“Hypnos is every bit as trustworthy as any of us,” she said, slamming her hand down.
All she’d wanted was to make a point. Instead, white-hot pain flooded her senses. Too late, Hypnos’s warning sounded in her mind:Do be careful.Blood welled onto her palm from the puncture of a loose nail.
“Gods, Laila, are you all right?” asked Enrique, rushing to her.
Laila’s hand pulsed as she pressed it to her dress, heedless that it destroyed the golden fabric. She was so careful not to cut herself. The last time she’d been twelve. The monsoon rains had swept through their village, and the bark of the lime tree she usually climbed was rain-slicked. When she fell and cut her hand, she’d run to her father, her ego bruised and her hand bloodied. She just wanted him to fuss over her, to tell her she would be fine. But instead, he’d recoiled.
Get away from me. I don’t want to look at whose blood thejaaduagarfilled you with.
Whose blood was on her hands?
It made her sick.
“Excuse me,” she said, pushing away Enrique’s hand. “I need some air.”
Her breath felt tight in her lungs as she ran outside. The Sphinx merely turned his head, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her. Too late, Laila realized she’d left her coat on the wooden crate. Shethought she knew what winter was, but the cold of Russia felt… vindictive.
“Laila?”
She turned and saw Enrique and Zofia standing at the door. Enrique held out her coat.
Zofia held up a lit match. “Fire cauterizes wounds.”
Enrique was appalled. “It’s a tiny cut! Put that flame away!”
Zofia blew it out, looking mildly annoyed. In one of his hands, Enrique balanced a roll of bandages and a tiny shot glass full of vodka. He poured it over her hand. It stung so sharply that Laila couldn’t breathe.
Zofia took the bandage from him and started wrapping her hand. It was such a small thing. To be fussed over. To be the one treated tenderly. When she’d last cut herself, she’d merely stood in the rain, her hand throbbing as she let the water rush over her palms until there was no trace of someone else’s blood on her skin. Tears started running down her cheeks.
“Laila… Laila, what’s wrong?” asked Enrique. His eyes were wide with alarm. “Tell us.”
Tell us.Maybe it was the pain in her hand or the pained note in his voice, but Laila felt her secret slip out of her control.
“I’m dying,” she said softly.
She looked into Enrique’s face, but he only shook his head with a small smile. Zofia, however, looked shocked.
“It’s just a cut, Laila—” said Enrique.
“No,” she said sharply. She looked at them, memorizing their features. Maybe this would be the last time they would ever look at her like this—like they cared.
“There’s something you don’t know about me,” she said, looking away from them. “It’s easier if I show you.”
Laila’s heart leapt as she reached out, touching the rosary that Enrique wore around his neck.
“Your father gave this to you when you left the Philippines,” she said.
“That’s not exactly a secret,” said Enrique gently.
“He told you that he too once dreamt of running away… on the night before he married your mother. He thought of giving it all up, the Mercado-Lopez Mercantile Enterprise, everything… for the love of a woman in Cavite. But he chose to see his duty through, and he has never once resented it… He gave you his rosary and told you he hoped it would guide you on the right paths…”
Enrique looked stunned. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“I can read the memories of objects,” said Laila, drawing back her hand. “Not all of them, of course. But strong emotions or recent ones. It’s because I… I’m Forged.”
Without looking at them, she told them the story of her making. Not her birth. Because she’d never really been born. She’d died inside her mother’s womb, and the rest of her was cobbled together.
“It’s why I need to findThe Divine Lyrics,” she said. “Thejaadugarwho made me said I wouldn’t live past my nineteenth birthday without the secrets inside that book.”
