Enrique turned the apple in his palm. In its rind, he noticed the tiniest slit. He pressed his thumbs around the crack, and the fruit broke open, revealing a folded-up note:

Harbor #7

The Phoenix’s fire must hold through midnight.

Be there in three hours.

15

ZOFIA

In the early-morning hours, Zofia held two halves of a broken heart, each made of glass and about the width and length of her smallest finger.

The pieces had come from the crystal stag in the Sleeping Palace. She knew it was not alive, but she had grown fond of the intricate machine whose Forging artistry was unlike anything she had encountered thanks to the Fallen House. The ice creatures could communicate—in the most basic of senses—with one another. They could detect light, and pursue it; sense weight, and bear it; and, depending on the tampering of its settings … sense an intruder and attack them.

Before they had left the Sleeping Palace, she had removed this heart from the stag and taken it with her, thinking she might study it a little further. Now, with some added metallurgical Forging of her own, she had created a bonded pair of explosives capable of communicating with each other. When one detonated, so would the other.

Zofia was not sure if it would be useful, but at least it addressed an unknown. Looking around her laboratory, Zofia wondered whether she had done enough. She had Forged miniature explosive devices, tools capable of muffling sound, lengths of rope and retractable blades. And that was not including the tools now concealed in the long robes for tonight’s Carnevale.

One unknown at a time, Zofia told herself.

There were three days left until the number on Laila’s garnet ring read zero. Three days to find the light that would lead Laila out of the dark. Three days until Zofia would face the unknown contents of Hela’s letter. Even now, she could feel the softened edges of her sister’s envelope against her skin. Twice today, she had removed the letter and smoothed it onto her worktable. But she could not open it, not until there were less unknowns ahead of her. It was just as Hela had told her all those years ago:

I would wait for the light to show me the paths before me … and then I would not be so lost.

Every day, Zofia felt as though she were working toward more light.

She was on the verge of lowering the two halves of the stag’s heart into a fireproof box when Enrique burst through the doors of her laboratory. He was breathing fast. High color touched his cheeks, and his hair looked mussed.

“Drop what you’re doing!” he cried.

Zofia frowned. “Is that wise? This is a bomb.”

Enrique’s eyes went wide and he waved his hand. “Never mind, do not drop that.”

In the other room, Hypnos had been singing loudly and playing the piano, but now the music stopped abruptly. “Isn’t it too early in the day to toy with explosives?” he called.

Zofia considered her worktable. “Not for me.”

“How was Séverin?” asked Hypnos, appearing in the doorway.

“He wasn’t there,” said Enrique, holding up an apple. “But a boy gave me this.”

Zofia remembered Enrique complaining about the apples in L’Eden years ago. “I thought you don’t like apples.”

“I don’t, but—”

“You don’t like apples?” asked Hypnos. “But tarte tatin is a gift from the gods!”

“Tarte tatin is different—”

“But it’s made from apples—”

“Enough about apples!” said Enrique, waving his hand. “It’s a message from Séverin.”

Zofia gently set the halved explosives into their box and stood.

“Harbor number seven … the Phoenix’s fire must hold through midnight,” read Hypnos aloud. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Harbor number seven must be where they keep the Fallen House’s gondolas. Séverin needed a plan for us to get rid of Ruslan, so this must be it.” Enrique glanced at Zofia and smiled. “The reference to Phoenix’s fire is an obvious nod to her gift.”

“Gift?” said Hypnos, peering at Zofia. “I wasn’t aware of any gifts other than the ability to deliver morbid statements with an exceptionally flat affect. Oh, and wonderful hair.”

He was grinning, so Zofia knew this was a joke and smiled back.

A small smile touched Enrique’s lips and his gaze flew to hers. It was the way he had once looked at Séverin at the successful end of an acquisition. It was … pride, Zofia realized.

Enrique was proud of her.

The thought made her face feel strangely warm.

“Ruslan might be a demon, but blowing up his gondola seems … grisly,” said Hypnos.

Enrique scowled, touching his ear. “If the tables were turned, I doubt he would feel the same hesitation.”

Zofia agreed with Enrique.

“What about the rest of the instructions?” asked Hypnos, before reciting: “Fire must hold through midnight. What does that mean?”

“He used that code in the past,” said Zofia. Hypnos’s eyebrows scrunched together, which meant he did not know what she meant, so Zofia explained. “Séverin used it as code for an explosion that must not be detonated until an appointed time.”

Enrique sighed, tugging at his hair. “So we need to get close enough to the Fallen House gondola to put an explosive on it, and then figure out a way to detonate it from a distance?”

“What can explode something at a distance?” asked Hypnos, frowning.

Zofia glanced at her worktable and the bonded explosive pair.

“A broken heart,” said Zofia.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, Zofia, Enrique, and Hypnos watched the gondolas cross the Grand Canal from beneath the shadows of an archway on the Rialto Bridge. Zofia had not left the safe house since they had arrived, and it struck her suddenly that she was in Venice. She was so far away from Paris and Poland, so far from all the things that had always been so familiar, and yet even here, the sun rose and the sky looked blue. When they were children, Hela said the dawn was secretly a broken egg, its yolk dribbling slowly across the sky. Hela said that if they were only tall enough, they might scoop up the sticky sunshine in their palms, slurp it down, and turn into angels.

It did not sound particularly appealing to Zofia.

She did not like the smell of raw eggs. And she did not like the sliminess of egg yolks. What she did like was her sister’s voice whispering stories to her in the dark. And it was this thought that warmed Zofia despite the February air that turned her every exhale into lace.

Beside her, Enrique lowered his binoculars. “We have a problem.”

“Just the one?” asked Hypnos.

Enrique glared at him. “See that?” He pointed to the wooden spikes that the gondolas were tethered to. “They have Mnemo bugs on them. If we try to access the gondola from the street, they’ll know and find us.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m here,” said Hypnos.

“Somehow I don’t imagine the Fallen House realizing that you’re alive and here is good for anything,” said Enrique. “Besides, Laila will be furious when she finds out you left the safe house.”