“Whatever my mo—” Séverin stopped, his mouth still not holding the shape of that word. He swallowed hard. “Whatever Kahina told you about the temple’s coordinates, I need you to tell Hypnos, so we can get there before Ruslan. But for now, I have to get to the grotto.”

“The leviathan won’t hold,” retorted Delphine. “Soon, its tether will break, and I need to get us out of this machine in the next few minutes! You might not make it to the top, and if you fall with the machine, you’ll drown.”

“Then I must move quickly,” said Séverin, making his way toward Hypnos.

From his jacket pocket, Séverin pulled out Tristan’s knife. He turned it over in his palm, tracing the translucent vein on the blade where Goliath’s venom shone in the half-light. One slice from this side of the blade was no different from the blood Forging paralysis plaguing the Order of Babel. For a couple hours, it could make even the living look dead. In Séverin’s other hand, he weighed the raspberry-cherry jam that looked so much like blood. His plan crystallized. Against his palm, the hilt of Tristan’s blade felt warm and reassuring, and Séverin wondered whether his brother was trying to show him that they had far more in common than once imagined.

Séverin knelt beside Hypnos and shook him awake. Hypnos yawned, stared up at him, and then gradually saw where he was. He jolted upright, skittering backwards and raising himself up on his elbows.

“Wh-what’s happening?”

“Do you trust me?” asked Séverin.

Hypnos scowled. “I already hate this conversation.”

“No need to participate, then,” said Séverin. “Just listen closely…”

* * *

FIVE MINUTES LATER, he headed up the stairs. He heard Ruslan’s voice, the crackle of ice as the leviathan listed from side to side, whipping against the underside of the ice grotto. He grasped the handrails for stability. With every breath, he inhaled the terrible metal of the leviathan’s belly and repeated his plan over and over inside his head.

By now, he expected Delphine and Hypnos were safely ensconced inside their pod, waiting in the waters. Near the top of the stairs, he took a deep breath …

He was about to step outside when he heard a voice call out to him.

Séverin whirled around, shocked to see Delphine a few paces behind him. She was out of breath. In one of her hands, she held out his great black coat. Tucked under her arm was a coiled rope and a single Shu Gust helmet.

“You forgot this,” she said, shoving the coat into his hands. “And it’s very cold.”

He stared numbly at it, then quickly recovered.

“What do you think you’re doing? If you’re not out soon, you’ll—”

Delphine waved her hand nonchalantly, then shoved the Shu Gust into his hands. “I know. I couldn’t risk something happening to you. I made a promise to keep you safe, and I intend to keep it. If I stay in the pod, I know the leviathan won’t run aground.”

Séverin stared at her. Without the Shu Gust … she would die. She was going to die. For them.

“Why?” he asked. “Why not run back up? To the grotto?”

To me, he could not bring himself to say aloud.

Delphine’s smile was weary and warm and utterly exasperated. It was an expression that tugged at something behind his chest. It was the face he remembered her making when he had done something mischievous and been caught out. An expression that said she would love him no matter what he did.

“And risk Hypnos? Risk letting them find out all that I truly know and might have told you? No, Séverin. I could not give you more time, then … but I can now,” she said. “Now go.”

“Don’t leave,” he said, the words felt unfinished on his tongue.

Don’t leave me, again.

Delphine kissed him fiercely on both cheeks. Tears glossed her eyes, and her voice broke.

“Love does not always wear the face we wish,” she said. “I wish my love had been more beautiful. I wish … I wish we had more time.”

She held his hands in hers, and for a moment, Séverin was a child again, trusting her enough that he would close his eyes when he held her hand … always knowing she’d keep him safe.

“Tante—” he croaked.

“I know, child,” she soothed. “I know.”

Then, she pushed him out of the leviathan’s mouth, fleeing back down the stairs without another glance. Séverin watched her disappear, sorrow twisting through him. He forced himself to step out of the entrance to the leviathan’s mouth. Though the light glancing off the ice shone harsh and blinding, the shapes of Laila, Zofia, and Enrique were unmistakable. The world moved at a relentless pace, and all he could catch were Delphine’s last words. He turned them over and over in his heart.

Delphine was right.

Love did not always wear the face one wished it would.

Sometimes it looked downright monstrous.

Something inside Séverin sagged with relief. He touched the Mnemo moth at his lapel, feeling the faint stirring of the wings, the true secret of all that he planned nestled in its wings. Around him, the leviathan began to thrash. And Séverin bent his head, his hands curled into fists at what he knew he must do.

* * *

SÉVERIN HARDLY REMEMBERED what he’d said to Ruslan, far too nervous the other man would see through his falsehoods and straight to the truth of what he was doing, to the raspberry-cherry jam tucked into his pocket, to Tristan’s paralyzing dagger. Enrique and Zofia may not like it. But when they woke up, they would understand.

Turning to Laila, though, was harder.

She would not understand that he was trying his best to save her. If they could find the temple … if they could grasp the power of God for themselves, then it would not matter that the divine lyre could kill her. He could save her.

Remember what you mean to me, thought Séverin, as he ignored Laila’s pleading and walked away from her, the weapon of her destruction tucked under his arm. Remember that I am your Majnun.

He watched as Eva’s blood Forging touch forced Laila to slump onto the ground. He watched her black hair spill out around her and fumbled an excuse of needing to retrieve something from her person … but that was not what he had done. He crouched beside her. One last time, he memorized the poetry of her face, the length of her eyelashes, the searing burn of her presence in the world. He slipped his Mnemo butterfly and all of its truths onto her sleeve. And last, he took her diamond choker, leaving one single diamond pendant behind so that when the time came, she might summon him from the dark.

As Séverin walked away from the grotto, he thought of Delphine. She was right. Love could look monstrous. But if they could find the strength to believe in him just one more time … they would see past its visage. They would understand that he could still make good on his promise. That he could still protect them.

That he was not a monster, but a god unformed, one whose plan would soon be deciphered.

EPILOGUE

Hypnos steered the small pod, waiting under the waters of Lake Baikal before he made his move. He could not bring himself to look at the bottom of the lake where the bent and crumpled form of the leviathan lay. And where, now, the matriarch lay too.