“Casimira,” November says quietly, so that they will not be overheard as the suddenly loquacious children laugh and tell old jokes which are for them raw and new. “When will I feel like myself again? I feel all the time as though I am about to fall into a great depth, and my blood is always singing, singing as though the world is ending. So many voices, all those bees—I know all their names! How can I know all their names?”

Casimira turns to her in frank joy, and her face in that moment is so full of surprise and sisterly recognition, of relief in the presence of a compatriot, that November does not suppress the need to touch her: she presses her cheek to the matriarch’s and kisses her roughly, a savagery which may only exist between queens. The children around them exchange grins and stare—they have not yet learned not to stare.

“Never, poor girl,” Casimira says when they part, and her eyes are full of tears. “You are like me now, the only one like me. It will never stop, and you will know all their children’s names, too. And the names of everyone they touch, everyone they sting, for they will not be able to wait to tell you, to report to you all they know, to make you proud of them. You must be gentle, for they are tender-hearted as you and I cannot be. You have their stewardship, and it is a great task.” She squeezes November’s hand. “But you have me, and I have you, now. And we shall not either of us be alone again.”

A great bell sounds and supper arrives—a tiny roasted finch placed on each plate, its head and beak and body intact, overflowing fig and breadcrumbs from its unfortunate mouth. The faculty and graduates draw great black napkins from beside their plates, and Casimira follows suit, smirking slyly as she lifts it and drapes it over her head. As one creature, the hall plucks the tiny birds from their plates and slips them beneath the napkin whole. November stares as two hundred people eat draped in black, as though they were witches, heads bent in prayer to worlds below their feet.

The meal goes on and on—there is no other dish, and November can hear the crunching of avian bones. She does not wish to shame them; November veils herself and takes the finch by its roasted beak, pushing it into her mouth with two fingers, her remaining blessings. It is sweet, at first, the burnished skin and meat, glazed in something like brandy and something like plum wine. But as she chews—methodically, for it fills her mouth to bursting—the organs rupture, bitter and bilious, a taste like despair, like the loss of love. And deeper, the bones shiver and crack and cut her—the taste of her blood flows in, salty as tears shed over a ruined body, mingling with the marrow, and it is sweet again, sweet as herself, herself remaining at the end of all trials.

And November can see why the veil is needed. No god should bear witness to a woman devouring a meal of herself.

She swallows what is left, finally, and lifts the veil from her face, wiping a smear of blood from her lips. Across the city, three souls clutch their bleeding mouths in shock and agony. The hall is empty; they have all gone, and only Casimira remains at her side.

“Are you ready to go home?” she says. And November is.

_______

The house is hiding behind a column when they arrive, dressed as beautifully as November can imagine a boy dressing, in turquoise silk with a wide white collar and pink satin slippers, his belt buckle ivory, his hair combed to brilliance. He has made himself special for them, but he is bashful now, and November kneels, holding her arms out to the boy. In her, the bees dance: Mother, oh, Mother and Wife, stay with us, this is your home!

She holds tightly to herself—she is so spread out now, there must be a list of all the things she is that are not herself. But at the bottom of her heart, she is still November, still the child of a librarian and a woman who caught a shark when she meant to catch a little fish, and she smiles at the boy encouragingly.

My dress; my sail.

He flies to her, his arms small and tight around her neck. Casimira watches them like a satisfied brood hen.

“I have another gift for you, November. A secret in a story. Not so important as the first. Yet it is my hope that in time it will become as vital that you know it.” Casimira sits down on the floor in the center of her hall, and the house climbs up into her lap, kissing her cheek with a loud smack.

“I was born as the children of St. Folquet are born, you must have guessed. It is not possible that I should be otherwise, as our family has within it more wealth than Palimpsest can imagine. We have long thrived on adoption, but my mother could not give me up. The brothers and sisters of that school are not alone in their skill.

“The story they tell of how I came to be in possession of my house is ridiculous—when I was eight years old I was blank as a page, and my mother had to lift my hand to the door knocker, as I could not even do that of my own will. I stood dumbly and mutely in this very hall for a week, neither eating nor moving, so stupid are the unmolded Brauria. Finally the house overcame his shyness and cared for me, as best he knew. He taught me all the languages a house can know, and all the calculations required for its construction, and all the dancing performed and poetry recited upon its floors. It was a good education. And though I cannot think how he came to imagine such a thing, one day he set about licking me into shape, with the smallest tongue and the greatest patience.”

“I talked to the other houses,” the boy says shyly, hiding his face in Casimira’s arm. “They knew where the rich little boys and girls went, and St. Folquet’s School, the school itself, you know, the building, she knows how to wake them up.”

Casimira strokes his hair like a fond cat’s. “I woke up under his mouth, and we have never separated since. That is often the way of it, I understand. And so I alone of my family was able to be both born and live as Casimira, to take my place at the center of the factory and open my ears to all of the small things made in my vats and presses. I daresay I am better at it than any Casimira before me, for I was educated by a house, and this has taught me to think strange enough things to tolerate the secret dreams of the ants in my heart.”

November traces circles on the polished cedar floor. “I thank you for the secret, and for . . . for the bees, but I can’t think why I should ever need to know this,” she said.

Casimira holds her house to her, his fingers tangled up in her long, green hair. Her voice is thick and hard when she speaks, and November understands by now that this means the great lady does not wish her to know that her words mean worlds to her.

“So that you will know, my love. So that you will know that you can be happy here with me. That you can live. That you can have a child in my house and it will not be taken from you. That I was given grace, and you may have it also. So that you will stay until you are old, and close your eyes with me, listening to all our bees and rats and starlings dream, and you will lose nothing by it.”

“Your love is a terrible thing,” November says. “It sits heavy. It stings. It cuts.”

She shrugs. “I am Casimira.”

“I don’t know if I can bear it.”

“I would not have chosen you if you could not. You will get stronger. You will grow calluses.”

The house crawls over to her, his eyes bright blue and as dashing as he can make them. “I will lick your babies alive, I promise,” he says. The love of this one, this small thing inside a big thing, that she can bear. November holds him and rocks him, and she can feel in his little body, which is not exactly flesh, and not exactly plaster, that whatever comprises his heart is thundering in exultation.

“There is a man here,” he whispers finally, as though he does not wish to admit it, to interrupt his time with this new and wonderful toy he has found. “He is waiting for you.”