“This way,” she said.

Laila led them past the throng of partygoers, and down one of the many hallways radiating off the main platform until they arrived before a short, empty hallway. At the far end, a sprawling silk tapestry covered one wall.

Enrique studied the tapestry. Embroidered across it was another compass rose, the diamond-shaped points reflecting the territories that fell north, south, east, and west of them. In the north, glaciers sewn together with silver thread. In the south, thready, golden sands. In the east, mountains of green knots, and in the west, woven blue waters.

“From the objects I read, I got the impression that the entrance to the treasure is connected to the tapestry,” said Laila.

“Then let’s go—” said Hypnos.

He took a step past the entrance, but Laila caught his arm.

“Zofia?” said Laila.

Zofia reached into her sleeves and rolled a spherical detection light across the stone. All along the sides of the hallway, coin-sized red lights sprang up next to the lit torches. Enrique’s stomach sank.

“What are those?” asked Zofia.

“Shape-detecting Mnemo devices,” said Hypnos, annoyed. “We employ the same ones at House Nyx. They raise alarms if they detect a moving shape in the background. Usually to get past, one must have a deflecting device that disrupts the machine’s sensors.”

“Then how will we get past?” asked Enrique.

“Simple.” Zofia tapped the end of her mask’s beak. “We remove detection of all shapes.”

In a deft motion, Zofia pinched the long, hooked end of her beak. Puffs of steam uncurled from the nostrils in the bone-white mask, obscuring the blue of her eyes. In her long, navy robes with her face and hair hidden, Zofia reminded him of a psychopomp from a myth … a figure tasked with ferrying souls away from mortal realms.

Laila copied the motion, and Hypnos did the same. Enrique reached for his mask, feeling the slight groove of a depression in its design. A second later, steam poured out.

Zofia must have added a barrier within the mask because he could neither smell nor feel the steam, though he did see it gusting outwards and momentarily clouding his sight. As it cleared, he saw the Forged fog climb up the hallway, blanketing it in a thick, impenetrable mist.

“I counted ten paces to the wall,” said Zofia. “Go.”

Enrique walked through the blankness, his heartbeat thudding loudly in his ribs. He wondered how they might have looked in that second to anyone who might glimpse them … like envoys from hell, cursed angels with plague curling out from their nostrils.

He stretched out his hand, feeling the rough texture of the tapestry under his palm. The hallway seemed to exhale like a long-held sigh. The blankness of the fog gave way to a different hallway as they crossed through the Forged tapestry.

Enrique thought they would be met with silence, but a figure waited for them not two meters away from where they emerged.

A figure dressed in red, head bowed, with a lacquered mask the color of a slit throat.

Slowly, they raised their head. Gloved hands slid up, shoving back the hood, and Enrique sucked in his breath.

A slew of emotions ran through him. Joy, then anger … the bizarre desire to laugh punctured by the sudden throbbing of his wound.

Séverin’s hair was mussed from the mask, but he stood tall and regal in his red robes. He arched an eyebrow, his mouth curving into a grin.

“I told you I’d find you.”

18

LAILA

The moment she saw Séverin, Laila felt the ground melting beneath her, and her belly swooped with sudden weightlessness. It was not desire or even surprise. It was a moment when the present thinned, and the bones of the past showed through.

Laila saw the past.

She saw Séverin reaching for his tin of cloves and an extra packet of matches for Zofia. She saw his mouth curving into a grin as he listened to Enrique’s newest historical finding. She saw his eyes lift to hers before he winked as if they were in on a secret.

The present was a different beast.

None of them had removed their masks. Séverin’s smile fell. For a brief moment, he looked like a pilgrim: worn and penitent. On a mirror behind him in the hall, Laila saw what he must see before him. Robed figures with cruel masks, judges from another world sent to weigh his sins.

Hypnos was the first to throw back his mask.

“You found us!” said Hypnos, grinning. “I knew you would!”

Séverin returned his smile with genuine warmth … and relief.

Against her will, Laila remembered how the blankness had stolen through her last night at the mascherari salon … how texture turned slippery, sound faded, colors bled to white … until he touched her. She remembered how beautiful he looked in the dark room. How wounded.

I would find you anywhere.

“Oh, come now, we can’t stay in those stuffy monstrosities,” said Hypnos, gesturing at his face.

Enrique grumbled as he removed his mask. Séverin looked at him eagerly, but Enrique didn’t make eye contact. Next went Zofia. Her expression jolted Laila.

When Zofia had returned from the gondola trip, she’d told Laila how she had lost Hela’s letter. Laila knew that for someone like Zofia, the panic of the unknown was far worse than whatever news lay inside the envelope. She’d tried comforting her friend, promising they could send word once all this was over, that surely her family must have contacted L’Eden, and as soon as it was safe, they would get in touch with their Parisian staff. But Zofia had remained stiff-faced, terrified and silent. Until now.

When Séverin appeared, something in Zofia shifted. Her shoulders dropped. The tightness around her mouth relaxed. It hit Laila all over again that no matter what he’d done to them, some part of them trusted that Séverin could fix anything.

Her jaw tightened.

The same could not be said for her.

She could feel Séverin’s gaze on her face. His lips tightened … as if in sympathy. Did he think she hid her face because her emotions were so vivid, she could not control herself? Did he think he was being merciful by indulging the privacy of her mask?

Séverin stepped forward, eyeing them hopefully. Warily.

“I … I know that what I did was…”

“Irrelevant right now?” said Laila. She tossed back her mask, her eyes blazing. “You found us. Good. For now, I’d rather focus our attentions on the map to Poveglia. I’ve done as much intel as I could. What do you have for us, Séverin?”

“Other than remorse in your heart?” said Hypnos. “A sufficient amount of guilt, perhaps, that we might all move on?”

“Technically, he cannot have remorse in his heart,” said Zofia.

“I second that,” said Enrique.

“He has blood, ventricles—”

Enrique sighed. Hypnos shook his head and seemed about to speak when a low laugh threaded through it all. Séverin. Laughing. Laila had forgotten the sound of it, deep and full-bellied.

“I’ve missed you all terribly,” he said. “In fact, I—”

“How much more of my time do you wish to waste?” asked Laila coldly, facing them. She raised her hand, the number three plain in her garnet ring. “I expected better of my friends.”