Last, the matriarch turned to him. Séverin had prepared himself for this, but practice paled to the reality of her. Eleven years ago, that gloved hand had thrown him in the dark and stripped him of his title. And now he had to kiss it. To thank it. Slowly, he held her fingers. His hands shook. The matriarch smiled. She must have thought him overwhelmed, stewing in his insignificance before this opulence. Beforeher. His eyes narrowed. Séverin squeezed the joints of her broken fingers.
“So honored to be here.” He pressed his other hand atop hers, watching her breath hitch, her smile turn brittle. “Truly.”
To her credit, the matriarch did not snatch back her hand, but let it fall limply to one side. He smiled.
A tiny hurt was better than none.
SÉVERIN MISSED L’EDENthe moment he sat in House Kore’s dining room. It was nothing like the bright green of his hotel. Here, the ceiling had been Forged to resemble the inside of a jeweled cave. Hunks of bloodred rubies and cabochons of emerald and jasper cast stained light onto the onyx table below. Candles like flowers seemed to bloom from evenly spaced piles of snow. On the floor, Séverin recognized Tristan’s design—vines that sprouted beside guests, blooming to reveal dainty wineglasses, much to their awe and delight.
As anticipated, his insignificance earned him a seat near the exit, far from the matriarch. Many of the people around him had been, or were soon to be, guests of L’Eden. They might have recognized him had they looked close enough. But they didn’t.
Near the head of the table, Hypnos slung back his drinks with happy abandon while the smile on the matriarch’s face turned tense every time he spoke. Near the middle, Zofia had perfected the picture of aristocracy: bored and beautiful. She kept moving her fingers to a strange rhythm, eyes roving around the dining room.Counting again.When she met Séverin’s gaze, he raised his glass to her. She did the same, holding it aloft long enough that people saw.
The meals progressed quickly: pan-fried foie gras, leek sprouts in a rich marrow broth, creamy quail eggs served in an edible nest of spun rye bread, and a tender filet of beef. Finally, the pièce de résistance: a single serving of ortolans. The songbirds were a rare delicacy, trapped and drowned in armagnac, a regional cognac, then roasted and eaten whole. The sauce dribbled thickly onto the plate, streaking ruby bloodlike smears onto the pristine white porcelain. At the head of the table, the matriarch led the meal. She took the crimson napkin and placed it over her head. The guests followed suit. As Séverin reached for his, the man beside him laughed softly.
“Do you know what the napkins are for, young man?”
“I confess, I do not. But I am far too enthralled with fashion to deny a trend.”
Again, the man laughed. Séverin took a moment to study him. Like everyone else, he wore a black velvet mask across his eyes. There were wrinkles around his mouth, and his hair was streaked gray. What skin Séverin could see was pale and thin, waxen with illness. The man’s mustard-colored suit wasn’t obviously Forged, so he likely wasn’t aristocratic. Something gleamed on the man’s lapel, but he turned before Séverin could get a closer look.
“The point of the napkins,” said the man, placing the napkin over his head, “is to hide your shame from God for eating such a beautiful creature.”
“Is it our shame that we’re hiding or our delusions that we can hide at all?”
Séverin caught the edges of the man’s grin from beneath his napkin.
“I like you, Monsieur.”
Séverin didn’t look too closely at the brown flesh on the plate. He knew objectively that it was a delicacy. Gluttony always said he wished for a dish of ortolan to be his last meal. But Séverin had never approved them for L’Eden’s menu. It felt wrong.
Cautiously, Séverin bit into the bird. The thin bones snapped between his teeth. His mouth filled with the taste of the bird’s flesh, tender and rich with the flavor of figs, hazelnuts, and his own blood as tiny bits of bone cut the inside of his mouth.
He licked his lips, hating that it was delicious.
Brandy followed dessert, and guests were encouraged to move to a separate lounge. As Séverin rose, he saw Hypnos whisper something to the matriarch of House Kore. Her mouth pursed into a thin line, but she nodded and whispered something to her manservant. Hypnos summoned his factotum from the edge of the room. The man carried a black box.
This was it.
Hypnos had invoked Order rule, and now the matriarch would have to safeguard the object by entering the vault. While the guests streamed out of the dining room, Séverin lingered by the door, pretending he had just seen someone he knew. The matriarch walked out the door, Hypnos on her heels. The left corner of Hypnos’s mouth turned up as he passed him. A signal to join. Séverin waited, giving them a head start. Then, as he was about to follow, the man in the mustard suit blocked him.
He wheezed as he spoke, sweat shining on his forehead. “A pleasure talking with you, Monsieur…”
“Faucher,” said Séverin, pushing down his annoyance. “I did not catch your name?”
The man smiled. “Roux-Joubert.”
Outside the dining room, the large staircase blocked off the light. The hall broke off into three separate vestibules. Séverin had memorized the layout earlier, including the entrance to the library where the Forged treasures were kept. He kept to the shadows. From the blueprints, he knew where House Kore kept their mnemo bugs and moved against their patterns of surveillance. At the entrance of a hall full of twisting mirrors, Séverin paused. He reached into the sleeves of his jacket, slicing the silk seams that hid a Forged bell designed by Zofia. He rang it twice, and his steps turned silent.
Between the hall of mirrors and the library was a rotunda full of astrological tools, and a wide skylight. The matriarch, Hypnos, and manservants all had their backs to him. Séverin touched the tip of his shoe to one side of the wall, then quietly ducked into one of the recessed niches on the opposite side. A slender, nearly invisible Forged glass thread stretched across the hall, connected to Séverin’s shoe. Outside the niche, he heard the others talking:
“—a moment for me to place the box within my vaults.”
“Of course,” said Hypnos. “I appreciate it, truly. Though, is it not tradition for us to hold our Rings together as proof of agreement? You know me, I am ironclad to tradition. Right down to my blood.”
Séverin smirked at Hypnos’s self-jab.
“I don’t believe that’s necessary,” she said, her voice slightly higher pitched. “We are old friends, are we not? Old dynasties and all that is left of the Houses of France… Surely, as I am doing you a favor at great cost to myself, we might excuse the formality?”
