“It still doesn’t explain why her name would be carved in a well,” said Eva. “Did the Fallen House climb into the well? Who saw her get in?”

“I have no idea,” sighed Enrique.

“Maybe the third door will tell us,” said Eva.

Enrique made a slight whimpering sound and stood behind Eva. A second later, he seemed to change his mind, and instead stood behind Zofia, muttering, “Pleasedon’tlettherebeakillergoddesspleasedon’tlettherebeakillergoddess…”

Rolling her eyes, Eva pressed her bloodied palm to the metal shield. It swung open with a creaking sound. Immediately, Eva leapt back. Enrique screamed.

“What?” asked Zofia.

Eva turned to her, her green eyes round. “There’s … there’s writing on the wall.”

Enrique didn’t move. “Metaphorically or—”

“You screamed because of writing?” demanded Zofia.

“Depending on the script, some writing can appear exquisitely intimidating,” said Enrique. “And I didn’t scream. I yell-breathed.” He clutched his chest and scowled at her. “It’s different.”

Zofia peered into the third portal and saw the words written in a glowing ink:

TO PLAY AT GOD’S INSTRUMENT

WILL SUMMON THE UNMAKING

24

SÉVERIN

Séverin knew that the finding should make him happy, but he couldn’t remember what happy was. His mind kept catching on a particular memory, like a silk scarf in sharp branches, from last year. The five of them had acquired a costly Fabergé egg, the sale of which supported an ancient Indonesian gold Forging community against the Dutch business interests. It was Zofia’s birthday, though only Laila seemed to have known. As a surprise, she had hidden a cake shaped like a chicken’s egg inside their escape hansom. Before Enrique could start talking about the mythological significance of eggs, Tristan had loudly asked: “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Zofia was the first to answer: “Scientifically speaking, the rooster.” The whole hansom went silent, and then they laughed so hard that Séverin accidentally put his elbow through the cake and all the bright yellow lemon curd that Laila designed like a yolk got onto Enrique’s pants, which only made them laugh harder—

“Stop,” Séverin hissed to his reflection.

He braced himself against the vanity of the bedroom, struggling to get ahold of his breathing. Ruslan and the matriarch had decided to host a formal dinner, which meant that he had a whole evening to get through before he would venture into the leviathan. He willed his pulse to calm.

Laila was, of course, accompanying him, but he hadn’t seen her since the library when Enrique, Eva, and Zofia had rushed to show them the writing on the wall …

TO PLAY AT GOD’S INSTRUMENT

WILL SUMMON THE UNMAKING

It did not solve the mystery of the well, but he didn’t need every mystery answered … that writing was as good as a warrant. The unmaking … vague words with vast consequences. He liked it. It meant The Divine Lyrics was every bit as powerful as he had hoped. Powerful enough to undo every mistake.

“Séverin,” said a voice by the door.

He jolted upright.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Out of all the things that jarred him, how strange that it was his own name. In the past, Laila would have called him Majnun. He never knew why she’d chosen that name and now it didn’t matter.

When Laila entered the room, he first glimpsed her through the mirror, like a fairy tale where the hero crept upon the monster, risking only a glance at her reflection lest she turn his heart to stone. Only this was its inversion. Now the monster glanced upon the maiden, risking only a glimpse of her reflection lest she turn his stone to heart.

In the mirror, he saw that Laila wore a dress of smoke. Gray silk, Forged so the edges looked as if they dissolved into the air around her. The silk moved around her body, revealing a corner of her shoulder before sleeving it in gray plumes, then a plunging neckline for a moment before transforming into a high collar beaded with silver pearls. Her diamond necklace glinted just beneath it.

Every time she snuck up on him, it was like seeing her for the first time. Two years ago, she had arrived with a troupe of nautch dancers at L’Eden and thwarted an attack on his life. At the time, he’d hardly registered her revealing outfit. He had a vague impression of beauty, but something else had instantly transfixed him. It took him a few minutes before he could pin down what it was. Kindness. Laila’s kindness was warmth freely given—like unasked for treasure—and it overwhelmed him as if he were a beggar gifted a king’s ransom for as irrational a reason as the day of the week.

“There seems to be much more of you than meets the eye,” he had said.

Laila had raised her eyebrow and gestured to her outfit. “But not much.”

That was the first time she made him laugh.

Now, he looked at her in the mirror, at her beautiful gown and her burnished skin, her kindness drained to the dregs and nothing but a hard crust of wariness left behind.

“Tomorrow, you’ll have what you want,” he said, not looking at her directly.

And so will I.

The Fallen House couldn’t read its own treasure, but the Fallen House didn’t have Laila. Of course, Laila was not the type to consider how she might be the one carrying the bloodline of the Lost Muses. But if anyone could read that book, he was sure it was her. How fitting, he thought, that he should need her as she needed him, though not nearly in the way he had once imagined. If he believed in such things, he might have called it fate.

“I hope you’ll be satisfied,” he said.

“And you?” she asked. “Will you be satisfied, Séverin?”

Again, that name that hardly felt his own.

“More than that,” he said, smiling to himself. “One might even say reborn.”

* * *

ON THEIR FIRST WALK-THROUGHS of the Sleeping Palace, the one place that had eluded them was the dining room. It had taken the work of House Kore and House Nyx’s attendants to find it. The entrance was not through a door, but a balcony window on the second floor, fifty feet high, which looked out over the jagged, dusky belt of the Ural Mountains. An ice peacock perched before the huge window, translucent feathers fanned out to block the entrance. When it saw them, it swept its feathers aside and let out a mournful coo.

As if from midair, the matriarch stepped out into the vestibule and fixed them with a critical eye.

“Late,” she said, by way of greeting. “Everyone else has arrived.”

Laila sneezed, and her face softened. The matriarch—the same woman who had cast him aside without a second glance—once more shrugged off her fur coat and draped it around Laila’s shoulders. The gesture summoned a cold lump in his throat.

“Thank you,” said Laila.

“I hope your lover is impressively attentive in other respects considering he’d let you freeze at a moment’s notice,” she said, glaring at Séverin. She swept her hand toward the hall. “This way. And do be warned that it looks as though a single step will send you plummeting to your death.”