“So, what’d we miss?” asked Flora.

Weeks of swanning around Paris, eating fantastic food, and shopping for beautiful clothes had left Flora and Daisy loose, glowing, and happy. They leaned against the railing of the promenade, iced coffees in hand, and turned heads. Flora was the picture of Parisian chic, with her red lipstick, bobbed black hair, and wide-legged trousers, while Daisy’s wide-brimmed hat and cat’s-eye sunglasses made her look like a film star. When Shenanigan had last seen them, they had been edging towards happiness; it now looked as if they were ready to approach it head-on. They held hands, anyway.

With uncanny timing, they had returned to check how Felicity was getting on with the French relatives. They had not been prepared to walk through the doors of the Hôtel Martinet and into a major scandal.

“Haven’t you been reading the papers?” asked Felicity.

Flora looked revolted. “We’re on holiday.”

“I don’t want to hear it from the papers anyway,” said Daisy. “I want to hear it from you guys. C’mon, I’m buying you all an ice cream and you’re filling us in, starting with where on earth your uncle got that ratty old boat.”

It was a fine day, and the children were making use of it by helping Maelstrom scrub down the ratty old boat in question. Flora and Daisy made an excellent audience. They sat on the deck and gasped at all the right moments, saying things like “No way!” and “You’re kidding!” and taking turns to fetch fresh lemonade.

“How’s Pomme doing?” asked Daisy, wincing when Shenanigan described the livid mark the pearl garrote had left round her throat.

“She’s fine,” said Shenanigan, “I think.”

“When the tohu-bohu is over, I’ll go find Ouvolpo again,” she’d told Shenanigan the previous night. Shenanigan had been unable to sleep. Her arm needed stitches, which itched like mad—that’s why the word “itch” was in “stitches,” Shenanigan reasoned—so she’d gone to find her cousin. Pomme was in her room, working on a painting.

“Aren’t you going to stick around?”

“Nah,” said Pomme, waving a hand. “Mercredi has everything covered. She’s very detail orientated.”

It was true. Mercredi and Souris were going through all their Family’s documents, tracking down who each piece of the old Martinet collection had been taken from and who it had been sold to. Getting them back to their rightful owners was a project that would take years, and would undoubtedly bankrupt the Martinets. Mercredi got very, very fierce if anyone suggested it wasn’t worth it.

“Do you know how much I love this Hôtel?” she’d snapped when Bouquet said this within earshot. “More than anything. It’s my home. But if it was bought with blood money, it does not belong to me. If I have to sell it to undo my great-grandfather’s mess, then, so help me, I will.”

No one had argued against her taking over as manager. As Souris had said, she’d basically been running the place for years.

“Ouvolpo have a bunch of safe houses around the world,” Pomme went on. “I have a pretty good idea where Emil and the others are headed.”

“Can I come?” asked Shenanigan hopefully.

“Sorry, kiddo. International travel is way harder with kids. But as soon as you hit eighteen, you have an open invitation to join Ouvolpo.”

Shenanigan had shrugged, trying to cover her disappointment. “What about the rest of the Martinets?”

“I am no longer a Martinet!” Pomme had said, grinning. “I have decided that from now on I shall be…Pomme de terre! ”

Shenanigan had flicked through her half phrase book, sure she’d seen that before. Beneath Pomme (n)—apple was Pomme de terre (n)—potato. Literally, “apple of the earth.”

“You’re changing your name to Potato?” she asked doubtfully.

“Yes!” Pomme cried, raising her paintbrush. “I renounce the bourgeois and embrace the staple of the masses, the humble potato! But I’ll still visit, obviously,” she added, “once Mercredi and the others have figured out what’s happening to the place. There are people here I love.”

Pomme wouldn’t have to hide out for much longer. After Beige and Grisaille had been apprehended, a whole hive of police had turned up. Some time later, a figure shrouded in white was removed from the fifth floor and borne away. Rousseau himself was questioned for hours, but would only say that he had come to visit an old friend at the Hôtel Martinet and happened to stumble on the last act of a family drama. No, he had not recognized any of the members of Ouvolpo. No, he had no idea where their hideout was. When asked to provide evidence that Grisaille Martinet and her daughter Beige were responsible for the murder of Bernard Plourdes, he politely suggested that they try doing their jobs.

