Without a second glance, the boy fled the square, leaving Enrique with the apple. Enrique’s Italian was fairly decent, but it took him a moment to parse the words:
The man said this is for you.
All this time he’d been expecting Séverin, but he hadn’t shown. On the one hand, it would’ve been too difficult otherwise. And yet, Enrique felt a little foolish staring down at his carefully chosen clothes and polished shoes… on some level, all of his armor had been for nothing. And yet, when he stared up at the buildings, he felt oddly watched. As if he had caught the attention of something greater than himself, and so perhaps his finery was not a waste.
Enrique turned the apple in his palm. In its rind, he noticed thetiniest slit. He pressed his thumbs around the crack, and the fruit broke open, revealing a folded-up note:
Harbor #7
The Phoenix’s fire must hold through midnight.
Be there in three hours.
15
ZOFIA
In the early-morning hours, Zofia held two halves of a broken heart, each made of glass and about the width and length of her smallest finger.
The pieces had come from the crystal stag in the Sleeping Palace. She knew it was not alive, but she had grown fond of the intricate machine whose Forging artistry was unlike anything she had encountered thanks to the Fallen House. The ice creatures could communicate—in the most basic of senses—with one another. They could detect light, and pursue it; sense weight, and bear it; and, depending on the tampering of its settings… sense an intruder and attack them.
Before they had left the Sleeping Palace, she had removed this heart from the stag and taken it with her, thinking she might study it a little further. Now, with some added metallurgical Forging of her own, she had created a bonded pair of explosives capable of communicating with each other. When one detonated, so would the other.
Zofia was not sure if it would be useful, but at least it addressed an unknown. Looking around her laboratory, Zofia wondered whether she had done enough. She had Forged miniature explosive devices, tools capable of muffling sound, lengths of rope and retractable blades. And that was not including the tools now concealed in the long robes for tonight’s Carnevale.
One unknown at a time, Zofia told herself.
There were three days left until the number on Laila’s garnet ring read zero. Three days to find the light that would lead Laila out of the dark. Three days until Zofia would face the unknown contents of Hela’s letter. Even now, she could feel the softened edges of her sister’s envelope against her skin. Twice today, she had removed the letter and smoothed it onto her worktable. But she could not open it, not until there were less unknowns ahead of her. It was just as Hela had told her all those years ago:
I would wait for the light to show me the paths before me… and then I would not be so lost.
Every day, Zofia felt as though she were working toward more light.
She was on the verge of lowering the two halves of the stag’s heart into a fireproof box when Enrique burst through the doors of her laboratory. He was breathing fast. High color touched his cheeks, and his hair looked mussed.
“Drop what you’re doing!” he cried.
Zofia frowned. “Is that wise? This is a bomb.”
Enrique’s eyes went wide and he waved his hand. “Never mind, donotdrop that.”
In the other room, Hypnos had been singing loudly and playing the piano, but now the music stopped abruptly. “Isn’t it too early in the day to toy with explosives?” he called.
Zofia considered her worktable. “Not for me.”
“How was Séverin?” asked Hypnos, appearing in the doorway.
“He wasn’t there,” said Enrique, holding up an apple. “But a boy gave me this.”
Zofia remembered Enrique complaining about the apples in L’Eden years ago. “I thought you don’t like apples.”
“I don’t, but—”
“You don’t like apples?” asked Hypnos. “Buttarte tatinis a gift from the gods!”
“Tarte tatinis different—”
“But it’s made from apples—”
