For the past two days, she had caught glimpses of Enrique working in the library. Enrique was never still. He hummed. He tapped his foot. He thrummed his fingers along the spines of books.
All of this should have annoyed her, but instead, it made her feel less lonely.
“Phoenix… did I disturb you?” asked Enrique, stepping inside. He surveyed her workbench, his eyes widening. “You have enough for a small army.”
Zofia regarded her inventions. “I have enough for, perhaps, fifteen people.”
“You do realize we are a company of five individuals.”
Zofia frowned. “We do not know what waits for us in Poveglia.”
Enrique smiled. “Precisely what I wished to talk to you about.Would you mind waiting in the library? I’ll fetch Laila and join you in a moment.”
Zofia nodded, pushing her chair. Her back ached, and her eyes burned as she stepped from the dimly lit laboratory and walked across the hall to the library. Hypnos met her by promptly bursting into song.
“Ah, my fair and feral muse!” he sang, before speaking: “How goes your cultivation of destruction?”
Zofia remembered Enrique’s wide eyes.
“Productive,” she said. “Potentially excessive.”
She found herself smiling as she took a seat on a high stool beside him. Hypnos always seemed able to make people smile. Although, lately, Enrique did not seem to smile at him. It was different from how they had been at the Sleeping Palace, which only added to the confusing darkness of her thoughts. She remembered watching them kiss, and the way they had melted against each other. There were moments when she imagined herself in Hypnos’s place. But simply because they were no longer attached did not mean that Enrique would ever want to do that with her. Ideas had no physical mass, but Zofia felt the thought like a stone thudding in her stomach.
“You and Enrique have been so preoccupied,” said Hypnos. “Meanwhile, I’ve tuned a piano and sang bawdy songs to the shadows. They are a very cold sort of audience. No applause whatsoever.”
Zofia looked around the library. It was a small room with low ceilings, four chairs for sitting, and two long tables. The only illumination came from eight rose-shaped sconces in the joints where the ceiling met the wall. All across the walls stood shelves crowded with books or paintings, statue busts, and maps. On one wall stood a large, gilded mirror. Zofia glanced down at her necklace, but hertwo remaining Tezcat pendants did not light up, which meant it was probably nothing more than a mirror. On one of the tables stood a teetering stack of papers that could only belong to Enrique. A still-dripping quill lay balanced across an unstoppered jar of ink. Beside it stood a small, ivory bust of a god with two heads, one facing in either direction. Zofia remembered the deity from the graveyard. Janus, he was called. The god of time.
“Good,” said Enrique, walking into the room with Laila on his arm. “We’re all here.”
Laila was oddly still as she settled into a nearby chair. Her brows were pulled down, her mouth looked thin. Zofia recognized that she was concerned.
“What’s the good news,mon cher?” asked Hypnos.
Zofia noticed his voice was a little more high-pitched. He sat up straight, flashing a wide smile at Enrique. Enrique did not acknowledge or return the smile.
“Good… and bad,” said Enrique, strolling forward. He walked to the middle of the room and faced them. “I believe I know where the map to the temple in Poveglia is being kept.”
Laila’s eyes widened. “Where?”
“For a while, I thought it would be here… somewhere… tucked in all these books and research,” said Enrique, gesturing to the library. “It is sensitive information, and so the matriarch might have concealed its whereabouts somewhere on these premises. But now I believe the map is in the possession of House Janus.”
“House Janus?” asked Laila, frowning. “I am not familiar with them.”
“Iam,” grumbled Hypnos. He crossed his arms. “Like I said before—if anyonebotheredto listen—they are a faction of the Italian Order who throw anexceptionalparty for Carnevale and have never once invited me—”
“They are renowned,” said Enrique loudly, “for their collection of Forged cartographical and nautical objects, which, according to the documents in this library, take most unusual shapes. For example, many of them are priceless and mind Forged.”
“A mind Forgedmap?” repeated Laila.
Zofia was familiar with the idea of the art form, but it was a very temporary and dangerous art. The idea that an object could retain the implanted memory of its artist over centuries was a degree of skill that had long been considered lost.
“I don’t know the specifics of its location,” said Enrique. “But I believe that’s where we’ll find it.”
“How?” asked Hypnos. “The location of House Janus supposedly changes each year. The only time anybody ever sees that reclusive House is during a secret Carnevale. Otherwise, they consider themselves guardians of their treasure and never bother to auction it off or interact with the other Houses.”
“Carnevale is two days from now.”
“What is Carnevale?” asked Zofia.
