Zofia reached for a match, but Séverin clutched her wrist.

“You’ll burn him!” cried Laila.

“Disfigurement and death are not comparable options,” said Zofia fiercely.

Then, out the corner of Laila’s eyes, she caught a whip of red as a figure rushed toward them. Eva dropped to the floor beside them, breathless. Séverin’s head listed to one side. A blue sheen crept over his skin, and his eyelids started fluttering shut. A sob caught in Laila’s throat.

“I can save him,” said Eva, shoving Laila out of the way. “I’ve seen this kind of attack before.”

Eva grabbed Séverin’s face, then pressed her mouth over his. Her red hair fell over them both, and Séverin clung to her, his hands grabbing at her back. Immediately, the ice melted from Séverin’s mouth. He gasped for breath as Eva pulled away, his face still cradled in her hands. The sight sent a strange twist of acid through her stomach. She watched as Séverin blinked rapidly. Ice rimmed his eyelashes. His gaze pinned Eva as if he were a cursed prince and she alone had freed him.

PART III

From the archival records of the Order of Babel author unknown

1878, Amsterdam

Blood-Forging is a particularly vulgar art, fit only for the meanest of brothels. That it is not banned in every country is, I believe, an utter travesty.

16

LAILA

Laila crossed and uncrossed her ankles, fidgeting with the end of her dress. Nearly four hours had passed since Eva rescued Séverin. Since then, he had been holed up with her and a physician Ruslan had brought in from Irkutsk. No one was allowed to enter his chamber despite Laila’s protests. On the one hand, she wasn’t waiting alone … but she was the only one left awake.

After two hours, Hypnos had commandeered Enrique’s left shoulder as a pillow. After three, Zofia started to doze off, though she kept jerking her head back until Enrique—terrified she’d snap her neck—maneuvered his right shoulder into her pillow.

“Don’t worry, Laila,” Enrique had said, yawning. “There’s no way I’ll fall asleep like this. We’ll see him soon. I’m sure of it.”

That was twenty minutes ago.

Now he was lightly snoring.

Laila sighed and removed her blanket. Gently, she tucked it across the three of them and started clearing the papers on the table filled with Enrique’s notes recounting what he’d seen, and Zofia’s diagrams of the hallway. Hypnos had also asked for paper, for what purpose Laila couldn’t fathom until she looked down and saw doodles of snowflakes and the animals from the ice menagerie.

Outside the window, the frozen lake gleamed sleek with new snow. Earlier, it had seemed so isolated. Now, activity buzzed around the palace. Armored Sphinxes stood, unmoving, around the perimeters. The familiar bloodred shimmer of Forged alarm nets stretched across the ice. Necessary precautions, Ruslan had explained, to keep them safe from the Fallen House members who had attacked them in Moscow.

“What’s left of them is a small knot of fanatics,” Ruslan had said. “They won’t be able to make it past Irkutsk without our resources. Don’t worry. You’re under House Dazbog’s protection.”

A small knot of fanatics could still kill, though. Laila had remembered that truth each night before bed, when she whispered a prayer for Tristan’s restless soul. With one slice of that blade-brimmed hat, Roux-Joubert had killed him. She’d never forget the fevered light in his eyes, or the way he had pathetically crumpled at the feet of the doctor, the masked leader of the Fallen House. She hadn’t been able to read anything of the man, but she hadn’t forgotten the stillness of him. It looked inhuman.

The sound of footfalls on the staircase made her sit up straight.

Ruslan appeared, carrying more blankets in his uninjured arm. He smiled apologetically when he saw her, and a warmth of gratitude spread through her. It was Ruslan who had thought to bring an extra couch, quilts, vodka, and several thimble-sized glasses, and a spread of Lake Baikal cuisine—cold, smoked omul fish, taiga meat wrapped in forest ferns and frozen berries, cloudberry jam cakes, and golden pirozhki baked into the shapes of fish and wild fowl. Laila couldn’t summon much of an appetite after what happened in the ice grotto, and so Enrique had eaten her share … as well as everyone else’s.

“I know it’s not much, but, no need to wait in the cold,” said Ruslan. “Bad for the heart and the hair, and you have got the loveliest strands. Like a girl from a myth.” Ruslan held his slinged arm close to his chest. “Are you familiar with the eleventh-century Persian poet Ferdowsi? He wrote a fabulous poem called the Shahnameh, otherwise known as The Book of Kings. No?” Ruslan swayed a little, closing his eyes as if that simple act would pull him into another world. “Just imagine it … elegant courts and citrus trees, jewels in the hair and poetry dissolving like sugar on the tongue.” He sighed, opening his eyes. “With that hair, you remind me of the Princess Rudaba, and your Séverin is like King Zal! In the tales, she let down her mesmerizing tresses, and King Zal used them as a rope. I hope you do not use yours as a rope. Very unhygienic.”

Laila laughed in spite of herself. “I assure you, I do not.”

“Good, good,” said Ruslan, rubbing his head.

Ruslan seemed lost in thought after that, murmuring to himself about braids and orange trees. House Dazbog—with its focus on the accumulation of knowledge rather than objects—was unlike the other Houses. And Ruslan seemed unlike most patriarchs. He didn’t even look European. His high, broad cheekbones reminded her of the perfume ateliers who had arrived from China and set up shop in Paris. There was an upswept tilt to his eyes, like Enrique, and his face seemed to belong to two worlds: east and west.

Down the hall, the door to Séverin’s suite opened, and the physician poked his head out.

“Patriarch Ruslan?”

Laila moved toward the door, but the physician held out his hand.

“I apologize, but the blood Forging artist said the mistress can’t come in yet. It might alter his heart rate and blood pressure, which we’ve only just stabilized.”

Laila’s hand curled into a fist, but she stepped back as Ruslan made his way to the door.

“I’m sure it will only be a moment longer,” he said kindly.

When the door closed behind him, Laila heard the faintest laugh. She whirled around to see Delphine standing once more at the stair landing. Every twenty minutes she had arrived, each time demanding entry.

“I am his patron, after all,” she’d said to the physician.

To Laila, she sounded more like a worried parent.

“No admittance yet? I believe the girl who resuscitated him has not encountered the same problem,” said Delphine, with a slanting smile. “She’s very pretty.”

Laila remembered the crimson fall of Eva’s hair when she bent over Séverin.

“She is,” said Laila stiffly. “And we are indebted to her.”

Laila walked back to the others, taking a seat by the window and ignoring the other woman. Delphine sat beside her anyway, pushing aside the vodka bottle and reaching for the last remaining cake. Laila thought for sure Enrique would jolt awake, somehow sensing the last cake would be taken from him, but instead, he snored louder. Outside, dusk quickly descended into night, and the number in Laila’s ring changed shape. She forced herself to take even breaths. She still had sixteen days left. There was still time to live.