HYPNOS
In the years that followed, Hypnos would never be certain what he glimpsed that day on the top of the ziggurat. He had imagined a sentient, celestial presence… an engulfing of gold light. But it was not that. It could not be ordered into something so straightforward as color.
If anything, it was like a living song, undulating and incomprehensible.
For one single moment in time, that song moved through Hypnos, so that he was like a secret pane of glass through which the sunlight shone and the moonlight moved, and he was not illuminated so much as he was enlightened. He saw all the people he had been. The boy who loved to sing, forced to keep his mouth shut. The boy who yearned for song and was surrounded by a thousand different kinds of silence—the silence of his mother’s race, the silence of his own desires, the silence of the luxuriously appointed rooms he haunted like a ghost. All his life, Hypnos had felt like a wandering set of notes, desperate to be set into music, and he hadfound it in the friends who had become family. Even with them, he felt nervous, as if they might throw him out of their music at any moment… but this grand song assured him otherwise. The song told him he was enough as he was, that his soul held a symphony of its own, for that was how he had been made.
But then the song released him.
And he was left with the memory of vastness… and the barest hint of warmth.
PART VI
39
ZOFIA
Three days after they had escaped the crumbling ziggurat and left Poveglia behind, Zofia sat in a private train compartment en route to Paris. Already, the world had changed. According to every newspaper, ancient Forged objects all around the world had ceased to function.
No one knew why.
There were reports of protests outside churches as religious leaders shouted that this was a sign that God was displeased with them. Industrialists spoke of how modern invention erased the need for Forging altogether. For those with an affinity for mind or matter, their art remained intact, but Zofia suspected that one day… even that would change.
Amidst all the uncertainty, there was one thing Zofia knew without a doubt: She did not know what would happen next.
In the past, this would have discomfited her. She would have spent the entire train ride counting the tassels on the rug, the hanging crystal pendants on the light fixtures. Now, she found herselffar less bothered by the unknown. Even if the world were dark, Zofia knew she could be a light.
Alone in the compartment, Zofia stared at her hand, where Laila’s large, garnet ring now shone on her finger. Inside the jewel, the number readzero.
The thought of seeing that number had once paralyzed Zofia. But that moment had come and gone, and though it had not ended at all how she imagined, it had not devastated her.
Zofia flexed her fingers beneath the weight of the garnet ring. She had found it near the clay-lined shores of the lake in the cavern, toppled beside a broken lantern. It must have slipped off Laila’s hand right before they entered the sanctum.
When Laila had asked Zofia to make the ring for her months ago, Zofia had not liked the idea of the red stone. It was the color of blood and reminded Zofia of the warning signs she had once seen placed around the university laboratories.
“I like red,” Laila had insisted, smiling. “It’s the color of life. In my village, brides never wore white because we consider it the color of death. Instead, we wear bright red.” Laila had winked. “Plus, I think red looks rather well on me.”
Zofia turned the ring on her finger. When she thought of Laila, an ache opened up inside her. She remembered her friend lying lifeless on the stone, the temple crumbling around them. She remembered the burning light and the portal opening. But after that, Zofia’s recollections became muddled. She could no longer recall what she had glimpsed on the other side, but she remembered the feeling of extraordinary calm. When she opened her eyes, the temple was silent and Laila was gone.
Séverin had pressed his hands into the place where she had disappeared, his head bowed. “She said she will come back… when she can.”
There were no answers beyond that, and there was no time to look around the temple as it continued to crumble and break. Despite not knowing or understanding where Laila had gone, Zofia was not worried about her friend.
“Phoenix?”
Zofia looked up to see the door to her compartment pulled back and Enrique standing at the entrance. He wore a dark blue suit, and the hat pulled over his head nearly hid the bandage covering his wounded ear.
“May I join you?” he asked.
Zofia nodded, and Enrique took a seat across from her. In the days since they had returned from Poveglia, there had been so much to do and discuss that bringing up her own feelings was hardly a priority. There was travel to arrange, L’Eden to contact, and the Order of Babel to deal with.
Hypnos had finally contacted them, thus ending the Order’s chase and exonerating the crew from what happened at the Winter Conclave a week ago… but now the Order wished to interview them about the death of Ruslan and the Fallen House. They had agreed to come up with a cover story to avoid mentioning the temple beneath Poveglia and what took place there. But truthfully, Zofia wasn’t even sure what she saw. When she tried to concentrate on those minutes, all she could recall was a feeling of calm.
Alone with Enrique for the first time in days, Zofia’s feelings felt sharpened. More acute. She remembered their kiss… the way he had held her hand when the siren-skeletons tried to lure her into the lake… how they had fought the darkness with matching flames.
Zofia wanted to tell him something, but what? That she enjoyed being next to him? That she wanted to kiss him again? Whatwould that even mean? When she looked up at Enrique, she saw that he was staring at the ring on her finger.
“Do you believe what Séverin said?” he asked quietly. “About Laila? That she’s truly well and safe… wherever she is?”
