The glass dropped from her hand, shattering onto the floor.
“Here?” Delphine spluttered. “What about the Winter Conclave?”
“It would seem, matriarch, that they are bringing the Winter Conclave… to us.”
Laila looked around the vast, empty atrium. Resentment coiledinside her gut. She didn’t want hundreds of Order members running through here with their sticky hands grabbing for treasure. She might have felt differently if the Conclave admitted its non-Western members—those from the colonial guilds that had been absorbed into the Houses of the country that conquered their land—but they had no place here. It reminded Laila of the dead girls, hunted for their very invisibility in the grand scheme of the world.
“When are they coming?” snarled Delphine.
“Within minutes, matriarch,” said the servant. “They plan to utilize their own Tezcat inroads, both above ground and under water. They will bring their own artisans to decorate before the annual Midnight Auction.”
Delphine swore under her breath. Just then, Laila watched as the servants carried up baskets of treasure—books and statues, jewels dripping off platters and gleaming instruments. Her thoughts felt pulled in a thousand directions. She felt someone shoving a champagne flute into her hand. When she looked up, silver petals rained down from the ice ceiling, clinging to the blue floor. She’d always dreamed that when she got close to the book, her body would know. Maybe her veins would gleam with light, or her hair would raise up off her shoulders. Instead, her pulse turned sluggish. Time seemed to have forgotten to gather her in its momentum, slowing the room and its inhabitants around her. Doubt caught up to her. Her heart hurt for no reason she could name. And then, at last, she felt Enrique and Zofia at her side. Zofia—sweet, stoic Zofia—had tears streaming down her face. Enrique was talking too fast, and she couldn’t catch anything but one phrase, so sharp she felt like she’d broken her life on it:
“There was no book.”
27
ENRIQUE
Six hours before the Midnight Auction…
Enrique once loved the feeling of incredulity. It was the sense that the world conspired to dazzle him. It was how he had felt when he’d first visited L’Eden, on the hotel’s anniversary when Séverin had designed the space to resemble the Garden of Paradise. A basilisk made of apples and twice the size of a dining table writhed between the pillars, twisting and snapping its jaws, perfuming the air with fruit. Topiary creatures gently grazed by silk couches. And Séverin moved among them like a well-tailored god still curating his universe. That was incredulity. That someone like Séverin could summon forth his imagination, and the world would not bowl him over but bow before him. Enrique didn’t remember consciously deciding that he wanted to work for the strange hotelier with a taste for stranger artifacts… all he knew was that he wanted to know what the world looked like from his angle.
What he felt now was a different kind of incredulity. The kind where one has released a dream into the world, only to rediscover it on the ground, trampled and stained.
There was no book.
How…
How could they have beensowrong?
And at such cost?
Beside him, Laila hadn’t moved. Her face was bloodless, her garnet ring sliding down her finger. Zofia stood on Laila’s other side, their shoulders barely touching.
All around them pressed the members of House Dazbog and House Kore. The air seemed to quiver and shake with the promise of guests soon to arrive. At the entrance to the Sleeping Palace, the matriarch of House Kore fixed the lake with a haughty expression.
“Howdarethey,” she said, under her breath. “They could not stand the thought of someone unearthing treasure without them. Well, that’s fine. Let them bring the Conclave here. Let them see exactly whatmypatronage still yields.”
She cast a scathing glance at Enrique.
“And youstillneed a haircut.”
Enrique wanted to grumble at her like he normally did, but he couldn’t find the right words. All he felt was Laila’s hand in his… cold and still as a corpse. A warm hand gripped his shoulder, and Enrique turned to see Hypnos smiling down at him.
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” asked Hypnos. His face shone with pride. “We’ve got the treasures of the Fallen House! The Order will have their infamous Midnight Auction. Séverin has his vengeance. Whatever is left of the Fallen House will never recover from this blow.”
Enrique was in no mood to congratulate, and so he said nothing.Hypnos didn’t seem to notice. His hand slipped from Enrique’s shoulder as he pointed to the ice. Beside Hypnos, Eva appeared, crossing her arms. A challenging smile curved her lips.
“They’re here,” she said slowly.
Enrique’s pulse kicked up at the sound of paws scraping over ice. Hundreds of dogsleds poured across Lake Baikal’s frozen waters. As they got closer, Enrique recognized different factions of the Order and the living treasure chests that kept pace beside them. A beryl wolf let loose a mechanical howl. Eva nodded in the wolf’s direction.
“House Orcus,” she said. “They specialize in collecting objects of torture, particularly ones used to punish oathbreakers.”
Overhead, an obsidian eagle swooped low, its shadow stretched across the water.
“House Frigg of the Prussian Empire,” explained Eva once more, pointing at the pale bird. “They have more of an agricultural taste when it comes to their acquisitions, particularly in tapping rubber trees—”