“Let’s see, what else,” said Felicity, bringing Shenanigan back to the present, and her melting ice cream.

“What about the art?” asked Flora. “Ouvolpo must be looking for Pierrot’s descendants, right?”

“Yes. But, um”—Felicity looked around nervously—“not themselves. They’ve…engaged help.”

“Someone who is very practiced in moving valuable goods between countries without being caught,” said Phenomena.

Flora looked confused. “What, d’you mean M—”

“Well, I hope they manage it,” said Daisy, nudging Flora pointedly. “Whoever they are. I suppose your own painting will be part of the cargo too?”

“A Clown Laments His Lot in Life never belonged to the Swifts any more than it did the Martinets,” said Erf.

“And if it wasn’t ours, it wasn’t stolen, so I don’t need to be mad about it,” said Shenanigan. “Fliss, you missed a spot.”

“You could always help,” grumbled Felicity, attacking a patch of the deck with sandpaper.

Shenanigan wiggled her left arm, which was heavily bandaged where the glass had cut her. “Can’t, stitches.”

A shadow fell over the group, and she looked up to see Inspector Rousseau.

“Swifts.” He looked curiously at Flora and Daisy. “We have not had the pleasure. Hugo Rousseau.”

“Swift and DeMille,” said Daisy, holding out her hand. “Or, rather, Flora Swift and Daisy DeMille. Swift and DeMille sounds like a private detective agency.”

“If you’re hiring, let me know,” said Rousseau, smiling faintly.

“Ah, Inspector!” Maelstrom straightened up. He had been sitting on the stone step lowest to the water, a tin of yellow paint in hand. “You’re just in time for the naming of the boat! Traditionally, you break a glass bottle of champagne against the side, but there have been enough broken bottles around here recently. What do you think?”

Rousseau leaned round him, and read the name painted on the hull.

“Nemesis?” he asked, amused. “I see. An interesting name. Where are you heading?”

“Oh, you know,” said Maelstrom nervously. “No specific destination. I just want to feel the ocean under my feet again.”

“I don’t believe you will get very far on a river boat.”

“Well, it’s just until I get one that’s seaworthy.”

“And your crew?” asked Rousseau. “You may struggle to find an ocean-going vessel that can be crewed alone.”

Maelstrom rubbed at a smudge of paint on the hull. “I, er, hadn’t thought about that.”

“Hmm. Well, it would be irresponsible of me to let you loose on the high seas again, without being watched,” said Rousseau mildly.

Maelstrom’s head snapped up, ready to argue, but then he saw Rousseau’s expression. His returning smile was a slow, hopeful thing. “Would it?”

“Of course. You may decide to take up shark wrestling again, and you’re lucky the last ones didn’t press charges.”

“What about your job?”

Rousseau reached into his coat and pulled out his silver badge. It was blindingly bright in the sun. He considered it for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure what it had been doing in his pocket. Then he tossed it over Maelstrom’s head, into the Seine.

“I was sent to solve a series of art robberies, and instead assisted in uncovering one of the most famous unsolved disappearances in the world,” said Rousseau. “That is a high note to end a career on, don’t you think? Besides, I am long overdue…what do you call it…? Des vacances.”

“A holiday,” said Maelstrom. “You want a holiday.”

“Oui.” Rousseau smiled, and this smile was a real one, crinkling his eyes at the corners.

Felicity sighed as if she was the most put-upon teenager in the world, and shoved a scrubbing brush into Rousseau’s hand. “Don’t just stand there, then,” she said. “Get scrubbing!” She eyed Flora and Daisy. “You two were bad enough. I swear I’ve spent my whole summer watching old people moon over each other.”

“I’m thirty-one,” whispered Flora, appalled.

Shenanigan watched the others sand, and scrub, and paint, and felt her mood sink along with Rousseau’s badge. She had assumed that Maelstrom would take her with him, and maybe Erf and Fliss, perhaps even Phenomena, if they could spare enough space for all the travel-sickness tablets she’d need. Ever since the wrapped, waterproofed art pieces had been placed in the hold, she had been amusing herself with visions of lavish sunsets, hair-raising storms, and stick-and-poke tattoos.

