22
LAILA
Laila lingered at the entrance to the Sleeping Palace’s kitchen quarters, caught between wanting to join the servants in their food preparations and avoiding the kitchens altogether. She used to love this—examining ingredients like scraps of a universe not yet made. She used to savor the safety of the kitchens where no memories could bite her, where all her touch conjured was something worth sharing amongst friends.
Once, she’d even baked edible wonders.
Now all that remained was wondering: How would she live? How would she die? She glanced down at her hands. They seemed alien to her. Long ago, when she’d asked thejaadugarhow she might keep living, he’d only instructed her to find the book and open it, for therein lay the secrets to her making. He hadn’t said that she would need to find someone else to read it for her, and yet that’s what Enrique and Zofia’s findings confirmed. To readThe Divine Lyrics, one needed someone of the Lost Muses bloodline.
“Mademoiselle?” asked an attendant. “You came to give us certain instructions for the tea?”
Laila startled from her thoughts. The attendants must have noticed her standing at the entrance. Beyond them, she spotted tea carts already loaded with samovars and gildedpodstakannikdesigned to hold the thin glasses, mounds of glistening caviar beside slender mother-of-pearl spoons, jam sandwiches the color of blood, and fragile sugar cookies that looked like layers of lace. All in preparation for the meeting to be held now that Enrique was conscious once more. Laila cleared her throat.One step at a time.First, she needed the book. From there, she would figure it out.
“No pork for platter number two,” said Laila, pointing at Zofia’s tray. “Please do not let anything on the plate touch.”
She scrutinized Enrique’s tray and frowned. “More cake on that one.”
For Hypnos’s plate, she pointed at the water goblet. “Could you put that in a lovelier glass? Something etched and in quartz? And put the wine in a plainer goblet.”
Hypnos had a higher tendency to drink from a prettier glass, and they needed him sober. Laila hesitated at the last tray. Séverin’s.
“What does Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie want?” asked the server.
Laila stared at the tray and felt a mirthless laugh rise in her chest.
“Who knows,” she said.
The attendant nodded and promised to send the trays to the library within the next half hour.
“One more tray,” said Laila. “A little bit of everything on it… I’m not sure what she likes. And you can give it to me directly.”
The server frowned, but did as asked. With the platter in hand, Laila made her way through the intricate lower hallways to the room Ruslan had told her served as the infirmary. By now, theothers would be gathering in the library, ready to break the code that Zofia had found in the leviathan’s mouth, but Laila needed one more minute of silence. She hadn’t had a chance to mourn the girls she’d read. She hadn’t even had the chance to catch her breath after Eva, Enrique, and Zofia had gone missing, and all that she and Séverin had found was a blood-flecked arrow spinning across the floor of the ice grotto.
What she needed was to give thanks, and to the right person.
Laila knocked on the door of the infirmary.
“What do you want?” snapped a voice from within.
Laila took a deep breath and opened the door. Lying on a makeshift cot in the center of the room was Eva. Immediately, Eva pulled up the covers, hiding her leg beneath the blankets. In those unguarded seconds, Laila caught sight of the thick, mottled scars on Eva’s skin and the shrunken muscle.
“Oh, it’syou,” said Eva, settling into her pillows.
“Who did you think I’d be?”
“Someone important.” Eva lifted her chin. “I had put out an inquiry to find out more about Moshe Horowitz. I thought you might be someone bringing me useful information.”
Laila ignored the insult, caught off guard by the familiarity of that name, though she couldn’t place it.
“It was a name we found in the well,” added Eva.
Laila’s hands twitched and turned cold, as if she’d touched a slab of ice and a crown of frosted petals. In her head, she heard the last memories of the dead girl:My father, Moshe Horowitz, is a moneylender. He can pay for whatever ransom you name, I swear it, please—
Laila gripped the platter harder, her heart aching. “I don’t have any information, but I brought this. May I come in?”
Eva narrowed her eyes, but eventually nodded. As Laila drewcloser, Eva’s hand went to her throat, nervously tugging at the pendant she always wore. This close, Laila could finally see that it was a silver ballerina spinning on a thin chain. Eva caught her looking and quickly tucked it away.
“If you think you can bribe my friendship—” she started, then her stomach growled. Eva blushed furiously.
