Casimir and Anouk had only been in the city of Bellweather for one rainy afternoon, and already it felt as if every street had borrowed another street's face.

Their family had rented a little green-doored house beside a clockmaker's shop, but the two children had wandered out after lunch to see the striped awnings, the brass streetlamps, and the tall houses with painted shutters.

Casimir wanted to prove he could remember the way back without asking anyone, while Anouk carried a folded paper map that kept softening in the drizzle.

They turned left at a fountain shaped like a sleeping moon, right past a bakery window full of sugared pears, and then followed a lane of blue umbrellas because it looked cheerful. When the umbrellas ended, the clockmaker's bell was nowhere to be heard. The green door, the shop sign, and even the street with the moon fountain had vanished behind a maze of wet stone walls.