“I’m going to get another lemonade,” she announced, hopping off the boat and heading back to the Hôtel. She was sticky and sore, and despite the fact that everything had worked out pretty well, she felt terrible.

When someone wants you to talk about your feelings, they say, “Don’t bottle it up.” This is because sadness is like fizzy lemonade. If you put a cork in that bottle, the cork will hold—for a while. But over time, life will shake you and shake you, and all your feelings will roil and froth until eventually the cork will pop out with great force, possibly injuring you or those around you. Then all your sadness will spill everywhere in a horrible foaming mess and ruin your party dress.

That is how sadness is like lemonade. It is unlike lemonade in that bottling it up doesn’t even present a good business opportunity for the savvy young entrepreneur. You will not find a buyer for sadness. Everyone is already skilled in making their own.

Shenanigan had been bottling something up for several weeks now, ever since Felicity left for Paris. When she met Fauna coming out of the restaurant, her cousin saw her fizzing.

“Everything all right?” Fauna asked.

“Yep! Everything’s fine,” said Shenanigan. “I’ve just been helping Uncle Maelstrom clean his boat. He and Rousseau are going to go on a trip together.”

“I see,” Fauna said. “That’ll be really good for him.”

“Yep!” said Shenanigan again, with even more forced cheerfulness. “It’ll be really good. Who wants to be stuck at Swift House, anyway?”

Fauna hummed. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

She steered Shenanigan into the Non-Smoking Room, which was empty in the bright mid-afternoon.

“He’s not going forever,” Shenanigan said as Fauna shut the door. She didn’t know why she said it.

“No, he isn’t,” said Fauna. “We’ve already discussed it. He’s probably going to be gone for a month or two.”

Shenanigan nodded, though her chest felt tight.

“I told him that he didn’t have to stick close to the House all the time,” added Fauna. “You girls are older now, and I’m around. We’ll be fine if he wants to get out occasionally, yes?”

Shenanigan felt a huge, invisible hand take hold of her rib cage and squeeze. “Fine,” she said, in her best attempt at a normal voice. “That’s good. He loves traveling. He deserves it.”

Fauna watched her closely. “And how do you feel about that?”

“Fine,” repeated Shenanigan. “He can do what he wants.” She felt as though she was breathing through a pillowcase. “In fact, he can leave forever, for all I care.”

“He’s not going to, Shenanigan.” Fauna said gently. “Maelstrom loves being with you very much.”

“I know he does,” said Shenanigan, “but he’s been with us for years and years. It’s not fair that he doesn’t get to travel like Mum and Dad. And Pomme too—she’s going off with Ouvolpo. He’s just stuck looking after us.”

“Maybe he doesn’t see it as being stuck,” Fauna said. “Maybe he sees it as getting to stay with three of the people he loves most in the world.”

The fist around Shenanigan’s ribs squeezed tighter. “Mum and Dad love us too. They’re just working.”

“I wasn’t saying they don’t—”

“Good!” said Shenanigan hotly. Her throat felt tight, the skin on her back prickly. “Because they do, they just don’t want to— I mean they can’t— International travel is harder with kids!”

“It’s all right, Shenanigan. You’re all right.”

“Shut up!” Shenanigan wheezed. She had wanted to shout, but her lungs felt funny, and her breath wasn’t working properly. “You’re being horrible!”

She had never in her life wanted to hit someone as much as she wanted to hit Fauna in that moment, but all of a sudden she felt as if she couldn’t hit anything. The red balloon in her chest was growing bigger and bigger, and there was no room for anything else. She heard a door open behind her, but the noise barely registered.

“Big breaths,” said Fauna quietly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. Don’t overfill your lungs.”

Shenanigan ignored her. “They send postcards and presents and it’s not their fault they can’t be with us!” To her horror, the lump in her throat got worse and worse, and then there was a great pulling feeling in her chest and hot tears spilled out over her cheeks. “They didn’t abandon us! They didn’t!”

“Oh, Skipper,” said Maelstrom, and when she heard his voice and felt his arm round her shoulders, the balloon finally burst.

She cried, and when Phenomena and Felicity came in, they cried too. And then they all talked—about their parents, about the little family they had made together inside Swift House, and about change. And though the entire episode was too snotty and too honest and too embarrassing, by the end of it, everything was washed away, and clean and new again.