Séverin was back.

The book was here.

In the cold, Laila’s ring felt wondrously loose, as if it wished to be discarded now that there was no point in wearing it.

The other woman approached her, black furs draped around her body. She cut a striking pose on the ice, and if Laila didn’t know better, she’d guess that Delphine was the kind of woman who breathed as if it were an exercise in leisure rather than necessity.

“They’re back?” asked Laila.

Delphine nodded.

Laila felt as if her life was waiting for her to run and catch up to it, but she couldn’t make herself move. Something kept her back. Laila pushed through her misgivings, and rose to meet her fate.

They walked back in silence for a few moments before Delphine spoke. “It’s hard to look at him, is it not?”

Laila knew she meant Séverin, and a long-dead piece of loyalty flared within her.

“I imagine it is just as hard for him to look at you.”

“I owe you no defense of my choices,” said Delphine haughtily. But then she smiled sadly, lost for a moment. “I only meant that I cannot see him as he is now. In my eyes, he will always be a child turned around in his seat at the theatre. A little boy staring at people, watching as wonder bloomed across the audience’s faces.”

Laila could almost picture him as a child. Slight and dark-haired, his dusky eyes huge in his face. A little boy who had to grow up too soon.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Delphine smiled, though it was fragile and did not reach her eyes.

“Because I need to tell someone what I remember,” she said. “I envy you, child.”

Laila bit back a snort. The matriarch had nothing to be envious of. Delphine could move through the world without expectation of a door slammed in her face. Delphine had lived. Laila had only dreamed of life.

“I assure you that any envy I inspire is ill-deserved.”

Delphine looked down at the ice, considering the echo of her face in the lake water. “I envy you because you can look at yourself. You can bear your own reflection, knowing you can shoulder the weight of every choice you made and regret you carry. That is a rare thing as one gets older.”

What feels rarer is the chance to get older, thought Laila.

* * *

INSIDE, THE SLEEPING PALACE was a rush of commotion. One of the House Kore artisans popped a bottle of champagne. A cautious wave of excitement wound through Laila.

“Treasure!” shouted one of them. “Mounds of treasure!”

Delphine accepted a glass of champagne. Laila stood in the shadows, her eyes tracking the room, catching on the glint of light bouncing off the slow-moving ice animals and the grand chandelier swaying overhead.

“The patriarch of House Dazbog had no choice but to send word to the Order of Babel according to Order protocol,” said another. “They’re coming, matriarch. All of them.”

The glass dropped from her hand, shattering onto the floor.

“Here?” Delphine spluttered. “What about the Winter Conclave?”

“It would seem, matriarch, that they are bringing the Winter Conclave … to us.”

Laila looked around the vast, empty atrium. Resentment coiled inside her gut. She didn’t want hundreds of Order members running through here with their sticky hands grabbing for treasure. She might have felt differently if the Conclave admitted its non-Western members—those from the colonial guilds that had been absorbed into the Houses of the country that conquered their land—but they had no place here. It reminded Laila of the dead girls, hunted for their very invisibility in the grand scheme of the world.

“When are they coming?” snarled Delphine.

“Within minutes, matriarch,” said the servant. “They plan to utilize their own Tezcat inroads, both above ground and under water. They will bring their own artisans to decorate before the annual Midnight Auction.”

Delphine swore under her breath. Just then, Laila watched as the servants carried up baskets of treasure—books and statues, jewels dripping off platters and gleaming instruments. Her thoughts felt pulled in a thousand directions. She felt someone shoving a champagne flute into her hand. When she looked up, silver petals rained down from the ice ceiling, clinging to the blue floor. She’d always dreamed that when she got close to the book, her body would know. Maybe her veins would gleam with light, or her hair would raise up off her shoulders. Instead, her pulse turned sluggish. Time seemed to have forgotten to gather her in its momentum, slowing the room and its inhabitants around her. Doubt caught up to her. Her heart hurt for no reason she could name. And then, at last, she felt Enrique and Zofia at her side. Zofia—sweet, stoic Zofia—had tears streaming down her face. Enrique was talking too fast, and she couldn’t catch anything but one phrase, so sharp she felt like she’d broken her life on it:

“There was no book.”

27

ENRIQUE

Six hours before the Midnight Auction …

Enrique once loved the feeling of incredulity. It was the sense that the world conspired to dazzle him. It was how he had felt when he’d first visited L’Eden, on the hotel’s anniversary when Séverin had designed the space to resemble the Garden of Paradise. A basilisk made of apples and twice the size of a dining table writhed between the pillars, twisting and snapping its jaws, perfuming the air with fruit. Topiary creatures gently grazed by silk couches. And Séverin moved among them like a well-tailored god still curating his universe. That was incredulity. That someone like Séverin could summon forth his imagination, and the world would not bowl him over but bow before him. Enrique didn’t remember consciously deciding that he wanted to work for the strange hotelier with a taste for stranger artifacts … all he knew was that he wanted to know what the world looked like from his angle.

What he felt now was a different kind of incredulity. The kind where one has released a dream into the world, only to rediscover it on the ground, trampled and stained.

There was no book.

How …

How could they have been so wrong?

And at such cost?

Beside him, Laila hadn’t moved. Her face was bloodless, her garnet ring sliding down her finger. Zofia stood on Laila’s other side, their shoulders barely touching.

All around them pressed the members of House Dazbog and House Kore. The air seemed to quiver and shake with the promise of guests soon to arrive. At the entrance to the Sleeping Palace, the matriarch of House Kore fixed the lake with a haughty expression.

“How dare they,” she said, under her breath. “They could not stand the thought of someone unearthing treasure without them. Well, that’s fine. Let them bring the Conclave here. Let them see exactly what my patronage still yields.”

She cast a scathing glance at Enrique.

“And you still need a haircut.”

Enrique wanted to grumble at her like he normally did, but he couldn’t find the right words. All he felt was Laila’s hand in his … cold and still as a corpse. A warm hand gripped his shoulder, and Enrique turned to see Hypnos smiling down at him.

“Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” asked Hypnos. His face shone with pride. “We’ve got the treasures of the Fallen House! The Order will have their infamous Midnight Auction. Séverin has his vengeance. Whatever is left of the Fallen House will never recover from this blow.”