“Well, now you’re appealing to my vanity and my curiosity,” said Séverin. “Which means, of course, that I can’t help but be tempted.”

“So it’s working, then?” said Laila, grinning.

“Of course it’s working,” said Séverin. He reached out, snapped off a bit of the larkspur’s sugar leaf, and ate it. The taste of vanilla and cardamom rolled over his tongue. He held out a bit to Laila, who immediately popped it into her mouth. She raised her eyebrows at the taste, clearly pleased with her work.

“What do you think?” she asked, looking up at him.

She was so close, he had to look down at her. It was before he had ever touched her, ever kissed her lips or the scar down her spine. She was a wonder to him, a sunlit crystal that could peel back the light to reveal its secret, multihued veins.

“I think it’s fair to say that you have witchcraft in your lips, and hands, and there is as much eloquence in a sugar touch of them as there is in any of your desserts.”

He had meant the words to sound sophisticated … distant, even. After all, they were not his words, but a line stolen from Shakespeare’s Henry V. But when he uttered them, the words turned like a spell. Maybe it was the soft lights of the tent or the painted sugar petals. Whatever it was, his elegantly meant words came out earnestly, and though they were obviously borrowed lines, his tongue did not know the difference. They felt true.

“Fine words,” said Laila, color deepening in her cheeks. “But words without action are hardly convincing.”

“What do you I propose I do to be convincing?”

“Surely you can think of something,” Laila had said, smiling.

He was too stunned by what he’d said and that she hadn’t laughed at him outright that it didn’t occur to him until the next morning that she might have actually welcomed his attention. He should have kissed her hand. He should have told her that her smile was a snare from which he never wished to escape.

I should have, I should have, I should have …

There was no poison more potent than the shadow cast by those words, and they haunted him with renewed fervency ever since he had left the mascherari bar.

Séverin was still thinking of this when he heard footsteps behind him in the poison garden. He did not turn. His hands were behind his back, clasping a pair of garden pliers.

“Did you find something?” asked Eva. She touched his back. The gesture was soft, but her voice was harsh.

“In my hand,” he said.

He had found the pliers this morning when he was searching for an object of comparable weight to the divine lyre. He would need it if he was going to fool Ruslan.

Eva took the pliers, and he heard the rustle of silk as she tucked it into her sleeves. She angled her body as if she were embracing him fondly, wrapping her arms around his waist. In his ear, she hissed: “If I catch even a whiff that you are trying to deceive me, I will kill you. I could make your blood literally boil.”

“If I thought any different, I would not have trusted you at all,” said Séverin mildly.

Eva was still. He could hear her breathing hard. Last night, she had confronted him after they had left the mascherari bar.

“I saw her,” Eva had said, furious. “I recognized her as she left the salon. Did you really think you could hide her from me?”

“No—” Séverin started.

“All that nonsense about meeting at the Bridge of Sighs,” Eva had snarled. “Was it a trick? Did you decide not to help me after all? Because I know what I saw, and I will go to Ruslan and—”

“Spare me the threats, and tell me what you want,” said Séverin harshly. “I had no intention to leave you in the dark, but I doubt you’ll believe me even if I did tell you the truth. All that matters is that we both need to be rid of Ruslan, and now I am certain we can come to an arrangement.”

And so they had.

Séverin turned slowly, ignoring the Mnemo beetles on the wall. For all they perceived, he had been admiring the flowers and she had moved closer. He bent around Eva, and her arms went about his neck.

If they were lovers, it was natural that they should embrace, that she should tuck her head into the curve of his neck and press a kiss beneath his earlobe. Eva rose up on her tiptoes, her lips at his ear, her hand tucking something into his pocket. He could feel the roughness of the leather straps.

“He knows something is wrong.”

* * *

SÉVERIN’S PULSE SPIKED as he adjusted the leather-strapped wristlet Eva had smuggled to him against his arm. With his costume sleeves, the wristlet would be undetectable beneath his robes.

Soon.

He would see them soon. The knowledge moved inside him, desperate as a prayer. How were they? Was Enrique in pain after losing his ear? Would Hypnos clasp him as he would an old friend? Was Zofia well?

Would Laila ever look at him the way she once had?

It was a selfish cycle of questions, all of it centering around his own wants. He couldn’t help himself. Hope was an exercise in delusion. He could only hope for such things if he secretly believed he was deserving of them, and though he knew he had disappointed them beyond belief, he was still holding an instrument of the divine. And with the lyre in his hands, he could believe anything.

“Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie. Are you ready?”

Eva stood in the doorway, holding out the ice-and-blood Forged box. Beside her stood a masked member of the Fallen House. Séverin moved toward them, catching sight of his reflection on the shining red walls as he passed. For his costume, Eva had selected a red-lacquered medico della peste mask, which now hung off the back of his billowing, crimson robes. From here, it looked as if he was sprouting horned ridges along his back, like a chimera not yet formed.

Séverin held Eva’s gaze as he pressed his thumb to the thorny lock of the box. Blood welled on his skin. The box swung open.

“How stiffly you greet me, my love,” he said, forcing a grin to his face. “Have I displeased you?”

“I found your behavior quite cold earlier,” said Eva, turning her head.

“I was distracted,” he said, holding out his hand. “Will you forgive me?”

Eva smiled, then sighed. She moved the ice box to the crook of her left arm, then reached for him. But as she reached out, she stumbled. Séverin caught her, his hand sliding up her wrist, his fingers finding the garden pliers strapped to her arm beneath the heavy, green folds of her robes. He slid it out, and Eva adjusted, the case tumbling to the floor some distance away.

“The box!” she cried.

Beside Eva, the Mnemo honeybee on the mouth of the Fallen House member fluttered. Watching. Séverin knew what it saw. An empty box, and a girl who fell.

“Allow me,” said Séverin.

He moved back a step, bending over the box. In full view of the Mnemo bug, he drew out the lyre from the folds of his billowing sleeves, taking care to make sure it was seen disappearing behind the lid of the box. He pretended to fuss over the instrument as he quietly swapped it with the garden pliers. A few moments later, he shut the lid. He picked up the case one-handed, holding it to him protectively.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked Eva. “Perhaps we can ask Patriarch Ruslan if he’d at least bring it onto the gondola with him? If we have all our supplies ready, we could leave for Poveglia immediately after Carnevale.”