He started moving away when Hypnos lowered his voice. “Have I done something wrong?”
Séverin turned to look at him. “Have you?”
“No?”
But there was a flicker of hesitation behind his eyes. As if he knew something.
“Is it so impossible for me to express some concern about you?” demanded Hypnos. His blue eyes flashed, nostrils flaring just slightly. “Did you forget that we were practically raised together for some time? Because Ihaven’t. For God’s sake, Séverin, we were practically brothers—”
Séverin squeezed his eyes shut. That terrible memory in the Jardin du Luxembourg bit into his thoughts, and for a moment he was a small boy once more, calling out to Hypnos, with his hand outstretched. He remembered the moment when Hypnos saw him—their eyes meeting across the park—before the other boy turned.
“We were never brothers,” said Séverin.
Hypnos’s throat moved. He looked at the ground. “Well, you were the closest I had to one.”
For a moment, Séverin could say nothing. He didn’t want to remember how he and Hypnos had played next to each other, or how he had once cried as a child when Hypnos had to go back to his own home.
“Perhaps you felt I’d forgotten you after your parents died, but I never did, Séverin. I swear it,” said Hypnos, his voice breaking. “There was nothing I could do.”
Something in Hypnos’s voice almost convinced him… but that thought held terror. He could not be trusted with another brother. He could barely survive Tristan dying in his arms. What if thathappened to Hypnos next? All because he had let him get too close? The thought pinched sharply behind his ribs.
Séverin turned from him. “I only had one brother, Hypnos. I’m not looking for a replacement.”
With that, he walked down the hall.
“TAKE A LOOK ATthis!” called Enrique.
Enrique held up a lantern. Finally, the sunken platform was truly illuminated. Séverin staggered back in disgust as the light caught hold of the female statues. From their recessed niches in the wall, they leaned out, extending their arms severed at the wrist. They looked grotesque. Their jaws had been ruined—or clawed—and designed to look unhinged.
“They’re downright eerie to look at, don’t you think?” asked Enrique, shuddering. “Almost lifelike. And, wait, I believe those markings on their mouth aresymbols…”
Enrique held up his Mnemo bug, recording the statues and talking rapidly, but Séverin was no longer paying attention. He was watching Laila’s face as she moved toward the statues, utterly transfixed. She’d slipped off one of her fur-lined gloves, stretching up on her toes as her bare hand reached toward the statues.
Above them, the giant moon changed shape with each passing minute, gradually growing full. He glanced at his watch and realized it would show a “full moon” right at noon. Séverin glanced over the room. He was missing something. If this place was supposed to be a sanctum, then why keep an eye on the time? What was the point?
His watch struck noon.
From the still pool of water came the sound of distant churning,like a submerged roll of thunder. The ground quivered. Hardly a moment ago, that great oval of water had lain smooth and flat as a mirror.
It wasn’t smooth and flat anymore. It rippled, small waves sloshing out the side.
Something was coming.
“Move! Getback!” shouted Séverin.
Out the corner of his eye, he saw Laila’s hand splayed against the statues, her eyes wide and shocked. He lurched forward, grabbing her and pulling her backward just as a creature made of metal shot out of the water. A biblical word rose to his mind:leviathan. A sea monster. It surged out of the oval, sinuous, snake-like, with a sharp snout like that of an eel shooting from the waves as steam plumed from the steel-fretted gills at its throat. When it cracked open its mechanical jaws, Séverin saw a hellscape of iron eel teeth. Its bulbous, glass eyes roved wildly as it dove back down—
Towardthem.
Séverin ran to the door, yanking open the entrance and bracing himself for an attack that never came. The leviathan dove up, then curled down, its giant head resting on the ice and its jaws propped open.
The clock on the wall struck the third chime of noon.
Séverin felt his thoughts ram together, trying to arrange a puzzle that was missing a critical piece. But then he felt Hypnos pulling him through the door—
“What the hell were you waiting for?” he demanded.
The door closed, seaming the monster shut behind its walls. His heart raced. His mind tried to cling to every detail that he’d just seen: pale eyes and teeth, the chime of noon.
