“But—”

“I have to go, mon cher,” said Hypnos, backing away. “Right now, Séverin needs me. I need to consult with Ruslan, check with the Sphinxes, etcetera, etcetera.” He flailed his hand. “Normally, responsibility gives me indigestion, but I find myself rather motivated.”

He leaned forward, kissing Enrique.

“I have every faith you’ll solve what needs solving and dazzle us all! Immerse yourself in your research, mon cher, it’s—”

“What I do best,” finished Enrique flatly.

Hypnos looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled and walked away. Enrique stared after him, trying not to let those words—what you do best—sink their teeth into his heart. Of course Hypnos was preoccupied. That’s all. He would’ve listened otherwise, wouldn’t he?

Numbly, Enrique reached for the door handle. Only once did he look over his shoulder to see if Hypnos noticed that he’d paused outside the doors. But the other boy never turned. As Enrique walked inside, he felt as if someone had taken the nightmare of waiting for the Ilustrados in the library auditorium and turned it inside out … the slow dread of waiting and hoping to be heard inverted to standing before an audience that could not hear him.

* * *

THE “LIBRARY” SEEMED to Enrique like the entrance to an abandoned temple. Past the double doors lay a marble aisle stippled with light from the panes of skylights above, so that it seemed to undulate. Marble pillars held up the ceiling. Four on each side of the aisle, and one at the end, each of them carved with the likeness of one of the nine muses.

On his right stood Clio, for history; Euterpe, for music; Erato, for love poetry; Melpomene, for tragedy. On his left stood Polymnia, for hymnals; Terpsichore for dance; Thalia, for comedy, and Ourania for astronomy. At the end of the long aisle stood one muse set apart from her sisters as the chief of them all … Calliope. The muse of epic poetry, revered in mythology for the ecstatic transcendence of her voice.

All of them held an object most associated with them: writing tablets and masks, lyres and scrolls. And yet, when Enrique looked closer, wandering over to examine the pillars, he saw that each of the objects were broken. Split down the middle or else lying in stony heaps at the goddesses’ feet. It struck Enrique as a strange artistic choice.

Empty bookshelves covered nearly all the wall space, and yet, when Enrique breathed deeply, he caught the scent of books. Of binding and pages and tales eager to be known. Knowledge was coy. It liked to hide beneath the shroud of myth, place its heart in a fairy tale, as if it were a prize at the end of the quest. Perhaps whatever knowledge here was similar. Perhaps it wished to be wooed and coaxed forth.

Each of the nine muses leaning out of the pillars had one hand extended, as if in greeting or invitation. Enrique hoisted up the dossier of his research beneath his arm, then touched the icy marble hand of Erato, muse of love poetry.

At his touch, the marble muse shivered and split down the middle like a clever pair of double doors that unfurled into shelves. Enrique stepped back, awed. The shelves stretched higher than his head, the sound of the churning wooden gears chewing up the silence around him. When they fell silent, still at last, he reached for the books. At first glance, each tome seemed to be related to love poetry. Enrique studied the titles down the spines: Pyramus and Thisbe, Troilus and Cressida … Laila and Majnun. That stopped him. Laila and Majnun? Wasn’t “Majnun” what Laila had once called Séverin? Enrique’s skin crawled. He had an uncomfortable flashback to throwing open the door to his parents’ bedroom after a harrowing nightmare only to be met with another one.

“Ugh,” he muttered, putting the book hastily back on the shelf.

As he turned his head, a strange design leapt out at him, whittled onto the edge of Erato’s hand. He hadn’t noticed it until the statue, or bookcase as it were, had fully opened. It was like the number 3 flipped:

Enrique traced it delicately. Curious, he thought. Was it the signature of the artisan? He made a quick notation of the symbol and returned to the muse of history. He set up a stand and a projection display for his Mnemo bug.

In his hands, the Mnemo bug felt heavy.

Either he was a fool who had seen nothing on those dead girls’ mouths or he had seen something, and, well, perhaps he was still a fool, but at least he was a fool with observational skills.

Moment of truth, he thought, fixing the Mnemo to the projection.

Just before he could press the display button, the doors of the library flew open, and in stepped a pair of unfamiliar guards. Judging by the snow-dusted fur collar at their throats, they were sentinels positioned outside the Sleeping Palace. The metallic sun that flared on the lapels of their fur coats marked them as delegates from House Dazbog.

“What business do you have here?”

“I am with Séverin Montagnet-Alarie, on business with the Order of Babel—” he started.

One of the guards interrupted, “Oh, now I remember you … What are you, his servant?”

“Valet?” said the other with a laugh. “What are you doing in a room full of books?”

Enrique’s face burned. He was so tired. Of no one listening, or bothering to listen. But then, behind the guards came the fall of thunderous footsteps as Ruslan entered the room and scowled.

“This man is a scholar,” he corrected.

The Dazbog guards looked chastened.

“Our apologies, Patriarch,” said one, kneeling.

The other kneeled too, muttering his apologies.

“Remove your hats!” said Ruslan.

The guards did as told, their hair snow-damp and rumpled. Ruslan made a tch! sound at the back of his throat.

“You don’t deserve your hair,” he muttered. “Go away before I shave your heads.”

From Ruslan, this seemed like a legitimate threat, and the guards immediately scuttled away. Ruslan watched them go, then whirled back to Enrique, his eyes bright with regret.

“I am sorry,” said Ruslan.

Enrique desperately wanted to say something suave like Hypnos or enigmatic like Séverin … but all he had was the truth.

“It’s fine. It’s not the first time,” he said. “And it probably will not be my last.”

Ruslan regarded him for a moment, and then his shoulders fell a fraction. “I understand that.”

That took Enrique by surprise. “How do you mean?”

With his uninjured hand, Ruslan gestured to his own face, turning from side to side.

“Not the most Russian profile in the world, is it?” said Ruslan.

“Well…”

Enrique knew the Russian Empire was huge, with citizens who looked as varied as hues in a rainbow, but there was something Enrique recognized in Ruslan’s features. A gap, in a way, where otherness snuck in and blurred his features. He recognized it because he saw it in his own reflection every day.

“I know,” he said, then patted the top of his head. “I don’t know who my mother was. I imagine she was a Buryat native or a Kyrgyz woman or what have you. Then again, they have such excellent hair that one would think I would’ve inherited it! Rude. Ah well. It does not matter. What does matter is that the part of her that clings to me is the part no one seems to like. So I understand, Mr. Mercado-Lopez. And I see what you wish to hide.”