Séverin nodded, not looking at her, but at the boots on Ruslan’s feet, Forged to conceal a person’s body temperature and allow them to walk down the staircase and access the sunken platform without triggering the creatures. He was dimly aware of the way her gaze fixed on him. She’d saved him, and he’d thanked her. If she mistook resuscitation for romance, it was hardly his problem, so long as she didn’t get in his way.
“Well done, Eva!” said Ruslan. “And well done,me, for not dying.”
Eva rolled her eyes, but she looked pleased with herself. Ruslan walked back up the stairs. When he reached them, he took off hisboots and handed them to Séverin. His eyes shone with unnerving sincerity.
“I am sodeeplyeager to see what you will find,” he said, clapping his hands excitedly. “I can still sense it, you know, that pulsing thrumming deliciousness of the universe waiting for her secrets to be unearthed.”
“What, exactly, do you expect us to find?”
“Iexpect knowledge. That’s all,” said Ruslan, stroking the sling of his injured arm. “That is all I ever want. It is in knowledge, after all, that we find the tools to make history.”
“A rather ambitious goal to make history,” said Séverin.
Ruslan beamed. “Isn’t it? I’m delighted. I never had the head—or perhaps the hair—for ambition, and I find that I like it.” He smiled and patted Séverin on the head. “Goodbye, then.”
Annoyed, Séverin smoothed his hair. When he turned around, the others had been fitted with their new boots. Zofia had first designed a pair of shoes for traction on ice and an ability to shift from shoe to ski at a moment’s notice. But Eva had now Forged it to conceal temperature, which turned them glossy and iridescent, like an oil slick on a frozen pond.
“No thanks from you, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie?” asked Eva, sidling up beside him.
“You have my thanks already,” he said, distracted.
“So taciturn!” Eva laughed. “Is that how he thanks you, Laila?”
“Not at all,” said Laila, her fingers grazing the diamond necklace at her throat.
Eva’s gaze narrowed, and her smile sharpened. Her hand went to her own throat and to a slender silver pendant hanging from a chain. She tugged it sharply. “Diamonds for services rendered. Youmustbe exceptional—”
Out the corner of his eye, Séverin saw Enrique’s head snap up in fury, while Laila’s fingers stilled on her necklace.
“Leave,” said Séverin sharply.
Eva startled, her sentence left unfinished.
“Your help is much appreciated, but for this next part, I need to be with my team. Patriarch Hypnos will serve as Order witness. It’s nearly noon, and we have no time to waste.”
Eva’s eyes flashed.
“Of course, Monsieur,” she said tightly, before stalking down the hall.
Enrique coughed awkwardly, nudging Hypnos beside him. Laila stared at the floor, her arms crossed. Only Zofia serenely continued to lace her boots.
“You know, I really doadorethis sheen,” said Hypnos, pivoting on one heel. “Très chic. I wonder, though, what other garments might work as ice? Ice robe? Ice crown? Nothing too cold, though. One’s tongue tends to stick to these things.”
Zofia frowned. “Why is your tongue relevant to this discussion?”
“You mean: ‘When is my tonguenotrelevant?’”
“That is not what I mean,” said Zofia.
Laila straightened her coat, then looked down the hall. “Shall we?”
One by one, Laila, Enrique, and Zofia walked down the narrow aisle and into the ice grotto. Séverin was on the verge of following when he felt a touch at his arm. Hypnos.
The other boy stared at him with concern, his mouth pulled down.
“Are you well? After yesterday?” he asked. “I meant to ask, and I waited with the others but then… then I fell asleep.”
Séverin frowned. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
