A twist of heartache ran through Séverin. He remembered Delphine Desrosier’s fierce, blue gaze, the way she’d set her jaw when she told him that she would sacrifice herself.

“A pity,” said Séverin, forcing the emotion out of his voice.

“They cannot find the bodies of Monsieur Mercado-Lopez, Mademoiselle Boguska, or Mademoiselle Laila either.”

The moment of silence stretched out. Even in the dark, Séverin could sense Eva tensing beside him.

“Laila loved them very much,” he said calmly. “She might have buried them herself, or else is keeping vigil over their bodies while she waits to die. She’s … pathetic like that.”

“Perhaps,” said Ruslan quietly.

Séverin bit back a shudder as Ruslan’s cold, golden hand trailed down his cheeks. “But what if they are alive? What if they seek to deprive you of all that you so richly deserve? We can’t have that.”

“That would be quite the spectacle considering you saw me kill them.”

“The world is full of marvels both wondrous and terrible, Monsieur,” said Ruslan. His lips were next to his ear. “I am merely keeping my perspective open.”

* * *

“HE WILL KILL you if you try to betray him, you know,” said Eva.

Séverin turned his head to the sound of her voice. Despite the gondola rocking beneath him, the blindfold had not budged. For all he knew, anyone could be recording him … documenting his movements, noting the inflection of his voice.

“Why would I betray him?”

Eva was silent a moment, then her voice dropped to a whisper. “He said there were discrepancies … and yet the proof of life you promised me never manifested. How am I supposed to trust you?”

Séverin was quiet. How am I supposed to trust you? he wondered.

Some twenty minutes passed before the Forged gondola stopped. Séverin heard the rustle of silk as Eva stepped out. He could hardly make out which of the neighborhood sestieri she had brought them to, but he could hear the hiss of cats in an alley and far away, the mournful note of a lone violin.

The black cloth fell away from his eyes, revealing a dimly lit street on the water’s edge. It looked abandoned. Nothing moved except an unpainted porcelain colombina mask. On a person, the half mask would have left the wearer’s face only partially concealed. But the mask was not for people. It dangled from a lonely iron hook in the wall beneath which lay a dingy window lit only by a stub of a candle. The candlelight shone through the eyeholes of the mask, and on the opposite plaster wall, the shape of a grinning face flickered in and out of the light not high above the cobblestone streets. There, just beneath the mismatched shadows … the faint outline of a door beckoning them to the mascherari salon within.

Inside stretched a chamber the size of a generous ballroom. Dozens of patrons wearing masks carved in the shapes of grinning tigers or human expressions of rigid joy and terror danced around the room. Forged platters bearing amaro in crystal cups next to bowls of ice floated through the crowd, perfuming the room with bitter aniseed and myrtle. Around Séverin, the voice of an unseen opera singer could just barely be heard over the rustling silks and muffled laughter of patrons in the corners. At the threshold of the salon, a person wearing a mask that was nothing but a large, black oval and a painted, toothy grin bowed low to Séverin and Eva at the entrance.

“Here, we remove the faces we show the world and submit to something greater,” said the individual. “Welcome, friends … may you find that which you seek. May you leave our sanctuary able to face the world anew.”

It was a strange sanctuary, thought Séverin as he studied the room. Far above him, dozens of metal beams rotated slowly in the air. Draped over the beams lay a constellation of silken threads, from which swung hundreds of sculpted faces. Some were unfinished, nothing more than a voluptuous mouth painted on plaster. Some were lifelike—the Forged plaster capable of grins and long lashes blinking back to reveal hollows for eyes. The traditional masks of Venice appeared amongst them: The bauta, with its protruding chin, the hollows of its eyes adorned with gilded diagonals. The colombina half mask, crushed pearls baked into its edges. In the recessed balconies of the chamber, the mascheraris worked furiously. On their faces, they wore clever shields that looked like liquid mirrors clinging to their features so that any who tried to guess at their identity would only see themselves reflected.

Something on the back wall caught Séverin’s eye. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a heavy, emerald-colored curtain that hung from the ceiling to the floor. But a second glance revealed at least a dozen hands poking through the drapes.

Some patrons ignored the hands as they walked past. Others dropped coins and letters and ribbons. One partygoer wearing a feline mask lightly touched an extended hand. An invitation, it seemed, and one that, a moment later, was accepted as the feline-masked person was pulled, laughing, through the curtains.

Séverin was still staring at the curtain when Eva touched his arm. “Wait here. I’m going to get the masks myself.”

Séverin protested, but Eva held up her hand. “Ruslan might have sent us both here, but the Order will be looking for you. They may even have one of the mascherari workers reporting to them in disguise. You’re … you’re safer here.”

Eva was right, though why she would protect him when she had said she didn’t trust him was strange. Perhaps she was like him … hoping that she had placed her faith in the right person.

“Thank you,” said Séverin.

“I’ll find you soon,” said Eva. “It should not take me longer than half an hour.”

With that, she disappeared into the crowd. Séverin watched her go. The scraps of a plan itched at the back of his skull, but there was nothing for it to tether itself to. And there was still the problem of the lyre. Ruslan was not coming with them, which meant he would expect the lyre to stay by his side. Perhaps Séverin could switch the instrument with an object of identical weight, but how could he do that without Eva’s help—

“Do you wish to sample a different fate, signore?” interrupted a voice at his side.

Séverin turned to see a short, pale-skinned man speaking to him from behind a large mask carved to the likeness of a frog with bulging, glassy eyes.

“Here you can be anyone you wish,” said the man, gesturing to the back wall and the curtain of disembodied hands. “You merely have to pluck a face from the air itself … or perhaps you might wish to open your hands to fate, and see what love and fortune befalls you…”

Séverin was on the verge of dismissing the man entirely when a slender figure caught his attention. A woman. She was too far away for him to see her features, but there was something in the way she moved. She moved the way he imagined a star-touched goddess would step through the night sky, aware that the brush of her ankle or tilt of her hip might knock a man’s destiny askew.

“Signore?” asked the short man again.

“Yes,” said Séverin, distracted. “Let me open my hands to fate.”

He felt a low buzz ringing in his ears as the man led him to the samite curtains. The woman had disappeared on the other side, guided through some Tezcat portal hidden in the mirrored wall. Séverin felt the loss of her presence like a physical ache. Before him, masked patrons flitted past the curtain of hands. He watched a person pause before an open hand, dropping a kiss at the center of a palm before walking away. The hand curled around the kiss, then withdrew completely.