The little room is humid, and much warmer than the air outside: moisture condenses where it touches the plexiglass. Water drops find other water drops and bunch up together, until they collect enough weight to start their arrhythmic slides down to the baseboard. There’s some bamboo in the room. It’s not healthy bamboo.

The little pool in the center is lined with black garbage bags, and the filtration unit at its side wheezes and shudders. It’s choking on deposits of minerals and ammonia. The ammonia is from dissolved koi waste. There are seventy-eight koi in the pool, and Marguerite’s cold hand.