“As your mistress.” Laila crossed her arms. “I need something to call you.”
Mistress.The fire and the tea salon had nearly made him forget. But she was right. The charade he thought she wouldn’t have to indulge for long had become real in a matter of hours.
“Séverin,” he said.
“Afriendcalls you Séverin.”
“Monsieur—”
“No. Anemployeecalls you Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie. I am your equal. I need a pet name. Something humiliating.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Humiliating?”
“We debase ourselves for the ones we love.”
There was another name that seemed to hang in the space between them.Majnun.The name she had given him years ago. The name that had once felt like a talisman in the dark.
“I don’t know. Just pair a trait with an article of clothing,” said Séverin.
“Stubborn shoe.”
He glared.
“Bull-headed glove.”
“You can’t be serious—”
“Irrational brassiere.”
He didn’t mean to, and he had no idea how it happened… but he laughed. The sound rattled him to the core. Worse, was the softened expression in her eyes. Laila had made a habit of demanding weakness from him. He set his jaw. There would be no softness here.
Séverin’s gaze went to her bare throat, and his eyes narrowed.
“Start wearing that diamond necklace.”
13
ENRIQUE
Enrique awoke two hours before the morning meeting. As he made his way to the meeting place in the Oriental Room of the tea salon, he clutched his research material. Now that they knew the coordinates of the Sleeping Palace, his research had taken on a new light, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. The coordinates confirmed his suspicions: The Sleeping Palace was somewhere in Siberia.
Today the matriarch of House Kore and the representatives from House Dazbog would be taking them to the Sleeping Palace where his research would either be proven valuable or—he prayed otherwise—worthless. Ever since Laila had told him and Zofia about her beginning and, possibly, her ending, all his knowledge gained a terrible new weight. It wasn’t just a career or a future depending on what he knew; it was a member of his family. After Tristan, he couldn’t lose Laila too.
To him, Laila was like a fairy tale plucked from the pages of abook—a girl with a curse woven into her heartbeat. In all the time he’d known her, part of her seemed to hum with the force of her secret. Who was she? What could shedo? Last evening, he’d tried testing her abilities while they waited for Séverin and Hypnos to join the three of them.
“Enrique,” Laila had sighed.
“Now read this!” he’d said, pushing another object onto the table.
“Is this yourunderwear?”
“It’s freshly laundered! I just fetched it from my suitcase. Were you able to tell by touch? Or was it the shape—”
Laila threw it in his face. “Haven’t you had enough? You’ve already given me a watch, a briefcase, two teacups, and asked me to touch thecouch, which I am still recovering from.” She feigned a shudder. “At least Zofia spared me.”
Zofia shrugged. “An object’s personal context does not affect its utility.”
“Not true!” Enrique had said. “It could beproofof something. Laila, you’re practically a goddess.”
