The boy shook his head.

“At least seven thousand years old.”

The boy’s eyes widened. Why did children have such wide eyes? Enrique could not explain why he continued. “Would you … like to hold it?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically.

“Very well,” said Enrique. He drew a spare pair of gloves from his pocket. “It’s very important when we handle such objects to treat them with the utmost respect. You are holding a piece of time, and you must be precious with it.”

Solemnly, the boy drew on the gloves. He gasped a little when Enrique lowered the statue into his hands.

“This is called a kinnari,” he said, “a half-human, half-bird creature. They were thought to be guardian spirits who watched over humans in times of danger. Rather like angels.”

The boy’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “There’s more than just angels?”

Enrique was rather stunned. He had braced himself to be refuted on the spot, or to be on the receiving end of a sneering response that angels could not possibly look like the golden statue in the boy’s hands. But children were different. For all their small stature, they seemed far more willing to accept the expansiveness of the world, whereas adults seemed to lose that gift with age.

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!”

One boy refused to move and sat on the floor.

“Will you tell us more tomorrow?” asked another boy before his parent hauled him off.

The solemn, blond-haired child hung back, trying to hide behind one of the storage boxes. His mother, a tall woman with a shock of black hair, laughed and coaxed him out.

“The children seem to be quite taken with you,” she said. “I hope they were not too much of a bother.”

“They … they were not a bother at all,” said Enrique.

On the contrary, it was the most fun he’d had in quite some time. The children’s intense curiosity was like a furnace that his whole being might warm itself against, and their eagerness made him wish to return to his research and regard it with fresh eyes.

“What is your name?” asked the woman.

“Sév—I mean, Enrique,” he said. “Enrique Mercado-Lopez.”

“Well, I am indebted to you for your generous instruction. I have the feeling you’ve made quite the impression on him, and I won’t hear the end of it for days,” said the woman, smiling widely. “Heinrich? Tell the nice professor ‘thank you.’”

“Oh, I’m not a professor—” said Enrique, but no one seemed to hear him.

“Thank you, Professor Mercado-Lopez,” said the boy.

Enrique startled. He had not imagined how much he would love the sound of that title.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling his heart strain against his ribs.

* * *

“I KNOW WHAT I want to do with my life,” Enrique announced hours later.

He stood at the threshold of the library where he, Hypnos, and Zofia had agreed to meet before heading down to dinner. Zofia was poking at the fire, while Hypnos was curled up on an armchair, a glass of red wine in his hand.

Hypnos raised an eyebrow. “Make babies?”

“No!”

“You don’t want children?” asked Zofia.

“Not at this particular moment, no,” said Enrique.

Hypnos took a long sip of wine. “Steal babies.”

“Gods no!” said Enrique. “This has nothing to do with babies! Well, perhaps a little to do with children, but—”

“Now I’m confused,” said Zofia.

“I think I’d like to teach,” said Enrique before either Hypnos or Zofia could misconstrue his words any further. His words came out in a rush: “I like that scholarship inspires others to think for themselves and look at the world differently. I don’t want to simply try to change the world on my own by forcing my ideas on people … I’d much rather encourage them to think differently. I think that’s where lasting change will come from and … and I think I’d be a rather good professor.”

He waited for a moment, readying himself for their reactions.