What happened next took place with such swiftness that he didn’t realize what had occurred until it was too late.

One moment, Laila’s hand was on his. The next, she had jerked it forward, bringing his palm to the strings of the divine lyre. Séverin startled, his fingertips catching on those gleaming cords—

The world went silent.

34

LAILA

Laila discovered that dying was not so difficult as one might imagine.

She remembered the pain from the last time Séverin’s hand touched the instrument … the slow pluck of death on her rib cage as if it would peel back her bones and shake out her soul.

But this time, there was no pain.

Maybe she was beyond it.

“Laila, keep your eyes open, please. I just need to get us to the top and everything will change—”

Laila blinked.

Overhead, there were trees, and if Laila could ignore the sharp, jolting steps or the sight of a monstrous bronze hand, she might have imagined she was at a park, lying in the grass and looking up.

When had she stopped going to parks?

She remembered a picnic, Goliath smuggled into a basket, Enrique screaming, Tristan insisting that the tarantula liked brie cheese and only wanted a little. She remembered laughter.

She would have liked another picnic.

Laila felt herself being thrown over someone’s shoulder. Hypnos, she realized. Hypnos was carrying her up the stairs.

“Keep playing!” called Enrique.

“If I do that, she’ll die,” said Séverin.

“If you don’t, she won’t live,” shot back Zofia.

Laila closed her eyes. Light seamed through her. She felt her memories rising up, pulling free from her, so that with every note, a part of her was shorn off like a cliff falling bit by bit into the sea.

Here, the memory of tying the gunghroo bells around her ankles before her mother taught her to dance. The bells smelled like blood and looked like gold, and when they chimed in her heart, she heard her mother’s voice: I will show you to dance the story of the gods.

Pressure on her face. A rough-padded thumb lifting her eyelids. Enrique’s soot-streaked face slowly coming into focus.

“You must keep your eyes open! We’re nearly there!”

Laila tried. At least, she thought she was trying. She could still see the outline of Séverin limping up the steps. He clutched the lyre in one bloodied hand, his mouth a grim and determined twist.

Hypnos pivoted her just as bronze fists shattered on the steps, bronze fingers twitching weakly. Zofia and Enrique darted forward, kicking away the rubble. The Tezcat pendant now looked like a miniature sun.

“One more step and we’ll cross through to the other side—” said Zofia, lifting her foot.

Séverin called out: “Wait! We need to make sure there’s no final trap—”

Hypnos let out a ragged sigh, spinning her once more, and Laila’s vantage point was stolen. All she saw was the thin line of blue light on one of the shining steps, the promise of another place. Her consciousness slipped—

Here, the memory of standing in L’Eden’s kitchen for the first time, pouring ingredients for a cake, her hands dusted with flour and sugar. The beautiful silence of objects with no memory: pale eggshells, a palmful of finely milled sugar, split vanilla beans in a glass measuring cup.

Laila remembered hunger. Not the belly-pinching ache for food, but something else: her mouth watering, a cake slowly rising, water boiling for tea, the sound of friends’ voices just outside the door. The promise that this ache would be filled and then some. She missed that hunger.

“Laila!”

Her eyes opened to Ruslan wrestling Séverin to the ground. Blue light glowed at the back of her eyes, and voices flitted in and out through her thoughts.

“There’s writing on the steps.”

Hide—

—Your

Face—

—Before

God—

—This

Is—

—Not

For—

—You

To—

—See

Those words meant nothing to Laila. Her memories bled from her swiftly—

Séverin’s lips on her spine, kissing his way down her scar; the metallic smell of snow; the wax on the dance floor of the Palais des Rêves; the startling blue of Zofia’s eyes; the Forged tinsel decorations on the stair bannisters of L’Eden; Enrique leaning puppy-like against her legs; the strange tenderness of her first loose tooth; Hypnos’s throaty laughter; her mother splitting a pomegranate with her bare hands; the scratchy luxury of a raw silk gown against her skin; the thick heat of India; Séverin’s wolf grin; a straw doll catching fire and burning, burning, burning.

Dimly, she heard the others calling out, but their voices melded together until she could not distinguish the speaker.

“Turn around!”

“Don’t look!”

“Step backwards!”

Laila tried to anchor her consciousness to one spot, to raise the hand she knew she must still have, but she was fraying by the second.

Ruslan grabbed Séverin by the back of his neck. “You won’t go without me! It’s mine too! I want to know. I need to see—”

The last thing Laila saw was Séverin closing his eyes, throwing his arms up to shield his face. Laila did not see the light behind her, but she saw it fall across Ruslan’s golden face.

Hide your face before God.

The metal of Ruslan’s face sank at the contact of light. A scream ripped from his throat as his face melted in, his skull slipping through red flesh.

But the gold stayed on his bones.

Ruslan had shining bones, thought Laila. Like a god. Like the skeleton they’d found on the shores.

And right before the metal melted, right before death stole him, Laila watched his eyes widen. He fell to his knees, mouth wide—why?

An uncanny brightness glimmered, reflecting off the golden mirror where his face had once been. It looked like gathered starlight, and yet somehow fathomless, like the black skin between stars.

This is not for you to see.

* * *

IT WAS HER last thought before the light swallowed her.

35

ENRIQUE

Even before Enrique saw the writing on the steps, he knew that this was an end.

An end to what, he was unsure. He had come here thinking he might break off a piece of greatness for himself. He thought that whatever lay in this stone could drag down his dreams so they were within grasping distance. He had even imagined that Séverin might be able to do the impossible …

In the seconds before he closed his eyes and the light seamed out from the portal, Enrique caught sight of his friends on the burnished steps of the ziggurat. He saw Hypnos and Zofia leaning against each other, their faces grimy and tear-streaked. He saw Laila laid down on the steps, ragged as a doll. And then there was Séverin, regal as ever, not in the way of gods, but of kings. When the light touched him, Enrique imagined his friend looked like the kings of old … the ones who had once walked up the steps of ziggurats, laid sacrifices and offerings at the feet of the gods, and knew that their greatness was not without price.

Enrique watched as Séverin plucked a string. If it made a sound, he never heard it … but he felt the temple recoiling. In that second, it was as if the world had shifted on its axis … as if the stars in the sky held still to see what would happen next.