into the chair. Kate whimpered unevenly, too terrified to draw breath, and Jean shrieked, one long extended scream that strangely did not echo in the smothering room.

“Enough!” Ker shouted. “Be silent or you’ll have what to cry about!”

Still, Jean whimpered.

“I’m cold,” she said. “I’m cold.”

Susan saw her shivering. It’s fear, she thought. She’s freezing from fear.

But Susan was hot. The still air stopped up her throat and threatened to stifle her. She watched the soldiers step backward to the wall. One whispered something to Ker, and she nodded. He pushed the back door open farther and gave a low bow. A large black dog came through, followed by a man.

The Genius.

This close, he looked different. Coarser. His features jutted outward, the carefully manicured eyebrows only lines of makeup in a waxed face. Beneath them, his eyes, pale in a way Susan had never seen before, seemed wet and thirsty at the same time.

And he was old. Much older than he’d seemed in the square. Ancient, withered.

He smiled.

“Beautiful,” he said, and his velvet voice reached out to her. “At last.”

He moved to the center of the room, the black dog a shadow at his side, and stood looking at them, turning to each child slowly. Sweat gathered at the edges of Susan’s hair and slipped down toward her eyes. She blinked.

The Genius stepped to Jean. He squinted at her, leaning down, too close to her face. Jean whimpered.

“That face,” he said. “I know it.”

Jean squirmed in the chair, and Susan pulled against the straps.

“Please leave her alone! She’s little!” Max yelled.

“Little,” the man repeated. He put his hand out to Jean’s face and touched one of the tears that rolled down her cheek. Again, that smile. “You remind me of my youth, child.”

He stood looking at her a moment longer, then turned again to survey the rest of them.

“So many questions,” the Genius said, half closing his eyes. His too-blunt teeth flashed behind moist lips. His hand strayed to the dog’s head, and he stroked it.

“So much I want to know.”

He lifted his hands and seemed to consider the thick nails. Then he looked up, and his eyes rested again on Jean.

“Girl,” he said. “Answer me. Who gave you that face?”

Jean’s lips shook as she tried to form an answer.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“That face of yours. That unchanged face. Tell me where it came from.”

Jean just shook her head. “I’m cold,” she whispered. “Please let me out.”

The Genius’s face darkened. “It’s impolite not to answer a direct question, child. I would have thought such a pretty face would come with better manners.”

“Please! She doesn’t know what you’re talking about! None of us do!” It was Max, breathing heavily.

The dog growled, and the Genius patted its head. He gave the animal a gentle push, and it stepped back near Ker, watchful, as the man approached Max.

“He was savage when I found him,” he said softly. “But you needn’t worry. He’s well trained now. So tell me. Tell me who did it. Who made those faces?”

Max looked up at the Genius, then across at Susan.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Ah, but you do,” the Genius said. “You must. A useful boy like you will tell me what made that face.”

Max blinked sweat from his eyes. Susan watched as he struggled to answer. “No one made it. We were born this way. We’ve always been this way.”

The Genius tensed, and Susan saw his eyes narrow.

“Do you mock me, boy?” he whispered. At his tone, the dog got to its feet again, but he motioned it back.

The room was so hot. It had no air. Susan tried to take some in, but there wasn’t enough. Her chest felt tight; her shoulder burned.

“It’s true!” she stammered, half gasping. “We’re not from here! We don’t know anything about this place! Please just let us go home!”

The Genius turned her way. Susan felt as if she were looking at a stretch of road on a hot day. The air rippled before her, and, as it had in the rally square, the Genius’s face shifted. This time, she saw not the handsome man from the square but something feral, ravenous. A hunger, a wanting, throbbed from him.

“Such selfish children,” he said, and now even his voice was frayed. “You can’t hide it, you know. Do you think that if someone has discovered the answer, they’ll be permitted to keep it from me? Do you think you can tell me lies and I will simply walk away?”

Susan didn’t answer.

“I’ve waited,” he said. “I’ve prepared. All these years. I will be satisfied.”

He looked again at Jean, considering, then turned back to Susan, leaning so close she could smell the heat coming from him, musky and sour. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

For another moment, the Genius loomed over her, his body coiled and tense. Then he pulled himself upright and smiled.

“Never mind,” he said, and motioned to Ker. “I can see talk is useless here. But those faces hold secrets that my lady is expert at uncovering. She knows how much I treasure the right answers.”

The Genius moved to a steel table across the room and rolled it toward them.

The heat seemed to stop up Susan’s mouth and nose entirely.

He lifted a small scalpel from the table, then a long needle, and put them down again.

“Be thorough,” he said to Ker.

He moved past the guards to the front door, the dog behind him. Once more, he turned, his eyes found Jean, and he smiled. Then he was gone.

Ker took hold of the table and rolled it forward. The humid air pushed against Susan’s throat, and she watched the woman come. Beside the small scalpel, she could make out a long needle, a glass tube, and a knife with a thin blade. The woman approached Max. He pulled away from her, jerking and spitting, until a soldier stepped forward, gripped his head, and shoved it back against the metal. Ker leaned down with

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