Her heartbeat was normal. So then what was this ache? Beside her, Séverin stirred. His arm slung across her waist curved, drawing her against him. Against his heartbeat. In sleep, he pressed a kiss to her scar, and finally Laila recognized the shape and flutter of this ache.
Hope.
It felt like the flicker of newly made wings, thin and chrysalis-slick, dangerous in its new power. Hopehurt. She’d forgotten thepain of it. Laila stared at her hand on Séverin’s. Slowly, she twined her fingers in his, and that ache roared sharply the tighter he held their clasped hands.
They had seen the other bared before, but not like this. Séverin had revealed a corner of his soul, and Laila wanted to answer that strength. She wanted to wake him, to tell him of the handful of days she had left. She didn’t want to give up in their search, but renew it.Together.
Giddy, she slipped out of bed. She refused to say anything to him with her hair in this state; her mother would’ve rioted. She reached for her robe on the floor when her fingers brushed against something cold… something simmering with pain and fury right beneath the metal. Laila yelped, then looked down; it was Eva’s ballerina necklace and pendant.
She stared at it, then looked back at Séverin sleeping in the bed.
It felt wrong to spy into this part of Eva with Séverin so close to her. Gingerly, Laila pulled on her robe, then stepped out into the hallway and down the passage to the stair’s landing. Eva’s necklace vibrated with emotion, and the moment she touched it, the sensation of beinghuntedoverwhelmed her, turning her pulse rabbit-quick with panic. Its most recent action had been last night, when Eva had removed it from her neck and concealed it in the palm of her hand after Séverin consumed the blood Forged drink. But there was a deeper memory within it. Laila closed her eyes, searching out the object’s truths—
A small, red-haired Eva twirling before a painting of a beautiful ballerina with identical hair. She was in a room full of paintings and statues.
“I want to dance like Mama!” she said.
“You willneverend up like your mama. Do you understand, Eva?”
Even in the memory, Laila recognized the voice… MikhailVasiliev. The art dealer from St. Petersburg. An image of a portrait flashed through her head of a beautiful ballerina, Vasiliev’s lover who had killed herself after the birth of their illegitimate child. All this time they had thought the child was dead. They were wrong.
Laila remembered Vasiliev’s last words in the salon:
She will find you.
It was never the matriarch. It was Eva, Vasiliev’s own daughter.
Laila pressed the pendant harder, and the memories rushed forth—
A long, hot knife taken to Eva’s leg. Her shrill screams as she pleaded for them to stop.
“I can’t let you be like your mother. I’m doing this to protect you, child, you understand? I do this because I love you.”
Tears prickled Laila’s eyes… but it was nothing compared to the panic she suddenly felt when the memory changed. The memories before had been deep-seated… but this… this was within the past year.
“I know you want freedom, Eva Yefremovna. Do as I say, and I will give it to you. No more curfews, no more hiding, no more darkness. The Fallen House is depending on you.”
The pendant fell from Laila’s hand with a small, metallic chime. Too many thoughts raced through her head, but it was thesoundthat caught her attention. The Winter Conclave revels were said to go on for hours. It shouldn’t be this silent.
“You should have stayed in bed,” said Eva from the bottom of the staircase.
The other girl had changed out of her green ballroom gown to an outfit of a soldier. Slim, black trousers and a close-fitting jacket.
“How did you enjoy the doctor’s gift?” said Eva, advancing toward her. “In his mercy, he wanted to give you both one lastnight of pleasure. He figured that either you’d be too stubborn to go to Séverin, and I would have to do the honors of giving him one last night with you. Alternatively, I would have incited you to the point you would go to him on your own.”
Eva eyed her up and down.
“It seems I was successful. Well done,me.”
Eva pulled out a dagger. Laila glanced over her shoulder. She was too far from the door. She put up her hands, her thoughts clamoring together.The doctor? He was here?
“Listen, Eva. I understand the Fallen House may have promised you freedom, but we canhelpyou—”
Eva’s eyes widened. “How did you…”
She trailed off, her gaze snapping to her dropped necklace. At that, Eva looked beyond Laila’s shoulder.
“You were right,” she said.
