Play fair, trespasser … your temptation versus mine … grab her, and I will show her an illusion so sweet, you will watch her drown before your eyes. The temple will gain another guardian.

Enrique’s throat tightened. “Zofia … please. Come back with us. Look. The bridge isn’t far…”

It was true. The bridge was hardly three meters away. Already, Laila and Séverin were halfway to the other side. The moment they were on it, they would be safe.

“Why should I listen to you?” asked Zofia.

The waves rose higher, teetering, threatening to crash.

“Because we can’t do this without you, Zofia! Laila needs you!”

Don’t listen to him, Zosia. I am the one who needs you. I am your sister. He is no one.

The illusion’s voice changed to dulcet tones. Dimly, Enrique realized he was staring at an illusion of Hela, Zofia’s older sister.

This is the boy who couldn’t be bothered to kiss you unless it was tied to a mission. He does not want you. And Laila is safe and well! She is waiting for us inside the guest rooms. You shall see if you follow—

Enrique tried to touch her hand, but Zofia yanked it back as if stung.

“She’s lying, Zofia—”

“She is right,” said Zofia dully. “We are friends.”

“Yes. But”—Enrique felt as though he were lifting up a veil to reveal some secret corner of himself—“but I like you far more than a friend probably should. I … I liked our kiss. If things were different, I’d probably be trying to figure out how to do it again—”

Zofia turned her head a little. “Is that true?”

He lies, sister! Come away, come away—

“How do you know you like me as more than a friend would?” she asked.

Around them, the waves slowly curled over. The skeletons loomed six meters away. Now five. Hypnos’s voice turned scratchy and thin. Even with the amplifier, his song would give out soon.

Enrique wished he could show Zofia the strange equation that rebalanced the room whenever she entered it. He wanted to show her the sum frequency with which her candle-blue eyes and candy-red lips cropped up in his thoughts. But she knew him well enough to know that he did not process the world as such, and so he could only give her the answer that was honest.

“How do I know I like you?” repeated Enrique. He forced a grin to his face. “I don’t know. It comes from some other place inside me. The place that believes in superstitions … stories. It feels like … like belonging.”

Zofia whirled to face him. Her eyes adjusted, widened. With a sharp gasp, she let go of the skeleton’s hand. She staggered toward Enrique, and he caught her shivering, sobbing body in his arms.

“Hush, Phoenix, it’s all right, I’m here,” he murmured into her hair.

YOU CANNOT TAKE THAT WHICH BELONGS TO THE TEMPLE. SHE IS OURS NOW—

At that exact second, Hypnos’s song gave out. The siren song built into a crescendo, but it was ruined by the sound of water threatening to crash down over their heads.

“Now!” yelled Hypnos.

He grabbed Enrique’s hand, and the three of them ran to the bridge. The water arced over their heads, threatening to drown them. Dozens of pale, skeletal hands stretched out, spindly fingers cutting through his bandages, catching on his sleeves. The bridge of bone loomed larger. Water swirled around Enrique’s ankles and he slipped. For a moment, the world seemed to slow. He could feel every passing second as if it were a needle trailing along his skin.

As he fell, he pushed Hypnos and Zofia onto the bridge. Water closed up around his waist. A skeletal leg folded around his hip, the movement a corruption of intimacy.

He blinked wildly as water sprayed in his face. The emerald glow of the lake haloed Hypnos’s and Zofia’s bodies, gilding them like saints. If they were his last sight, he would have been happy—

Zofia flung something into the water. Fire caught on one of the skeletal heads, and the thing roared. The mind Forged creatures scuttled back, their hold on him loosening. The water slammed over their heads, but instead of sweeping them into the lake, it flowed over a hidden Forged obstruction. Enrique stared up at the glassy tube encircling the bridge of bone. Brackish water flowed around them, and the only sound came from the ugly thud of skeletal bodies crashing into one another. The moment Enrique clambered onto the bridge, Zofia and Hypnos grabbed his hands, and together they ran to the sudden glowing light on the far end of the wall.

27

LAILA

Laila could not feel anything.

Not even horror.

She remembered running across the bridge of bone, toward the illuminated far wall … but now that lightness had vanished. And with it, her feeling of sensations. She could not feel the hard, wet pebbles that should have been biting into her legs. The blankness had stolen through her the moment they’d crossed the bridge of bone. Her vision kept flickering to black. Her lungs should have ached. Her nose should have filled with the stale scent of the lake. Séverin turned and spat out water, gasping for air.

Moments later, Hypnos, Enrique, and Zofia fell onto the shore alongside them. Laila could hear them coughing and spitting. She could hear Séverin speaking in hushed, worried tones.

But it was as if she were listening to them from under water.

She should have been ecstatic. She should have been weeping that they had made it to the other side. But the blankness that snuck through her was a subtle devourer. It sipped on her joy, nibbled on her panic, and left her with nothing but a crust of herself.

Laila told herself this was normal. She had felt this before, and sensation always came back. But another part of her hissed and whispered: It is taking longer and longer to feel human isn’t it, little broken doll?

Laila forced her attention away, turning instead to the others. When she focused on them, their voices seemed louder. Clearer. Moments passed, and their faces and expressions gained clarity. But beyond them, the cave was a blur of shadows and emptiness.

Hypnos rolled over onto his side, heaving. Enrique lay on his back, his chest moving up and down. Beside him, Zofia drew herself up, clutching her knees to her chest and shaking.

“Enrique?” said Séverin, shaking him. “Are you hurt? What’s happened? Say something, please, I beg you.”

Enrique opened his mouth, whispering something.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Hypnos, his voice prickling. “Is he all right?”

“I—” rasped Enrique. He raised his hand, brushing something at his temples. “Told—you—so.”

And then he flung the beeswax at Séverin’s forehead. Séverin looked unfazed.

“Do you feel better now?”

Enrique snuck a glance at Zofia and then Hypnos. “A little.”

“Do you wish to get off the ground? Or is the weight of sanctimony too great?”

Enrique grinned. He held out his hand, Séverin took it and hoisted the both of them to their feet.

More than anything, Laila wanted to smile. But her face felt frozen.

“Laila?” asked Zofia, looking up at her. “Are you injured?”

Maybe, thought Laila. But she couldn’t feel, so she didn’t know. At first, the words glommed in her throat.