Séverin walked down the row of outstretched hands. At least a dozen or so stretched before him, but only one called to him like a siren.

Near the end of the row, he paused before a woman’s bronze wrist. His breath caught when he saw her index finger. There, a familiar welt that had healed to a pale scar caught his eye. He knew that mark. He was there when it happened, standing beside her in the kitchens of L’Eden, furious that a pot had dared to burn her hand.

I cannot stand to see you hurt.

Unthinking, Séverin caught hold of the woman’s wrist. He felt her pulse, frantic as his. And maybe it was that—that barest hint that perhaps she felt as much apprehension as he did—that possessed him to do what he did next. Séverin raised her hand to his lips, pressing his mouth to the place where her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird.

An internal mechanism within the floorboards reeled him in through the Tezcat curtains until he found himself in a small silk-lined room. Forged, floating candles dripped pools of golden light.

Laila stood before him, her eyes wide with shock.

Just days ago, he had memorized the poetry of her features. To be faced with them so unexpectedly struck him like bottled lightning let loose behind his ribs. He knew she’d had every right to leave him standing beneath that Bridge of Sighs. He knew that he should fall to his knees and start groveling the moment he laid eyes on her, but for this second, he could not help himself. Joy transfixed him.

Séverin smiled.

Which was precisely when Laila slapped him across the face.

13

LAILA

It was not the first time that evening Laila had left a man heartbroken.

An hour ago, Hypnos had thrown quite the fit before she’d left the matriarch’s safe house.

“I said I’m sorry,” said Laila, her hand on the doorknob. “You know if the circumstances were different, I would have no issue with you going in my stead.”

Hypnos lay facedown on the ground of the matriarch’s safe house. He had refused to move for the past two minutes and counting. Enrique sighed and crossed his arms. Zofia chewed on a matchstick, staring down at Hypnos curiously.

“So, the weight of his sorrow brought him to the ground?” she asked.

“The weight of unfairness,” groaned Hypnos into the carpet. “I have been waiting to go to the mascherari salon for nearly five years, and now, all because of the Order lurking about, I cannot. Everyone is out to harm me, and I don’t know why.”

“Yes, completely unjustified paranoia on the Order’s part,” said Enrique. “There’s nothing alarming about going to a Winter Conclave, then finding yourself paralyzed for several hours and an exiled house resurrected and run by a psychopath who will take one look at you, know the rest of us are alive and probably kill us all—”

“Oh very well, I understand,” said Hypnos, rolling onto his back. “But I can’t move from the sheer injustice of it all.”

Zofia toed experimentally at his arm, which moved a couple centimeters. “Look!”

“I am cured,” said Hypnos flatly.

Laila bit back a laugh. “And I must go.”

From her hand, a silver demi-mask caught the fading light. The first time she had put it on, she had felt the force of mind Forging as if someone had punched through her thoughts. It wasn’t just the location of the salon, but an instruction: Show the silver mask to the artisans, and each mask they made would function as a ticket.

Hypnos made a loud harrumphing sound. Laila offered her hand, and after one more aggrieved sigh, Hypnos took her wrist and hoisted himself up.

“Please pick out a mask for me that brings out my best attributes,” he said.

“What attributes?” asked Zofia. “Your face will be covered.”

Hypnos’s grin turned sly. “Ah, ma chère, I am flattered, but one might argue that my best attribute is actually—”

“Please don’t pick out anything yellow,” said Enrique loudly over Hypnos. “Makes me look sick.”

Hypnos looked affronted. Laila raised an eyebrow, then looked to Zofia. “Any aesthetic requests?”

“Aesthetics don’t matter,” said Zofia.

Behind her, Enrique and Hypnos looked deeply insulted.

“The utility is most important,” said Zofia. “We need something that can hide tools.”

“What kinds of tools?” asked Enrique suspiciously.

“Useful tools.”

“Phoenix…”

“Hmm?”

“You are not actually thinking of hiding a large explosive near our faces, are you?” asked Enrique.

“No,” said Zofia.

“Good—”

“It’s a very tiny explosive. Hardly larger than six centimeters.”

“No,” said Hypnos and Enrique at the same time.

Laila took this as her cue to leave.

* * *

NEARLY AN HOUR later, she had finally made her decision.

Around her, the mascherari salon thrummed with life, and Laila felt a sharp ache for the Palais des Rêves. She missed the smell of the wax on the dance floor, the way the dust motes caught in a beam of chandelier light, the crisp snap of a strand of pearls breaking under her heel. Weeks ago, she had promised her stage manager that L’Enigme would return “in time for the new year.” Clearly, she had not. Laila wondered what they thought had happened to her. Did they think she was dead? Or that she’d merely disappeared? The other dancers had always teased that she was bound to run off with a Russian prince on her travels.

She hoped they believed that was her fate.

“Signora?” asked the Forged artisan.

Laila turned to face the mascherari work table, which was situated to the far right of what looked like a grand ballroom that was curtained off in sections. This side of the chamber carried a distinctly eerie demeanor. Here, it was quiet and hushed thanks to a Forged veil which locked out sound.

“The four masks you requested,” said the Forged artisan.

Laila found it hard to look at the man. He wore a mask like a melted mirror, which adhered to every feature—even his eyes—and rendered him strangely reflective.

“Grazi,” she said, leaning over the table.

In the end, she had chosen the same for all four of them.

“Il medico della peste,” said the artisan, a hint of unease tinging his voice.

The plague doctor’s mask.

Each of the four masks covered the whole of the face. The closely set round eyeholes were covered with shimmering glass, and instead of a hole for the nose and mouth, the mask cinched and elongated into a hooked beak. All four were painted a shade of eggshell white and plastered with sheet music.

“È perfetto,” said Laila graciously.

And it was, in its own way, perfect. Zofia had requested a mask that might hide tools and this was large enough to do so. And the mask held an echo of their final location, Plague Island.

The Forged artisan smiled. Even his teeth were silver. In four deft movements, he folded the masks until they were as thin as handkerchiefs and could fit easily inside the reticule at her wrist.

Laila had just turned to leave when she felt it.

The blankness.