Enrique turned the image over in his mind. By now, his thoughts had adjusted to the weight of what he’d seen and allowed him some distance from the vividness of it all.

“Or sing…” he said slowly.

Enrique pinched the bridge of his nose, the iconography falling into place, although he didn’t see how it fit with what they’d seen in the caves.

“Perhaps the statue represented a siren,” he said. “The Roman poet Virgil makes some mention of them being worshipped in parts of the empire.”

Séverin tapped his fingers on the table. “But why a siren song? What’s the point of it?”

Enrique frowned. “I don’t know … their song is considered deadly. Mythologically speaking, the only person who was able to hear their song without drowning himself was Odysseus, and that was only because he was tied to the mast of his ship while his crew plugged their ears with beeswax.”

Séverin fell silent for a moment, tipping the liquid map backwards and forwards, the replenished remnants of smoke swirling inside the glass.

“A siren’s song is something that lures us … something beautiful that promises to end only in death,” he said slowly. “What does it have to do with the temple beneath Poveglia? Does it require music or some kind of harmony to unlock the entrance?”

Enrique stared at him. For all of Séverin’s perceptiveness, he seemed to be forgetting the one explanation that stared him in the face.

That the bust of a siren’s head could be nothing more than a warning.

“What if it means the temple itself is the siren’s song,” said Enrique. “In which case it would be the last, beautiful thing we’d see before death.”

Hypnos and Zofia fell quiet. Enrique had thought Séverin would be angry with that line of reasoning, but instead, he grinned.

“Maybe it’s a matter of perspective,” he said. “I seem to remember you showing me a piece of Slavic art that also depicted a being with the head of a woman and the body of a bird. Not unlike the deadly siren.”

“A Gamayun,” said Enrique.

He remembered the piece. It was the size of his thumb and crafted entirely of gold. It was Forged to speak in the voice of the artisan’s dead mother. A curious, haunting thing. He had declined to acquire it for L’Eden’s collection. It seemed wrong to hold a dead voice hostage in the halls.

“What’s a Gamayun?” asked Hypnos.

“A bird of prophecy … said to guard the way to paradise,” said Enrique. “Presumably, she knows all secrets of creation.”

“Siren, gamayun … death or paradise,” said Séverin. “Perhaps what waits for us in Poveglia might have traits of both depending on what we do.”

“Perhaps,” Enrique allowed.

He felt a little foolish for his dramatic conclusion, but he wasn’t entirely convinced that he was wrong …

That cavern did not seem like a place that knew paradise.

“And what do we make of the skeleton at the cave’s entrance?” asked Séverin.

Séverin paced the room. Enrique watched as his hand went to the front of his jacket, the place where he used to reach for his tin of cloves to help him think. Séverin frowned as his hand came away empty.

“The Greek translates to ‘Forgive me,’” said Enrique.

“So … they must have done something wrong?” asked Hypnos.

Enrique remembered the ice grotto inside the Sleeping Palace, the message carved into the rock and left for them to find. But before he could say it, Zofia spoke:

“To play at God’s instrument will summon the unmaking,” she said.

“You think the apology is for playing the instrument?” asked Hypnos.

Zofia shrugged. “It makes sense.”

“Or it could be something else,” said Séverin. “A ritual, perhaps, a sacrifice made before an act was committed.”

“What’s the difference?” asked Hypnos. “There’s still someone dead, a dark lake with God knows what inside of it, and a very eerie cave which is putting me off any appetite for godhood.”

“The difference suggests what we’ll find,” said Séverin. “If it’s an act of ritual, that would suggest that what lies inside that cave is a real place of worship, a place where playing the divine lyre would work. If it’s an apology, then—”

“Then maybe playing the instrument would be a cataclysmic mistake,” said Enrique. “And that’s their way of telling us.”

“Who are they?” asked Zofia.

“Whoever came before,” said Enrique. “The fabric on the skeleton is far too decomposed to date. They might even be one of the Lost Muses who once protected the divine lyre.”

“Any other observations?” asked Séverin.

“A thin foil of metal had been applied to the skeleton’s bones,” said Zofia.

“An interesting decorative choice, but still not indicative of the skeleton’s purpose,” said Séverin.

“It had horns,” said Enrique, remembering the protrusions from its forehead.

Séverin paused. “Horns?”

He reached up, touching his forehead. Enrique remembered that strange hour in the catacombs more than a year ago … the gold ichor that dripped across Séverin’s mouth before giving him wings that shot out from his back and a pair of horns that curled from his temples before vanishing moments later.

“Bull horns, I think,” said Enrique, remembering himself. “Which to me suggests ancient Greece, or the Minoan civilization.”

“Like an animal, sacrificed…” said Séverin. His face lit up. “Like a scapegoat.”

“Scapegoat?” asked Hypnos.

“An animal ritually burdened with a community’s sins, then driven away. People did it to avoid catastrophes. They’d sacrifice an animal to avoid plague or a terrible storm,” explained Enrique. “It’s an ancient practice that’s mentioned in Leviticus, but they used goats, not people, hence the origins of the word ‘scapegoat.’”

“She wasn’t an animal,” said Zofia, almost angrily.

“Of course not!” said Enrique hurriedly. “But the process was similar. Some communities did use people. In ancient Greek, the scapegoating ritual of a person exiled from the community was called pharmakos.”

Hypnos reached for a new wineglass. “So you think this woman could have been exiled from a place and burdened with its sins?”

“I think that depends on what else we find inside that cave,” said Séverin.

As Séverin reached once more for the mind Forged map, Enrique found himself thinking about power. He didn’t know if he fully bought Séverin’s optimism that the lyre would grant them godlike power, but he was confident of one thing. When Enrique closed his eyes and thought of the mind Forged illusion, it wasn’t the golden bones or the siren’s stone lips that rose to the top of his thoughts … but the stench.

The cave brimmed with the stinking breath of something ancient and hungry. It was like standing before a creature who opened its jaws, the better for one to glimpse the cracked limbs still caught between its yellow teeth.