Laila waited a beat. Her hand brushed against the small satchel at her hip. She drew it aside, removing the small knife strapped to her thigh. She inhaled deep, her body recoiling at the sensation of damp air, and then walked straight through the wall.
On the other side lay the auditorium, identical to the one the bone clock had shown them. Dirt terraces carved into the wall, sloping downward into a wide stage. The stage itself reminded her of a snail’s shell. A strange whorl grooved deep into the earth. When they had first glimpsed it in the bone clock’s projection, Zofia had mused that it was another logarithmic spiral and then launched into an explanation that Laila completely tuned out. Séverin, though, thought it was something else. A mechanized pathway, not unlike a waterwheel activated by the churning of a liquid, or the fireball that traveled in a corkscrew pattern back in House Kore. But they had no clues about what it was supposed to lead to. Behind the stage, tattered scarlet curtains hung from the ceiling, utterly still. Faded, golden embroidery covered the scarlet drapes. The symbols of the four Houses of France. An ouroboros—a snake biting its own tail—edged the curtain. House Vanth. A crescent moon shaped like a pale and ghastly grin hovered in the center. House Nyx. Thorns and tightly furled buds crosshatched the space between the snake and the moon. House Kore. And within the snake, six points touching the scaled body, a giant hexagram. The Fallen House. Behind those curtains, guessed Laila, must be the entrance to the Exhibit on Colonial Superstitions. Laila tried not to think about Hypnos, Enrique, andZofia. How close they were and how unreachable. She murmured a prayer as she scanned the rest of the view.
To the left of the stage was a shut door. Laila could just make out the sound of someone playing a violin and another person talking in low murmurs. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, but she didn’t panic. This was as they had planned. Naturally, Roux-Joubert and his associate would be there. In an hour, they’d step through the Tezcat, presumably to take Hypnos’s Babel Ring before returning to the catacombs. A flicker of movement to the right of the stage caught Laila’s attention. She reached for the dagger at her hip. At the same time, Séverin grabbed her hand, his grip like steel.
Tristan.
He was slumped over in a chair. The Phobus Helmet still wrapped around his forehead. Even from a distance, Laila could make out a flash of blue flickering across the glass like sparks of lightning. Her gaze flew across his body. To his white-knuckled clench on the armrests. The brittle way he held his legs, straight out and locked. Laila squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back the tears that prickled.
“Why haven’t they taken off that cursed thing?” he asked hoarsely. “Why are they still hurting him?”
She didn’t have an answer to that…
“We’ll take it off. It’ll be over soon.”
Séverin paled, but he managed a curt nod. Laila forced herself to look beyond Tristan’s face and to the area surrounding him. There was a large workshop table, strewn with mechanical bits—the ends of tools, a wooden awl, a jar of buttons. And then, sitting on a scrap of velvet… the Horus Eye. Something else gleamed just beyond it. It was too far to tell, but that blue sheen raised her spirits. It might be the Babel Ring.
Séverin held out his hand. Laila dug through the satchel. Next to a small pouch of Tristan’s Night Bites lay a tiny snuffbox. Sheopened it, revealing a new and precious supply of mirror powder. Séverin took a pinch, dusting his hands and touching the dirt floor. His image rippled, melding in with the terrace. As he moved, it looked as if there was an invisible bump on the terrain, traveling quickly down the slope. Laila did the same, then raced down the steps. Even with the Forged muffling bells, she went on tiptoe. A dancer’s instinct to move with precision. The ground beneath them was slick, covered in grime and gravel. All it would take was one fall and then the landslide of pebbles would give away their location.
At the base of the terrace, Laila and Séverin crept around the edges, working their way to the shadowed alcoves where Tristan sat. Séverin ran to him, grabbing his wrist. He waited a moment, then loosed his breath.
“His pulse is racing.”
At least he had a pulse.
Séverin crouched on the floor, reaching for the straps that bound each of Tristan’s legs to the chair. His hands trembled. This close, the helmet around Tristan’s head gleamed a sinister blue. Tails of light whipped through the top, as if tentacles rippled over his skull. His eyes roved beneath closed lids.
“What did they do to you?” Séverin murmured under his breath. He spared a glance at Laila. “Grab the Eye and start looking for the Ring.”
But Laila felt rooted to the spot. Something feltoff. It nagged at her, itching at the back of her skull.
“Séverin, wait.”
“I’m getting him out of here,” he said fiercely. One knot done, Séverin turned to the straps and bindings on the other leg. All the while Tristan didn’t move, didn’t twitch. As if he couldn’t feel a thing. “That’s final.”
Laila turned to the worktable. There was the Horus Eye. Beside it, the Ring.
All of it there, ripe treasure for the taking. But she couldn’t swipe it off the table. Something stayed her hand. Instead, she touched the wood that faced Tristan. The images it had witnessed sank through her thoughts, pulling her away from the surrounding scene.The stage. The curtains pulled back as a man with a blade-brimmed hat stepped through. Roux-Joubert coughing, blood escaping from his handkerchief and flecking the wooden table. Tristan screaming. A cloth shoved past his lips.
Laila pulled back her hand, her heart racing wildly. Out the corner of her eye, she could sense Séverin. His hands working on the knot. Distantly, she heard him.
“Laila, grab the Eye and Ring. What are you waiting for—”
She saw herself touching the Horus Eye. It felt as if she were outside her own body. She felt herself straining her perception, trying to read it as she would with any un-Forged object. But the Eye was Forged, and whatever secrets it held drew away from her touch. Next, she reached for the Ring.
Images slammed into her.
The tools on the table. The cast molding of zinc. Blue lights on a thread.Tristan screaming as the Ring was made.
“Now hush, boy, be quiet or I will meld that Phobus Helmet to you. Is that what you want? Don’t you see your place in the grand revolution? Don’t you understand what must be done to awaken the future?”
Laila yanked back her hand.
She shouldn’t have been able to read it.
It was fake.
“Séverin!” she called, not caring that her voice had risen, that someone might hear her. She reached for his hand just as he touched the helmet. But she wasn’t fast enough. Séverin reached out with both hands. The moment he lifted it off Tristan’s head, the blue lightscut off abruptly. Beneath it, Tristan’s head lolled to one side. They had not changed him out of the clothes from the greenhouse. He was covered in his own filth. Séverin turned to Laila, a victorious smile blooming on his face. Laila blinked. It happened so fast. One moment, the blue lights disappeared. The next, theyflaredto life. Lightning curled, coiling around Séverin’s arms. He fell backward, his head thrown back, body trembling—
