Aramis has a plan involving a prisoner in an iron mask; Porthos lends his strength without asking why; Athos faces his son across a quarrel he cannot win; d'Artagnan serves a king he has stopped trusting. Dumas ends the longest story he ever told by taking his four heroes apart one at a time. Paintings of Bastille cells, moonlit escapes and the closing of an era. In the Gilded Library decoration: the mask, the dungeon grille, a ring of keys.