying the goddess statue on his hip like a baby. Bess followed behind him, watching appreciatively. Diana was smiling for the first time all night. The Duchess saw us coming and waved us up the steps of her throne platform.

“I am happy to see you all,” she said, beaming. She looked at the statue on Zeke’s hip. “And you, especially, Diana. Well, I suppose it is time for the world to meet the woman behind the mask. It is time for the truth.”

We assembled behind the throne and the Duchess stood to address her audience, everyone who had witnessed and appreciated her lifelong performance. Mr. Gatewood handed her a microphone.

“An hour ago,” she began, “I nearly called off the whole evening. I was unhappy with my work, and afraid that no one would appreciate it as it really was. I wanted to send everyone home. And I would have! But a brave young woman came to see me, and she helped me change my mind. You know, I think she reminded me a little of myself when I was young. So, my beloved guests … Let me begin by presenting a metaphor.”

The Duchess gave the microphone back to Mr. Gatewood. So she has one last trick up her sleeve, after all, I thought. The Duchess really was a performer.

She crouched down and pressed what I could see now was a hidden button in her throne to open the trapdoor. The bearded quartet took out their flutes and played a single chord. When they fell silent, something rose through the throne’s trapdoor. A huge, misshapen figure, its face obscured by a tall collar of woven sticks, followed by gloved hands and a body covered in patches of brightly colored fur. It was the masked dancer, Mona Pearl!