Enrique’s future would be clear, and all he had to give up was a little part of himself.
But now, Enrique had made that sacrifice. Or rather, someone had made it for him. He stared at the gilt mirror on the far side of the library wall, turning his head one way and another before looking around at his scattered notes and research. He had given up his ear, but his future was no clearer.
History was all around him, and yet he had no idea where he belonged within it. He was lost. For all that he had dreamed of leaving a mark on the world, the world had marked him and kept moving.
A sound by the doorway startled him. Enrique looked up to see Zofia in her black apron. Soot had gotten smudged on her pale cheeks, but for some reason, it only drew attention to the vivid blue of her eyes and the Christmas red of her cheeks. Her candlelight hair had slipped out of its braid, and for a moment, he had the bizarre urge to feel it between his fingers… to wonder if it would feel, somehow, like light on his skin.
He stood suddenly, nearly scattering some of the documents on the table beside him.
“Phoenix,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m finished with my work,” she said.
“Oh… well done?”
She looked around the room. “You have not found what you are looking for yet.”
Enrique deflated a bit. Ever since their meeting the night before, he had been searching for clues in the matriarch’s safe house about the location of House Janus and the Carnevale gathering. But so far, he had found nothing. In the other room, Laila was busy reading all the objects she could, searching for a hint. An incognito Hypnos had gone to make secret inquiries in Venice about themascheraribar that created the invitations. So far, all Enrique had managed to do was pull every book and framed picture off the library wall.
“You need help,” said Zofia.
Enrique was a bit stung, but he had grown used to the way Zofia processed the world around her. She never meant it as an insult, merely as an observation.
“I do,” he said, sighing.
There were only three days before Carnevale. Hypnos had made it clear that he thought if they could not find a hint about House Janus or themascherarisalon soon, then finding Séverin was their best chance of getting to the temple beneath Poveglia.
“We must face it,mon cher,” said Hypnos, right before he’d left the house. “He always knows what to do and where to look.”
Perhaps in the past that had been true, but now? Enrique had no trust in this new Séverin and the things he wanted. A vicious part of him imagined Séverin waiting for them at the meeting place, only for them not to show. Would he feel abandoned? Wouldhe look at all the things he had done and hate himself? Would he be shocked? Enrique hoped so. Then, maybe, Séverin would know how they’d felt.
“What should I do?” asked Zofia.
“I… I have no idea,” said Enrique, gesturing to the two tables piled high with papers and objects. “I arranged most of the items on the tables. I figured it would be useful to look through them. House Janus is named for the Roman god of transitions and change, and is generally depicted with two heads. He’s often associated with doors, so perhaps look for a key? Or something that changes shape?”
Zofia nodded, walking to the first table. Enrique was too ashamed to tell her that he had already examined all the objects in the safe house. And he was far too ashamed to admit to himself that the person whose perspective he wanted most was the same person he would be happy never to see again.
Enrique could almost imagine Séverin as he had once been… wearing something immaculately tailored and chewing on a clove as he surveyed a room. He had an uncanny ability to know where treasure liked to hide. It was something Enrique had grudgingly admired, how Séverin could contextualize an object and weave a story around it.
“Treasure is like a beautiful woman,” Séverin had once said. “It wants to know that you have taken the time to understand it before it reveals itself.”
Enrique had feigned gagging. “If I were treasure, and I heard you utter that, I would sink to the bottom of the ocean where you would never find me.”
He then proceeded to parrot the line for six months straight.
Séverin had not been amused.
When Enrique thought of it now, he almost smiled, but themovement disturbed the wound where his ear had been. His smile dropped.
“What’s this?” asked Zofia.
He turned to see Zofia holding up a small metal frame. Inside were five clay fragments, their surfaces covered in a wedge-like script. Before, he would have held it closely—almost reverently—to his heart. He would have traced the air above the wedges, imagining the blunt reed that had taken an idea and pinned it to this shape. Now he glanced away.
“Assyrian cuneiform, I believe,” said Enrique. When Zofia looked at him expectantly, Enrique took it as an invitation to explain. Zofia did not always want to listen to him. On more than one occasion, she had simply walked off when he was in the middle of a lecture, and so he had learned to wait and let her decide. “About ten years ago, the Society of Biblical Archaeology wished to corroborate events in the Bible with historical events, particularly the deluge.”
“Deluge?” asked Zofia.
“Also known as the great flood,” said Enrique. “Noah and the ark.”
