“Why?” he asked. “Why not run back up? To the grotto?”
To me, he could not bring himself to say aloud.
Delphine’s smile was weary and warm and utterly exasperated. It was an expression that tugged at something behind his chest. It was the face he remembered her making when he had done something mischievous and been caught out. An expression that said she would love him no matter what he did.
“And risk Hypnos? Risk letting them find out all that I truly know and might have told you? No, Séverin. I could not give you more time, then… but I can now,” she said. “Now go.”
“Don’t leave,” he said, the words felt unfinished on his tongue.
Don’t leave me, again.
Delphine kissed him fiercely on both cheeks. Tears glossed her eyes, and her voice broke.
“Love does not always wear the face we wish,” she said. “I wishmy love had been more beautiful. I wish… I wish we had more time.”
She held his hands in hers, and for a moment, Séverin was a child again, trusting her enough that he would close his eyes when he held her hand… always knowing she’d keep him safe.
“Tante—” he croaked.
“I know, child,” she soothed. “I know.”
Then, she pushed him out of the leviathan’s mouth, fleeing back down the stairs without another glance. Séverin watched her disappear, sorrow twisting through him. He forced himself to step out of the entrance to the leviathan’s mouth. Though the light glancing off the ice shone harsh and blinding, the shapes of Laila, Zofia, and Enrique were unmistakable. The world moved at a relentless pace, and all he could catch were Delphine’s last words. He turned them over and over in his heart.
Delphine was right.
Love did not always wear the face one wished it would.
Sometimes it looked downright monstrous.
Something inside Séverin sagged with relief. He touched the Mnemo moth at his lapel, feeling the faint stirring of the wings, the true secret of all that he planned nestled in its wings. Around him, the leviathan began to thrash. And Séverin bent his head, his hands curled into fists at what he knew he must do.
SÉVERIN HARDLY REMEMBEREDwhat he’d said to Ruslan, far too nervous the other man would see through his falsehoods and straight to the truth of what he was doing, to the raspberry-cherry jam tucked into his pocket, to Tristan’s paralyzing dagger. Enrique andZofia may not like it. But when they woke up, they would understand.
Turning to Laila, though, was harder.
She would not understand that he was trying his best to save her. If they could find the temple… if they could grasp the power of God for themselves, then it would not matter that the divine lyre could kill her.Hecould save her.
Remember what you mean to me, thought Séverin, as he ignored Laila’s pleading and walked away from her, the weapon of her destruction tucked under his arm.Remember that I am your Majnun.
He watched as Eva’s blood Forging touch forced Laila to slump onto the ground. He watched her black hair spill out around her and fumbled an excuse of needing to retrieve something from her person… but that was not what he had done. He crouched beside her. One last time, he memorized the poetry of her face, the length of her eyelashes, the searing burn of her presence in the world. He slipped his Mnemo butterfly and all of its truths onto her sleeve. And last, he took her diamond choker, leaving one single diamond pendant behind so that when the time came, she might summon him from the dark.
As Séverin walked away from the grotto, he thought of Delphine. She was right. Love could look monstrous. But if they could find the strength to believe in him just one more time… they would see past its visage. They would understand that he could still make good on his promise. That he could still protect them.
That he was not a monster, but a god unformed, one whose plan would soon be deciphered.
EPILOGUE
Hypnos steered the small pod, waiting under the waters of Lake Baikal before he made his move. He could not bring himself to look at the bottom of the lake where the bent and crumpled form of the leviathan lay. And where, now, the matriarch lay too.
His eyes prickled with tears, but he kept his hand steady on the steering apparatus.
“My nephew is next, you know, and I won’t have any of your nonsense affecting him,” Delphine had said to him, scolding and condescending to her last second.
By “next” she had meantheir. Hypnos forced himself to joke and grin.
“And?”
“And he’s asaint,” said Delphine. “So be nice to him.”
