At the sound of his voice, something inside Séverin threatened to break. He had nothing left to offer but the truth. He closed his eyes, thinking that once more his head would be full of remembering the slick golden ichor on Roux-Joubert’s mouth and the fleeting weight of wings.

But instead, he thought of Hypnos’s last toast. May our ends justify our means. That was all he had wanted. And he’d failed.

“I needed you for this one last job,” said Séverin, hauling himself upright. “I needed everyone’s complete focus and attention, but it wasn’t just for me. It was for all of us. The Divine Lyrics can grant godhood. That’s what I wanted for us … Do you understand? If I had that, no one would ever hurt us. You could have anything you want. You could go back to the Ilustrados, and they’d fall to their knees to have you. Tristan could even—”

“Have you gone mad?” cut in Enrique. “Turning into a god? That was your solution to your problems?”

“You have no idea what I saw or what I felt when I was in those catacombs. I had wings, Enrique. I had golden blood in my veins, and what I felt … it was like knowing the fucking pulse of the universe,” said Séverin. “You heard Ruslan in the dining room. The Fallen House had the means to do that, with their Midas Knife or whatever it was called. Imagine if there was more. Imagine what I could have given us if we had that book—”

He broke off when Enrique started laughing. Not a laugh of joy, but a laugh of hysteria.

“It’s not even a book,” said Enrique.

Séverin paused. Everything in his mind went still. “What?”

“It’s a lyre.”

“A lyre,” Séverin repeated.

Once more, something stirred to life inside him. Something that felt dangerously like hope.

“But I don’t think it will give you what you want, Séverin,” said Enrique sadly. “The writing on the wall talked about the instrument summoning the unmaking. It could mean that every Forged thing in existence would collapse.”

“It’s supposed to grant the power of God—”

“And God creates and destroys in equal measure.”

“So we make sure that only we play it—”

Enrique flung out his hand. “You’re not listening to me! What about Laila? The Fallen House has been searching for someone of the Lost Muses bloodline—a girl with an ability to read what others cannot. That’s Laila. If the Fallen House has taken her, what if it’s because they know what she can do? They might have even connected her to the lineage of the Lost Muses.”

Séverin’s head was spinning. Blood rushed through his ears. He had to get to her. He had to make sure she was safe.

“Then only we play it, guided by Laila—who might be the only person left who can use it—”

“No,” insisted Enrique. “Don’t you see how this could affect her if this instrument is played? She’s Forged, Séverin. That could mean that she—”

Séverin’s gaze snapped to him. “How do you know that?”

Two things hit Séverin at once. One, that he’d never even stopped to consider the nature of Laila’s … making. To him, something Forged was inanimate. An object. Laila was life incarnate. The second realization was that Laila had told someone else about her origins. Before, he was the only one who’d known. The only one she had trusted with that secret.

Enrique’s eyes flickered with guilt. He was hiding something. Séverin was sure of it.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Enrique crossed himself, looked upward and murmured, “I’m sorry, Laila. But he has to know.”

“Know what?” demanded Séverin.

Enrique looked away from him. “Laila is dying.”

A beat passed. Then two. Those words poisoned the air, and Séverin didn’t let himself breathe as if one inhale might make those words true. And then, before he could speak, a hissing sound pulled his attention to the Forged net. The light quivered, flashing bright and dull. Just beyond it, the animals had lined up … tails whipping, hooves raking the frost-thick floor …

The net had begun to break.

32

ZOFIA

Zofia blinked a couple of times, her mind registering the unfamiliar surrounding in spurts: translucent floor, Lake Baikal’s gem-colored water rushing beneath the surface. Cold, slippery ice burned the skin of her palms. When she glanced up, light bounced off a sharp curve she didn’t recognize. Out the corner of her eye, she spied the tops of people’s heads, their scalps pressed up against the wall and eye level to her. Zofia turned away sharply and flung out her arms, only for them to slam into the walls encasing her. She was trapped. The word zipped through her skull, and she doubled over, nausea building in her throat.

Not again.

When she blinked, she saw the laboratory fires … the students screaming … the way her mind and body failed her when she reached to open the door.

No. No. No.

Zofia curled in on herself only for the sharp edge of Hela’s envelope to press against her skin, a stinging reminder of the people depending on her. Zofia forced herself to sit up straight, and remind herself of all that had happened. Her memories felt thready. She remembered the leviathan and the red candles, the writing on the wall … WE ARE READY FOR THE UNMAKING. After that, nothing. Zofia set her teeth and lay her palms flat on the ice floor, letting the cold shock her. She counted her breaths. One. Two. Three. She focused on the floor, counting the marbled trails left behind in the ice … fifteen, nineteen, forty-seven.

Only then did she finally lift her head.

Where was she? The room was long and rectangular, the width of it not sufficient to stretch out her arms. She could stand and turn easily in the space, and so she did, though she could not walk far, for she was not alone. Shoved against the western wall and propped at a sharp angle was the broken body of an ice stag. She remembered seeing it with Eva not two days ago. Eva had seen her discomfort and asked House Dazbog not to destroy the machine. The stag’s chest was torn out, and the ventricles of ice that had once pulsed through it were dead, leaving nothing but hollow wire. Finally, Zofia knew where she was.

The prison of the Sleeping Palace.

Except for the north-facing wall, her surroundings showed nothing but an expanse of packed snow. When she faced north, the glass walls revealed the atrium of the Sleeping Palace. Members of the Order of Babel lay propped against the atrium’s perimeter like strange dolls. A couple even leaned against one wall of her prison cell.

“Let me out!” shouted Zofia.

But they did not move when she tapped the glass behind their heads. They did not respond when she looked at the ones opposite the room, shouting once more.

No response.

Not even a blink.

She caught sight of something else. Two people dashing into the atrium from the western side of her cell: Enrique and Séverin. A pattern of shifting light sprawled out before them. From behind the pianos and tables, the empty stage and rows of people, ice creatures stalked to attack. A flash of silver caught her eye. Too late, she saw an ice cheetah dash toward Séverin’s unprotected right side: