The other set must have come from what Zofia had seen inside the leviathan.

Delphine greeted Laila with a huge scowl. As usual, the other woman was dressed impeccably—her steel-blond hair in a tight chignon, a dark sapphire cape trimmed in fox-fur cascading from around her shoulders. Laila considered her. Delphine was not … nice. But she was kind, and therein lay all the difference. When Delphine had led her away after they discovered the bodies, Laila managed to drag her fingers across the other woman’s scarves and furs. What she felt was the crush of loneliness like a clamp to her heart, and what she glimpsed was the memory of Séverin as a child: violet-eyed and cherub-cheeked, his eyes aglow with wonder. Shame tended to warp memories, conjuring slick and grimy textures in Laila’s readings. But the matriarch’s memories of Séverin ran through her mind like a river of light … and she couldn’t reconcile what Delphine had felt for him and what she had done to him. It made no sense.

“Are they always like this?” asked Delphine.

Laila looked beyond the other woman’s shoulder to where Hypnos and Enrique argued over the positioning of pillows on a chaise; Zofia absentmindedly lit matches and watched them burn; Séverin—who had left the atrium before her—pretended as though he noticed nothing; and poor Ruslan could only rub his head in confusion.

“They’re hungry,” said Laila.

“They’re feral,” said Delphine.

“That too.”

“Should I call for food—”

Behind Laila, the doors opened once more and the attendants came in pushing a cart of food. Laila heard a sigh of “cake” as the food was distributed. Séverin, she noticed, took nothing.

“Let’s get started,” said Séverin loudly.

Delphine lifted an eyebrow, and had made her way to the small arrangement of chairs when Séverin held up his hand.

“Not you.”

Delphine stopped short. Hurt flashed across the other woman’s face.

“I am the one sponsoring your acquisition, therefore I can stay.”

“We already have the presence of two Order patriarchs.”

Delphine let her gaze settle over Ruslan, who waved apologetically, and Hypnos who was frowning over the stemware on his tray. Even Laila felt a slight cringe in her heart.

“What an inspiring sight,” said Delphine. “Two Order representatives strikes me as rather extraneous.”

“Fine,” said Séverin. “I will send one away.”

Across from Laila, Hypnos went still.

“Patriarch Ruslan, would you give us the room please?”

Ruslan blinked owlishly. “Me?”

“Yes.”

Laila caught the sudden sag of Hypnos’s shoulders. Relief clear in every line of his body. When he looked up at Séverin, something like hope touched his eyes.

Ruslan grumbled and pouted, before finally joining Delphine at the front of the room and offering her his uninjured arm. She took it as gingerly as if it were a soiled cloth.

“I will leave you to your work, then,” said Delphine. “But you should know that the Order continues to grow impatient.”

“Do they know where we are?” asked Séverin.

“They will soon enough,” said Delphine. “It’s a secret that neither I, nor Patriarch Ruslan nor Patriarch Hypnos, have the right to keep from them when the Winter Conclave begins in three days.”

“Then I suppose we’d best hurry,” said Séverin.

Ruslan gestured toward the door, and with that, the two of them left the library. Laila made her way to Zofia, who nibbled on the edge of a sugar cookie.

“Not as good as yours,” said Zofia.

“I’ll make them again. When we go home.”

Zofia looked up at her, confusion giving way to happiness. Beside them, Enrique had just finished swallowing half of a large piece of cake.

“Begin,” said Séverin.

Enrique took a swig of tea. He still looked bruised and weary, but there was a new sheen to his eyes. A sheen he only got when curiosity grabbed hold of him. Before he looked at the symbols, he looked to her, and his expression was full of hope.

“The top set of symbols is what we found on the girls,” said Enrique. “The bottom set is from the leviathan—”

Laila frowned. “Where exactly did you find those symbols on the leviathan, Zofia?”

“I walked inside its mouth.”

Laila rubbed her temples. “Alone?”

“There was something inside. And it had stairs.”

“Zofia, that’s too dangerous to do alone,” said Laila. “What if something happened to you?”

Zofia’s gaze turned bleak. “What if something happens to you?”

That took Laila aback. Her palm pulsed with the memory of Zofia and Enrique tending to the wound on her hand just outside of St. Petersburg. They cared, and every time she remembered it, it felt like a beam of unexpected sunlight.

Hypnos shuddered. “That leviathan is a monstrosity—”

“It’s not a monstrosity,” said Zofia, a touch defensively. “Automaton pets are not so far out of the norm—”

“Pet?” repeated Hypnos. “Did she say pet?”

“A pet is a dog or a cat—” started Enrique, appalled.

“Or a tarantula,” said Zofia.

“I beg your pardon—”

“There’s no need to beg,” said Zofia.

Enrique scowled.

“I can’t imagine someone naming that thing and looking upon it fondly,” said Laila.

Zofia seemed to consider this. “… I would name it David.”

All of them went silent.

“David,” repeated Enrique. “A tarantula named Goliath and a metal leviathan named David.”

Zofia nodded.

“Why—”

“The symbols,” said Séverin.

Zofia gestured at the last symbol on the pattern she’d identified.

Enrique rubbed his thumb along his lower lip.

“There’s other repeating ones as well,” he mused. “Like letters. If I switched out a symbol with a vowel it might reveal a message. Let’s try A?” Enrique stepped back, then shook his head. “Never mind. How about E?”

Zofia tilted her head, her blue eyes alight as she studied the pattern.

“Assuming E is the correct vowel for the stand-in, you can work backwards … It’s all building on each other, like a grid…”

“Alphabet made from a grid?” wondered Enrique.

Laila watched Zofia stand, go to the board, bicker with Enrique, and then construct a loose grid …

Enrique let out a whoop of joy.

“Now we just have to line up the symbols with the letters. Zofia, you take the set from the leviathan. I’ll take the original.”

“What do we do?” asked Hypnos, leaning forward eagerly.

“Bask in their brilliance,” said Laila, sighing.

Hypnos pouted in her direction, then moved to sit beside her. He reached for her hand, turning it this way and that.

“How do you do it, ma chère?”

Laila stilled. Had someone told him what she could do? Panic wound through her. Hypnos knew nothing of her secret. She didn’t think Hypnos would view her any differently than the others, but she didn’t entirely trust he could keep such knowledge to himself.