Her father’s hands had not always been so kind. He did not always know what to make of her. His crafted child.
Perhaps it was because she looked nothing like her parents. She had the dark eyes of a cygnet, an uncanny shade of animal black, and glossy hair like the wet pelt of a jungle cat. That had been what thejaadugarused after all. A chick stolen from a swan’s nest and an unlucky beast trapped in a ditch.
The rest of her had been lifted from a child’s grave.
In India, those with the Forging affinity were called magicians.Jaadugars. For a price, they could perform complicated Forging techniques. It was said thejaadugarsof Pondicherry were especially skilled in obscure arts because they possessed an ancient book in a language no longer spoken. Supposedly, the book held the secrets of Forging the likes of which rivaled the powers of the gods themselves.
Thejaadugarher parents visited was skilled in crafting a new body from broken ones. He could even tease out the consciousness and transfer it to a new vessel. Which was exactly what her parents had asked for when they had brought her—stillborn at birth—to thejaadugar’s hut outside the town.
Years later, Laila was told that if she had been brought to thejaadugareven an hour later, her soul would have unraveled for good. This was a fact her mother loved to remember and her father longed to forget.
They had asked for the beautiful girl they dreamed their daughter would become, and ended up with her. Red and screaming as any newborn. She became stunning, true, but she always bore that seam along her spine. As if she had been sewn together.
When her mother died, her father changed. He turned direction when he saw her, took his meals in his room, barely spoke to her except when she stood in front of him. Laila watched her father grow scared of her and took to wrapping her hands, so that she would not frighten him with her abilities. Her mother called her ability a gift. Her father called it a consequence of her making, for they’d never heard of someone with her gifts. It wasn’t until she was sixteen and all her friends were preparing for weddings or agreeing to betrothals that she confronted her father.
One evening, she showed him the bangles her mother had left behind. “Father, may I wear these after you arrange my wedding?”
Her father sat in the dark, his eyes distant. When he looked at her, he laughed.
“Wedding?”he asked. He pointed at the length of her body. “Thejaadugarwho made you said his work won’t hold past your nineteenth birthday, child. What’s the point of arranging a marriage? Besides, you’re a made girl, not even real. Who would have you?”
Those words chased Laila to the ashram of thejaadugars, but the man who had crafted her body was long dead, and the book of secrets they had guarded had been stolen… taken to a place called Paris by an organization known as the Order of Babel.
She combed for clues to the book’s whereabouts in every object she read, but so far her search had proven fruitless. If she could only have direct access to the Order’s knowledge, she was certain she’d find it immediately. She couldn’t do that, however, unless she had a patriarch at her side. Acquiring the Horus Eye meant she finally would. It was the twisted humor of fate that the patriarch should be the only one who’d ever made her forget she was a crafted thing with an expiration date hanging over her head. Which was all the more reason to pretend that night had never happened.
No distraction was worth death.
Laila watched her scar shift in the mirror’s reflection. Delicately, she pressed her fingers along the puckered edges. Part of her wondered if the day she turned nineteen, she would split down the middle, unraveling into a pile of shining pelts and worn bones, the barest glimmer of an almost-girl vanishing into the air like smoke.
If they acquired the Horus Eye, she’d never have to find out.
Laila zipped up her dress, hiding the seam down her back. She left the store wearing the brilliant ironwork gown, the straps of her Night and Stars costume glimmering just beneath the satin.
ON THE BOULEVARDde clichy, the Palais des Rêves embodied its name. The Palace of Dreams. It was designed like a jewel box. Onthe roof, beams of lights pirouetted into the sky. The Palais’s stone façade was Forged with an illusion of dusk-touched clouds, purple-bellied and dream-swollen as they skimmed across balconies. No matter how many times Laila saw the Palais, she always felt transformed. As if right then her lungs drew in not air, but the very night sky. Stars fizzed through her veins. The alchemy of the Palais’s music and illusions reshaping her from dancer to dream.
Laila stepped through the Palais’s secret stairway entrance. Inside, a guard holding a silver lightstick greeted her.
“L’Énigme,” he said respectfully.
Laila held still as the lightstick flashed over her pupils. It was routine protocol for any who entered the Palais. The lightstick revealed whether or not someone was under the influence of a Forging affinity of the mind. Mind affinity was a dangerous talent, and the favorite method of assassins who could pass off the blame on an innocent.
Once cleared, Laila entered the Palais. A sense of calm washed over her. The familiar perfume of the stage filled her. Waxed wood, oranges studded with cloves dangling from the ceiling, talc powder, and rubber. Inside, cleverly designed skylights filtered in the starlight. The ceiling arched like a vault over the stage. Champagne chandeliers ghosted over the crowd, glittering like constellations crushed underfoot by feverish dancers.
On the wide, scalloped stage, the singer, La Fée Verte, sang a glorious song of revolution. Her gossamer green gown floated out behind her, wings of thinly cut mother-of-pearl slowly opened and closed from her back. The sharp scent of absinthe lingered in the air, and her most fervent admirers raised smoking goblets of the liquor high in their hands. Behind her, she’d chosen a strange backdrop… not of the Bastille, the fortress that was stormed by a crowd of revolutionaries… but the catacombs of Paris. The ossuaries which held the bones of millions, the remains of voices both terrible andgrand from the Revolution. It was a chilling image on the stage: rows upon rows of grinning skulls, femurs bent into hallways and crosses. But it was a reminder too. That every victory had its costs.
The second terrace was reserved for dressing rooms. Each star of the Palais had their own, customized to their specifications. Laila cast a glance over the terrace, quickly scanning the crowd, spotting the mark. The House Kore courier. He looked unsure of himself, sitting in a velvet upholstered chair. On the table before him was a bowl of chocolate-covered strawberries. Laila grinned.You took my advice.
A Sphinx stood motionless in the corner, as she and Séverin had known one would. For large parties, the Palais always kept two on hand in the event someone tried to swindle an Order member or smuggle House-marked treasure out the doors. Today, the second Sphinx would not show up until an hour later, thanks to Zofia and Tristan’s clever tampering with the Palais’s Forged Sphinx schedules. But there would be another “Sphinx” to take the guard’s place: Séverin. Tristan would be with him, posing as a police officer. A decoy item would be slipped in the courier’s pocket. Something that looked as if it might be House-marked, thus letting a Sphinx approach him. From there, the courier would be accused of theft, taken to a holding cell, freed of all personal effects—including the catalogue coin with the Horus Eye location—“interrogated,” and let go.
Simple.
In the background, La Fée Vert had just finished to thunderous applause. Next, it would be her turn.
Laila opened the door to her room. Inside, flames danced on stunted candles. The low light turned the room drowsy and golden. On a side table near her vanity lay a bouquet of white roses.
And on her burgundy chaise lounge…
A boy. He was reclining on his side, absentmindedly tearing petals off a rose. He must have heard her open the door because he liftedhis head and grinned. His eyes were strikingly pale against the lustrous dark of his skin.
