“Then what was that?”
“Myownblood, mixed with a connection that repels Forging,” she said. “A mithradatic measure, if you will.”
“Afraid someone might lure you into a night of debauchery?” asked Hypnos.
The matriarch dabbed at her mouth. “Why not? Skill and experience are always in demand. And I have quite enough of both.”
Hypnos spluttered, and before the conversation could take a dismal turn, the server brought out wine and, for Séverin,mazagranserved in a tall glass. He stared at it. The scent of coffee syrup and ice jolted him to his childhood where Kahina used to drink this every morning in a pale, green glass. When he was little, he remembered Tante—the matriarch—teasing him that if he drank the concoction, he wouldn’t get tall. His throat tightened.
“Not thirsty?” asked the matriarch.
His throat felt scorched with smoke, but he shoved aside the glass.
“No,” he said, pushing himself from the table and gesturing to Hypnos. “We have work to do.”
SÉVERIN HESITATED OUTSIDEthe mahogany doors of the music room in the tea salon. Laila, Enrique, and Zofia waited for him inside.Hypnos had gone before Séverin to tell them of the matriarch’s demands, but Séverin hesitated. How would he show his face to them after all his choices had nearly killed them?
Inside, the music room was small and well-lit. In one corner stood a harp. In the other, a piano, where Hypnos sat and plunked at the keys. A handful of couches and satin settees dotted the room, but Zofia and Enrique sat at a table near the entrance. Their heads were bent in conversation. In front of them, the Tezcat spectacles shone brightly beneath the chandelier. Beside the frame, on a square of velvet, sat the lens taken from Vasiliev’s chain. Laila walked in from a separate entryway, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. There was even a cup for him. He didn’t know what to make of that.
Enrique saw him first and immediately pointed at Zofia. “Zofia just tried to set fire to the Tezcat spectacles.”
Zofia scowled at him. “I tried to see if the lens and the spectacles might beweldedtogether.”
“And?” asked Laila, setting down the tray.
“And it was unsuccessful.”
“House Kore couldn’t manage it either,” said Laila soothingly.
“The symbology around the instrument is fairly strange too,” said Enrique. “A mix of cosmic iconography… including, I believe… planets.”
“Those aren’t planets,mon cher, those are silver balls,” called Hypnos from the piano.
“They’re artisticrenderingsof planets.”
Séverin bent to examine the Tezcat spectacles. They looked like a strange pair of goggles. The frames were thick and decorated with bulging silver spheres that were indeed planets, judging by the Latin script on each shape. The screws, temples, and hinges each bore decorations of clouds and constellations.
“They’reugly,” said Hypnos. “And I’m not usually one to judge when—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” said Laila.
Hypnos looked over his shoulder, flashing a wicked grin as he played a quick, ominous tune on the piano.
“Wait,” said Séverin. “Did you see that?”
On the Tezcat spectacles, he could have sworn he saw the faintest glow around the lens and the empty frame of the spectacles.
“See what?”
“As if… as if there was a reaction from the spectacles. From the music.”
“Does this make me irresistible to animate and inanimate things?” asked Hypnos. “Because that pleases me.”
Laila flexed her fingers and mused, “Interesting that it reacts to music when it seems as though whoever removed the lens did so in utter silence.”
Hypnos made apah!sound. “How would you figure that,ma chère?”
Laila shrugged. “Let’s say I have a knack for it, shall we?”
