“And?”
“… and that is mildly alarming, my dear. Clean up.”
Zofia dragged the rag down her face. It seemed Zofia was always emerging from ashes or flames, which earned her the nickname “phoenix” among L’Eden. Not that Zofia minded, even though thebird didn’t exist. As she cleaned her face, the ends of the cloth caught on her unusual necklace, which looked like strung-together knifepoints.
“When will they be back?” asked Zofia.
Laila felt a sharp pang. “Enrique and Séverin should be here by nine.”
“I need to grab my letters.”
Laila frowned. “This late? It’s already dark out, Zofia.”
Zofia touched her necklace. “I know.”
Zofia tossed her the rag. Laila caught it and threw it in the sink. When she turned around, Zofia had grabbed the spoon for the icing.
“Excuse me, phoenix, I need that!”
Zofia stuck the spoon in her mouth.
“Zofia!”
The engineer grinned. Then she swung open the door and ran off, the spoon still sticking out of her mouth.
ONCE SHE FINISHEDthe dessert, Laila cleaned up and left the kitchen. She was not the official pastry chef, nor did she wish to be, and half the allure of this hobby job was that it was only for pleasure. If she did not wish to make something, she didn’t.
The farther she walked down the main serving hall, the more the sounds of L’Eden came alive—laughter ribboning between the glassy murmur of the amber chandeliers and champagne flutes, the hum of Forged moths and their stained-glass wings as they shed colored light in their flight. Laila stopped in front of the Mercury Cabinet, the hotel’s messaging service. Small metal boxes marked with the names of the hotel staff sat inside. Laila opened her box with her staff key, not expecting to find anything, when her fingers brushed againstsomething that felt like cold silk. It was a single black petal pinned to a one-word note:
Envy.
Even without the flower, Laila would have recognized that cramped and slanted handwriting anywhere: Tristan. She had to force herself not to smile. After all, she was still mad at him.
But that would not stop her from accepting a present.
Especially one he had Forged.
Forged. It was a word that still sat strangely on her tongue even though she’d lived in Paris for two years. The empires and kingdoms of the West called Tristan and Zofia’s abilities “Forging,” but the artistry had other names in other languages. In India, they called itchhota saans, the “small breath,” for while only gods breathed life into creation, this art was a small sip of such power. Yet, no matter its name, the rules guiding the affinity were the same.
There were two kinds of Forging affinities: mind and matter. Someone with a matter affinity could influence one of three material states: liquids, solids, or gasses. Both Tristan and Zofia had matter affinities; Zofia’s Forging affinity was for solid matter—mostly metals and crystals—and Tristan had an affinity for liquid matter. Specifically, the liquid present in plants.
All Forging was bound by three conditions: the strength of the artisan’s will, the clarity of the artistic goal, and the boundaries of their chosen mediums’ elemental properties. Which meant that someone with a Forging affinity for solid matter with a specificity in stone would go nowhere without understanding the attendant chemical formulas and properties of the stone they wished to manipulate.
As a rule, the affinity manifested in children no later than thirteen years of age. If the child wished to hone the affinity, he or she couldpursue study. In Europe, most Forging artisans studied for years at renowned institutions or held lengthy apprenticeships. Zofia and Tristan, however, had followed neither of those paths. Zofia, because she had been kicked out of school before she had the chance. And Tristan, because, well, Tristan had no need of it. His landscape artistry looked like the fever dream of a nature spirit. It was unsettling and beautiful, and Paris couldn’t get enough of him. At the age of sixteen, the waiting list to commission him stretched into the hundreds.
Laila used to wonder why Tristan stayed at L’Eden. Perhaps it was loyalty to Séverin. Or because L’Eden allowed Tristan to keep his bizarre arachnid displays. But when Laila stepped into the gardens, shefeltthe reason. The perfume of the flowers thick in her lungs. The garden turning jagged and wild in the falling dark. And she understood. Tristan’s other clients had so many rules, like House Kore, which had commissioned extravagant topiaries for its upcoming celebration. L’Eden was different. Tristan loved Séverin like a brother, but he stayed here because only in L’Eden could he lift marvels from his mind, free of any demands.
Once she stepped into the gardens of L’Eden, she was inside Tristan’s imagination. Despite its name, the gardens were no paradise, but a labyrinth of sins. Seven, to be exact.
The first garden was Lust. Here, red flowers spilled from the hollow mouths of statues. In one corner, Cleopatra coughed up garnet amaryllis and pink-frilled anemone. In another, Helen of Troy whispered zinnia and poppies. Laila moved quickly through the labyrinth. Past Gluttony, where a sky of glossy blooms that smelled of ambrosia closed tight the moment one reached for them. Then Greed, where a gold veneer encased each slender plant. Next came Sloth, with its slow-moving shrubs; Wrath with its fiery florals; then Pride with its gargantuan, moving topiaries of green stags with floweringantlers and regal lions with manes of jasmine, until finally she was in Envy. Here, a suffusion of greenery, the very shade of sin.
Laila stopped before the Tezcat door propped up near the entrance. To anyone who didn’t know its secrets, the Tezcat looked like an ordinary mirror, albeit with a lovely frame that resembled gilded ivy leaves. Tezcat doors were impossible to distinguish from ordinary mirrors without, according to Zofia, a complicated test involving fire and phosphorous. Luckily, she didn’t have to go through that. To get to the other side, she simply unlocked it by pinching the fourth gilded ivy leaf on the left side of the frame. A hidden doorknob. Her reflection rippled as the silver of the Tezcat door’s mirror thinned to transparency.
Inside was Tristan’s workplace. Laila breathed in the scent of earth and roots. All along the walls were small terrariums, landscapes squeezed into miniature form. Tristan made them almost obsessively. When she asked him once, he told her it was because he wished the world were easier. Small enough and manageable enough to fit in the hollow of one’s palm.
“Laila!”
Tristan walked toward her with a wide smile on his round face. There was dirt smudged on his clothes and—she breathed a sigh of relief—no sign of his gigantic pet spider.
