“I think he knew that she was never meant for him,” said Séverin.

He grabbed his coat from where he’d dropped it to the floor. His hands felt as though they were burning. Then, he made his way to the library to wait out the long night.

PART IV

The Origins of Empire

Master Emanuele Orsatti, House Orcus of the Order’s Italy Faction 1878, reign of King Umberto I

In debating the merits of pursuing hidden treasure, one must weigh the risk of whether it was never meant to be found and if so, why?

25

SÉVERIN

At noon, the devil waited for Séverin.

Séverin took his time leaving the library. He wanted to remember this … the indifferent faces of the nine muses. They were gargantuan, the tops of their marble crowns skimming the stained glass ceiling. They shadowed everything, and perhaps that was the architect’s intent. To remind him of his own insignificance. His powerlessness. But Séverin needed no reminder. Every touch conjured the slip of Tristan’s hot blood on his hands. Every breath carried the stench of the troika flames cornering them in St. Petersburg; the charnel sweetness of the fire that took his parents. Every sight promised unseeing eyes. To be powerless was the price of mortality. And he was done with mortality.

Along with Tristan’s knife, he carried one last reminder of his past: the ouroboros carving that had once adorned his father’s Ring. In another life, it would have been the Ring he’d worn as patriarch of House Vanth. Before, every time he touched the warm metal of the Ring and traced the jeweled eyes of the snake, he felt oddly light, as if someone had knocked loose his soul and it dangled outside him, always searching for a place to put down roots and always starved for light. Perhaps after all this time, his spirit had grown accustomed to the sensation. After all, what were roots when one could choose not be anchored, but instead be born aloft?

And yet, for all that he no longer cared about his inheritance, he couldn’t forget that it had been stolen. He rubbed his thumb along the scar down his palm, remembering the blue light flashing across his eyes from the inheritance test. Proof that the Forging instrument had accepted his blood and still the matriarch had conspired against him. It no longer mattered why she’d lied or what she stood to gain, because in the end, all that mattered was what lay ahead. The alchemy of The Divine Lyrics might grant him the snowy plumes of seraphim or the lacquered horns of demons, but that golden blood would keep its promise:

Nothing would ever be taken from him again.

* * *

SÉVERIN HARDLY HEARD the conversation around him. He felt Eva’s hands on his chest, the heat of a rushed, pressed kiss on his cheek. “For luck,” she’d whispered in his ear. Laila stood unmoving by the entrance, her hand playing lazily at her diamond collar. Zofia had brought him and Hypnos an armband full of incendiary devices and spherical detectors, as well as several Mnemo bugs to capture all angles of what they found down there.

Enrique paced at the entrance of the leviathan’s mouth, tugging the front of his hair.

“You’re looking for a book,” started Enrique.

“Non! A book?” repeated Hypnos, with a false gasp. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

Enrique swatted his arm, and Hypnos grinned.

“We know, mon cher,” he said.

“It’s not going to look like an ordinary tome. It’ll be huge, probably. Bound with animal skin. According to my research, the last time it was seen, someone had tried to carve its name into the surface, but it was cut off at D-I-V-I-N-E L-Y-R.”

“Big, old fragments,” said Hypnos. “Noted. Now kiss me. For luck.”

Séverin watched the exchange. As someone who had been something of an expert in performance, he knew the difference between something genuine and something contrived. That kiss belonged to the latter. The question lay only in who was doing the performing—Hypnos or Enrique? Enrique smiled to himself, color blooming along the tops of his cheeks. Hypnos, however, turned to the leviathan without a second glance.

Séverin had his answer.

“Shall we?” asked Séverin.

Hypnos nodded. By order of the matriarch of House Kore, they only had one task: Go in, find The Divine Lyrics, and get out. It was the highest priority. After that, members from House Dazbog and House Nyx would follow and remove the objects to the library for further cataloguing. The moon in the ice grotto already began to shrink—moment by moment turning more slender, counting down the seconds before the metal leviathan would slip once more back into the waves.

Delphine waited for them near the leviathan, a plate in her hands.

As Séverin got closer, he recognized the familiar smell of raspberry-cherry jam smeared over buttered toast. The taste of his childhood before he’d abandoned all claim to one. When Delphine looked at him, something like hopefulness dared to touch the corners of her eyes. Séverin took the food without comment. He could feel Delphine’s eyes at his back, but he didn’t turn. Just as she hadn’t turned when he’d stared after her, calling her name, even when she’d shaken his shoulders and told him they were no longer family, that she was no longer his Tante FeeFee.

“I’ll call down the time,” said Enrique. “Fifteen minute increments. The matriarch wants you out with ten minutes to spare.”

The leviathan’s mouth was too damp and narrow for them to fit in at the same time, so Séverin went first, his boots easily finding the grooves that led to the staircase. He broke a phosphorescent baton and the light climbed through the metal throat of the leviathan, catching on the tops of a spiraling staircase unwinding deep within its jaws. Séverin swallowed hard. He knew the creature was Forged, and yet it still seemed eerily alive to him. Steam plumed out from its metal joints like exhaled breath. He looked behind him, holding out his hand to Hypnos. The other boy stared into the tunnel, his blue eyes rounded with fear. Unbidden, he remembered Hypnos as he had been—the boy with the singing voice, the boy desperate for an invitation to join the game.

“You didn’t have to come,” said Séverin.

“Nonsense, mon cher,” said Hypnos, even as his teeth chattered. “If I didn’t come, who the hell would have protected you?”

The familiar barbs of those words dug into Séverin. He blinked once and saw Tristan wide-eyed, grinning. He blinked again and saw him dead. Séverin tightened his hand to a fist, feeling the raised edge of his scar, the sour taste of the promise he couldn’t keep: I protect you.

“Come on, then,” he said tonelessly.

The steps were slippery, and the metal joints groaned with the pressure of his weight. Arctic water sloshed over his ankles, soaking through his water-resistant trousers. Everywhere the light touched, Séverin saw ruin. There were still a number of steps to go, but at least he could see the slatted, silver floor of the leviathan’s belly.

“Fifteen minutes down!” called Enrique, though his voice sounded faraway.

Right before they hit the bottom of the stairs, Séverin asked for the spherical detection device. Hypnos handed it to him, and they both watched as the detection light illuminated the gaping shadows, caverns and shelves of the Fallen House’s treasure room.