She moved again, but it was like the metal wanted to pull her into itself.Not me, you don’t want me, she told the metal. It loosened, but she wasn’t strong enough to pull away.
“Start pedaling,” she said, gritting her teeth as she tugged at her right arm with her left hand.
Slowly, it unclasped, and Zofia winced as the skin of her palm scraped.
“I’ve got you, Phoenix,” said Enrique. He wrapped his arms around her waist, tugging hard. Zofia fell back against Enrique, and the movement rocked the boat, nearly crashing them into another gondola—
“Attento!” shouted the gondolier.
Zofia sat up, her hand burning. The canal had grown more crowded. The gondolier had started shouting at them, which made the other boats slow down to watch. Zofia looked up at the bridge. She saw, as if time had slowed down, awareness prickling through the line of Ruslan’s shoulders. He started to turn.
Zofia whirled to face Enrique. “Kiss me.”
His eyes went wide. “Now? Should I—”
Zofia grabbed Enrique’s face and brought it to hers. Instantly, the wings of the swan shivered around them, hiding them fromsight. Venice vanished around them. The shouting went mute. All she could feel was the sudden tug of the boat through the water as Hypnos spirited them away from Ruslan’s notice. Zofia was so caught up in the kiss as a distraction that she almost forgot it was a kiss—
Until she didn’t.
It was dark and warm inside the closing of the swan’s wings. Enrique’s lips felt wind-roughened and dry. Zofia broke the kiss. It had all been rather anticlimactic, though she was not sure what she had expected.
“That was not awful,” she offered.
Enrique paused, and she felt her face flaming, something inside her shrinking fast in embarrassment.
“But it could be so much better,” he said.
“How?”
She wanted to know. The next instant, she felt his warm hands sliding up her cheek. Zofia’s eyes were wide open in the dark, not that it let her see any clearer, but it felt important that, for what happened next, her eyes should stay open. She felt the space shift in front of her, the softest gust of warm air against her lips, and then—
Zofia was kissed.
Zofia understood the concept of heat. She knew that it was the result of atoms and molecules colliding, the motion of which generated energy. Warmth—not like a flare, but a slow, rising wave—swept up from her toes to her heart. And yes, there was energy in this… in being kissed and kissingback. She was a participant in the unseen particles spinning in an invisible choreography. Like a dance inside her bones. She leaned forward eagerly into the unexpected warmth of Enrique as her mind registered new sensations: the scratch of his unshaven cheek, his teeth on her lower lip, the wet heat as his mouth opened hers. It was not unpleasant. It wasthe very opposite, in fact. Enrique held her close, close enough that she could feel her heartbeat on his. And that was when she noticed it—or rather, theabsenceof it.
Hela’s letter was gone.
16
SÉVERIN
On the night of Carnevale, Séverin stroked the bruised violet bloom of a poisonous larkspur flower and waited.
Almost three years ago, Laila had made a feast of flowers as a special dessert for some prominent guests staying at L’Eden. It was late spring, and the city of Paris seemed like an irritable bride on her wedding day—sulky and sweating at a perceived lack of attention while blooming flowers shone like jewels on the city’s limbs.
Tristan had cleared a space in the gardens, and a Forging artist who specialized in textiles had constructed a silk tent that would keep in the cool air and later stir around the guests as if moved by a mild breeze. On a banquet table absent of any silverware, Laila was nearly finished arranging piles of golden dahlias, crimson roses, cloud-blue hydrangeas, and wreaths of honeysuckles. They looked eerily lifelike. On the rim of a cowslip, a single drop of dew seemed ready to slide down the petal.
And yet, even from where he stood at the head of the banquet table, Séverin could smell the marzipan and vanilla, cocoa and citrusbeneath the artfully sculpted flowers. One bloom did not look as though it belonged. It was a long, blue larkspur, each violet petal streaked blue like the sky at twilight.
“You snuck a poisonous flower into the arrangement?” asked Séverin, pointing at it. “I doubt our guests will be brave enough to try it.”
“And what if I told them that it was the sweetest out of all these blooms… that underneath those deadly petals is a thick almond cream with a ripple of spiced plum down the middle?” said Laila, her eyes sparkling with slyness. “Surely such a taste is worth a brush with death, wouldn’t you say? Unless you are not quite as brave as I imagined.”
“Well, now you’re appealing to my vanityandmy curiosity,” said Séverin. “Which means, of course, that I can’t help but be tempted.”
“So it’s working, then?” said Laila, grinning.
“Of course it’s working,” said Séverin. He reached out, snapped off a bit of the larkspur’s sugar leaf, and ate it. The taste of vanilla and cardamom rolled over his tongue. He held out a bit to Laila, who immediately popped it into her mouth. She raised her eyebrows at the taste, clearly pleased with her work.
