“If I do that, she’ll die,” said Séverin.
“If you don’t, she won’tlive,” shot back Zofia.
Laila closed her eyes. Light seamed through her. She felt her memories rising up, pulling free from her, so that with every note, a part of her was shorn off like a cliff falling bit by bit into the sea.
Here, the memory of tying thegunghroobells around her ankles before her mother taught her to dance. The bells smelled like blood and looked like gold, and when they chimed in her heart, she heard her mother’s voice:I will show you to dance the story of the gods.
Pressure on her face. A rough-padded thumb lifting her eyelids. Enrique’s soot-streaked face slowly coming into focus.
“You must keep your eyes open! We’re nearly there!”
Laila tried. At least, she thought she was trying. She could still see the outline of Séverin limping up the steps. He clutched the lyre in one bloodied hand, his mouth a grim and determined twist.
Hypnos pivoted her just as bronze fists shattered on the steps, bronze fingers twitching weakly. Zofia and Enrique darted forward, kicking away the rubble. The Tezcat pendant now looked like a miniature sun.
“One more step and we’ll cross through to the other side—” said Zofia, lifting her foot.
Séverin called out: “Wait! We need to make sure there’s no final trap—”
Hypnos let out a ragged sigh, spinning her once more, and Laila’s vantage point was stolen. All she saw was the thin line of blue light on one of the shining steps, the promise of another place. Her consciousness slipped—
Here, the memory of standing in L’Eden’s kitchen for the first time, pouring ingredients for a cake, her hands dusted with flour and sugar. The beautiful silence of objects with no memory: pale eggshells, a palmful of finely milled sugar, split vanilla beans in a glass measuring cup.
Laila remembered hunger. Not the belly-pinching ache for food, but something else: her mouth watering, a cake slowly rising, water boiling for tea, the sound of friends’ voices just outside the door. The promise that this ache would be filled and then some. She missed that hunger.
“Laila!”
Her eyes opened to Ruslan wrestling Séverin to the ground. Blue light glowed at the back of her eyes, and voices flitted in and out through her thoughts.
“There’s writing on the steps.”
Hide—
—Your
Face—
—Before
God—
—This
Is—
—Not
For—
—You
To—
—See
Those words meant nothing to Laila. Her memories bled from her swiftly—
Séverin’s lips on her spine, kissing his way down her scar; the metallic smell of snow; the wax on the dance floor of the Palais desRêves; the startling blue of Zofia’s eyes; the Forged tinsel decorations on the stair bannisters of L’Eden; Enrique leaning puppy-like against her legs; the strange tenderness of her first loose tooth; Hypnos’s throaty laughter; her mother splitting a pomegranate with her bare hands; the scratchy luxury of a raw silk gown against her skin; the thick heat of India; Séverin’s wolf grin; a straw doll catching fire and burning, burning, burning.
