Séverin glanced at his crew. He had longed for this for days, and now he had it. And yet the image seemed knocked askew from his wishes. They did not smile. They did not recline on the chairs, balancing sweets on their laps, and joking.

Enrique’s face was stony. He looked caught between wanting to scream and wishing to stay silent. Zofia looked wary. Laila refused to look at anything except the ring on her finger, and Hypnos kept grinning at him, then grinning back at the others—to no avail.

“Ruslan’s gondola exploded,” said Zofia suddenly.

Séverin felt a little stunned. It was as they’d planned, was it not? And yet, out of nowhere, came the last memory he had with Ruslan … of the patriarch staring up at him, wild-eyed with hope.

“Yes,” said Séverin.

“He did not survive it,” said Zofia.

“No,” said Séverin slowly. “He did not … but Eva—”

“Eva got out,” said Laila, still not looking at him. “She took a third of Hypnos’s funds—”

“Emergency funds, I might add,” sniffed Hypnos.

“And she said that when the time came, she would call on you.”

Séverin nodded, and they stood in silence for a minute.

“He was not a good man,” said Zofia quietly.

The unsaid part of her sentence hung in the air: And yet …

And yet they had killed him.

It left Séverin with a cold sense of awareness. But not guilt. He did not regret what he had done to keep them safe, but he mourned the man Ruslan might have been had power not corrupted him.

“We did what had to be done,” Séverin said. “We’ll carry the weight of that always, but we didn’t have a choice. We need to get to the temple beneath Poveglia, and now we can. But … before we make any more plans, I owe all of you an apology.”

“And an ear,” snapped Enrique. He touched his bandages. “What gave you the right to do what you did? We trusted you, and you threw it all in our faces. You manipulated me. You might’ve killed Laila. You blackmailed Zofia into staying with you when her sister was sick—”

Séverin frowned. “I thought Hela was healed?”

“I don’t know,” said Zofia, her face bleak. “I lost the letter.”

Séverin frowned. He had no idea what she was talking about.

“Though it’s been days, you might as well have missed years,” snapped Enrique.

Séverin held himself still. He forced himself to look each of them in the eye.

“I had no right to act as I did,” he said. “I thought I was protecting you, but I went about it the wrong way. Forgive me. When I lost Tristan—”

“You weren’t the only one who lost him,” said Enrique coldly.

Laila lifted an eyebrow. “We all lost him.”

“And we all grieve differently,” said Hypnos, turning to Enrique and fixing him with a look. “Don’t we, mon cher?”

“I can make amends,” said Séverin quietly. “These past few months, I wasn’t myself. I saw something, and I lost sight of all else … but I have found clarity and—”

“Do you still want to be a god?” asked Enrique.

The question warped the atmosphere of the room. Séverin almost expected tendrils of frost to unfurl across the wooden parquet floor. How could he answer this in a way that proved he hadn’t lost his mind, but rather found a dream worthy of attaining? His fingers twitched to reach for the lyre, to feel the purr of its power against his skin.

Enrique threw up his hands, turning to the others. “You see? He’s not the same! Who—”

“Let me be clear … I do not expect that at the end of all this, puny mortals will erect a temple to us,” said Séverin.

Hypnos sighed. “Well, there goes my motivation.”

“I believe in the lyre’s power,” continued Séverin. “You don’t understand what it felt like to play the instrument. You saw what it could do at its worst … imagine what it can do at its best. Call it fate or destiny or whatever you have to, but I believe in it. I believe we can harness what it has to offer. I believe we can save Laila. I believe I was meant for this … Why else would I be able to play an instrument no one else can?”

Hypnos flinched away from his gaze, as if embarrassed for him. Laila was tight-lipped, her eyes unfocused as if she was trying her best not to look at him. Zofia’s brows were drawn in disbelief. Enrique’s fury had melted into something far worse.

Pity.

“Do you remember the story of Icarus?” asked Enrique.

Séverin knew the myth well. Icarus, along with his father, Daedalus, the famous inventor, escaped imprisonment on a pair of wax wings. Daedalus warned the boy not to fly too close to the sun, but Icarus did not heed his father’s warning. The sun melted his feathers, and Icarus fell to his death.

“I remember it,” said Séverin.

“Then perhaps you would do well to remember the tragedy of flying too high.”

“Is Icarus the tragedy?” asked Séverin. “Or is it Daedalus? Someone who had the power to do impossible things and still could not manage to protect the people he loved most?”

Enrique fell silent at that.

“If you can try, why not do so?” asked Séverin. “If you could give yourself the power to change the course of history, wouldn’t you?”

Enrique turned his face away, but Séverin caught a flash in his eyes.

“If you could save the ones you love, wouldn’t you?”

At this, he looked at Laila and Zofia, both of whom met his eyes steadily. He turned to Hypnos.

“And if you—”

Hypnos perked up. “Oui?”

“I actually have no idea what you want, my friend.”

Hypnos grinned and clapped his hands, staring around at everyone. “I already have what I want. But I would not say no to a temple, harems, etcetera.”

“All I am asking is one last chance to discover what we can do,” Séverin said.

For a moment, he imagined they were back inside L’Eden, standing beneath the glass dome, where the sky looked more like a bowl of stars that had been upturned over their heads. He thought of the beginning of every acquisition—the cushy armchair Enrique favored, the velvet green settee Laila lounged on, Zofia’s high stool with a plate of sugar cookies balancing on her lap, Tristan seated between them hiding Goliath in his jacket. And himself, standing before them.

“If you think what we’re doing is impossible, then let us rewrite what possibility means … together.”

He looked up just in time to see Enrique shake his head, his hands clenched at his side as he stormed from the room.

“Enrique—” said Laila, starting after him.

“Sorry, mon cher,” said Hypnos apologetically, before he darted after Enrique and Laila.

Only Zofia was left. His engineer regarded him warily, twirling an unlit matchstick in her hand.

“Phoenix?” he said softly.

“I do not like what you did.”

Something inside Séverin shrank.

Zofia’s burning blue eyes lifted to his. “But I understand why you did it.”