Enrique was in no mood to congratulate, and so he said nothing. Hypnos didn’t seem to notice. His hand slipped from Enrique’s shoulder as he pointed to the ice. Beside Hypnos, Eva appeared, crossing her arms. A challenging smile curved her lips.

“They’re here,” she said slowly.

Enrique’s pulse kicked up at the sound of paws scraping over ice. Hundreds of dogsleds poured across Lake Baikal’s frozen waters. As they got closer, Enrique recognized different factions of the Order and the living treasure chests that kept pace beside them. A beryl wolf let loose a mechanical howl. Eva nodded in the wolf’s direction.

“House Orcus,” she said. “They specialize in collecting objects of torture, particularly ones used to punish oathbreakers.”

Overhead, an obsidian eagle swooped low, its shadow stretched across the water.

“House Frigg of the Prussian Empire,” explained Eva once more, pointing at the pale bird. “They have more of an agricultural taste when it comes to their acquisitions, particularly in tapping rubber trees—”

“A taste for agriculture?” repeated Hypnos, his lip curling. “I’m sure that’s how those souls in Africa see it too.”

A marble dolphin broke the surface of the ice before disappearing under the waves while an agate chamois goat and a stately onyx horse trotted beside two ornate carriages.

“House Njord, House Hadúr, and House Atya of the Austro-Hungarian factions,” said Eva.

Hypnos crossed his arms and let out a low whistle. “And what do we have here? Ah, even the British decided to take a peek at our wares.” He waved at a shimmering golden lion making its way slowly across the ice. Beside it, a smaller and less ornate carriage. Like an afterthought.

“They tend to keep their findings to themselves and their museums,” said Hypnos, rolling his eyes. “But the Fallen House’s long-lost wares tempt them all.”

Enrique felt his stomach turn as he watched the procession of the Winter Conclave. The Order thought of themselves as guardians of Western civilization, but their might was far more powerful and terrible; they were custodians of history. What they took, the world forgot. And he had helped them.

Eva tugged at her silver ballerina pendant. “They’re going to want to see all of you tonight … the great treasure hunters who found the hidden nest of the Fallen House.”

“I don’t want to see them,” said Enrique automatically.

“Oh, come now,” said Hypnos. “Even I don’t like them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful to us.”

“I’m afraid none of us have any choice in the matter,” said Eva, before pausing to look around the hall. “Where’s Mademoiselle Laila?”

It was only then that Enrique noticed a weightlessness in his palms.

He looked down and realized he was no longer holding her hand. When he turned around, he only saw the icy archway of the Sleeping Palace. Laila had disappeared.

“Where did she go?” asked Enrique, turning to Zofia.

But Zofia’s gaze was fixed on the arriving Houses of the Order of Babel. Enrique looked to Ruslan and Delphine, but they had broken away to greet the other Houses.

“And where’s Séverin?” asked Enrique.

Eva shrugged. “The last I saw of him was an hour ago. He was supervising the transportation of treasures from out of the leviathan. They still have to be catalogued and prepared for the Winter Conclave’s Midnight Auction.”

“Where are they keeping the objects?” asked Enrique.

“The library, I believe.”

“It’s nearly three in the afternoon,” said Zofia.

Eva fixed her with a stare. “So?”

“The leviathan only stays for an hour. It mechanically cannot stay longer.”

“I’m not sure it has much of a choice when there’s Forged metal ropes involved,” said Eva.

“David has been leashed to the ice?” asked Zofia, her voice rising.

“David?” said Eva with a laugh. “We would’ve pinned that thing to the ground earlier if those ropes hadn’t taken so long to Forge.”

Zofia glowered.

“Excuse us,” said Enrique brusquely.

He nudged Zofia out of the crowd, then steered them far away from Eva and the Order’s procession.

“See, this is why you don’t name mechanical monsters,” muttered Enrique as he marched them deeper into the atrium.

“Why are we leaving?” demanded Zofia.

“One, we have to find Séverin in the library. And two, I didn’t want you to set Eva on fire.”

“I would not waste an incendiary pendant,” said Zofia grimly.

As they made their way to the library, Enrique dodged planners and artisans, napping ice bears and a trio of crystal swans whose translucent feathers had been edged in silver. In the atrium, a huge podium had been erected for the Midnight Auction. Servants who had arrived early from the various Houses bustled about, carrying platters of quartz flutes filled with chilled ice wine. Once, the sight would have dazzled Enrique, but now he hardly cared. He refused to believe that everything they had seen—the handless women, the muses with their blank stares and broken objects—had been for nothing. He refused to believe that Laila had only a handful of days left to live. And he refused to believe that Séverin didn’t have another plan hiding up his sleeve.

Inside the library, the statues of the muses gleamed. Slabs of ice tables lined the floor where there had once been nothing but empty corridor space. Treasures lay piled atop the surfaces, each of them affixed with neat, white labels for the auctioneer to read. Another time, Enrique would have stopped and marveled at the objects he glimpsed—objects which had been deemed lost by the whole of the historical society—but that was before he saw Séverin.

In the midst of all that treasure, he looked like something out of myth, and Enrique was reminded of how deceptive myths could be. When Enrique was seven years old, he thought he’d seen a siyokoy, a merman. This man clambered to the top of a cliff, looking out onto the ocean. He wore no shirt and around his neck lay strings of pearls. On his fingers, countless rings. His pants sagged with sea rocks, and a hundred silk scarves hung through his belt loops. At the time, Enrique stood with his family on a listing paraw boat, celebrating his mother’s birthday. He’d called out excitedly, “The sea king!”

In his mind, only a man laden with treasure could be a sea king.

But that was not what his family saw. His father had panicked, screaming to the man to stop, to wait … His mother crossed herself, folding Enrique against her so he wouldn’t see. He pushed against her hold, desperate to see the sea king, but all he heard was the splash of water and his father’s anguished yell. It was weeks later that Enrique understood the man had drowned himself. He heard the whispers—the man’s whole family had perished in a recent typhoon. At the time, Enrique didn’t understand how a man laden with treasure could be so poor in life as to choose death. He was reminded of it now when he looked at Séverin, sitting in a room full of treasure with his eyes full of nothing.

All this time, Enrique had suspected that Séverin wanted The Divine Lyrics as the last, crushing blow to the Fallen House … but he looked as stricken as Laila, as if he’d lost his whole life. Something about it didn’t fit right in his mind.