Zofia watched, rapt. To her, these statues were feats of Forging technology. They were marble and affinity. But that was all their shapes told her. When she listened to Enrique, though, it was like a new light turning on in her mind, and she wanted to hear more. Enrique paused in front of a statue with outspread wings.

“Strange,” said Enrique. “There’s a tenth statue … This one doesn’t fit. But why muses? It might be a nod to the Order’s lore of the Lost Muses who guard The Divine Lyrics?”

“The Order didn’t construct this art, though,” pointed out Zofia.

“True,” said Enrique, nodding. “And then there’s this tenth statue, which doesn’t fit at all. It’s strange, honestly, look at the shape of—”

“This isn’t the time to ponder!” said Hypnos, gesturing at the floor. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes left by my count.”

By now, the white tinge had spread across nearly half of the room and had begun to creep up the legs of half the goddess statues.

“I don’t think this one is a goddess,” said Enrique. “No distinguishing iconographic aspects. There’s some gold leaf on the wings, but that doesn’t tell us much. And the face is devoid of expression.”

Zofia didn’t move, but there was something familiar about the statue … something that made her think of her sister.

“I want to see too,” grumbled Hypnos, walking over to the statue. He eyed it, then scowled. “If I looked like that, I wouldn’t demand worship either. None of that outfit says ‘pay me obeisance, mortals.’”

“It’s not a muse … it’s a seraph, an angel,” said Enrique.

He took a step closer, then ran his hands along its face, across the shoulders, and down the body of the statue.

Hypnos whistled. “Rather forward of you…”

“I’m trying to see if there’s any depressed spots,” said Enrique, “some sort of release mechanism to get at whatever might be hiding inside here.”

By now, the white tinge had gotten to the statue of the angel. It started at its feet, slowly pulling the marble back into the walls. Zofia’s breath plumed in front of her. The longer she stared at it, the more an old story and game that she and Hela used to play came to mind. She remembered her sister whispering, Can you keep a secret, Zosia?

“Hypnos? Zofia? Any ideas?” called Enrique.

“The nose knows not the scent of secrets, but holds the shape,” Zofia repeated, touching her mouth. Zofia started to cross the room to them. “Hela and I used to play a game from a story our mother told us about angels and children … Before you are born, you know all the secrets of the world. But an angel locked them up by pressing his thumb right above your lips. That’s why everyone has a dent right above their mouth.”

Hypnos frowned. “That’s a pretty tale—”

But Enrique grinned. “It fits … it’s demonstrating the concept of anamnesis!”

Zofia blinked at him.

“Is that a disease?” asked Hypnos.

“It’s this idea of a cosmic loss of innocence. The thumb print of a seraph right below your nose fits with the riddle because the nose would not know the scent of secrets, but holds the shape. It’s the philtrum! Or the Cupid’s bow! That dip right above one’s mouth—below one’s nose. In fact, in Filipino mythology, there are diwatas who—”

“Stop lecturing us and get on with it, Enrique!” said Hypnos.

“Sorry, sorry!”

The white tinge had crept up the seraph’s waist now, and the hands had begun to lose their shape. Quickly, Enrique reached up. He pressed his thumb to the angel’s upper lip. A sound like rushing water emanated from inside the seraph statue. Immediately, it split down the center, the two halves swinging open like a hidden door. Inside the hollow angel stood a slender onyx pedestal, and on that sat a small, shining metal box no bigger than the span of Zofia’s hand. Slender cracks networked across its surface, as if it had been fused together long ago.

“We found it,” said Hypnos, awed.

Enrique reached in, pulling on the box … It didn’t budge.

“Wait,” said Zofia. She held up a pendulum light, shining it on the metal. Small finger indents appeared where Enrique had tried to pull away the box. When she touched it, her Forging affinity for solid matter prickled through her fingertips. “That box is made of Forged tin, reinforced with steel.”

“Is that bad?” asked Enrique.

Zofia nodded, grimacing. “It means my incendiary devices won’t work on it. It’s flame-retardant.” She looked at the interior of the hollow angel and frowned. “And the inside of this statue is a sound barrier…” She touched the layers of sponge, cloth, and cork. Why would a device need to be silent?

A small chime sounded on Hypnos’s watch. He looked up at them.

“Five minutes.”

Zofia felt her throat tightening. The room felt too small, too bright, too much like the laboratory in her old university where they’d locked her inside and—

“Phoenix,” said Enrique softly. “Stay with me. What do we have? You always have something.”

Chardonnet silk was useless here. Beyond her regular tools and matches, all that was left was a controlled incendiary device, which wouldn’t help, and the ice pen in case they needed to freeze the hinges off doors.

“An ice pen,” said Zofia.

“In an already freezing room?” wailed Hypnos. “So, fire is useless … ice is useless … for that matter, I am useless.”

“We can’t even pry it off the stand, so how will we crack it—” started Zofia, but suddenly Enrique paused, something lighting up behind his eyes.

“Crack,” he repeated.

“Aaaand there goes his sanity,” said Hypnos.

“Zofia, hand me that ice pen. It draws water out of the air, yes?” asked Enrique.

Zofia nodded and handed it over, watching as Enrique began to trace every single one of the cracks in the tin box. “Did you know—”

“Here we go,” muttered Hypnos.

“—In 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal made his way through the Alps with his huge army and forty elephants intent on destroying the heart of the Roman Empire,” said Enrique. He poured out the water the pen had collected from the air. The liquid disappeared into the cracks of tin. “Back then, the standard for removing rock obstacles was fairly torturous. Rocks were heated by bonfires, then doused with cold water…”

He touched the ice pen to the box, and a glittering and crackling sound echoed in the silent chamber. Ice spidered out from the fissures. A snapping sound rattled from deep within the box.

“… which would make them crack apart,” said Enrique, grinning.

The box split open, the edges of the metal gleaming damply.

Enrique reached into the box, pulling out the delicate Tezcat spectacles. They were the size of ordinary glasses … albeit more elaborate. The gunmetal-gray frames formed an ivy-and-flower pattern of wrought iron that could be wrapped around the head like a diadem. A pair of square lens frames jutted out, but only one of them held a piece of prismatic glass.