“Please leave.”
“Nonsense,” sang Hypnos loudly. He cleared his throat and continued speaking. “Don’t worry, I’m not envious. I have a big, generous heart and a big generous—”
“Hypnos.”
“I was going to say ‘sense of humor.’”
“Lies.”
Hypnos grinned, then clapped his hands. “Well? How was it?”
Enrique glared at him.
“Oh, come now,mon cher,” said Hypnos. “Friends tell friends secrets!”
“We have been friends for less than a day.”
“Hmpf,” said Hypnos before turning around and exclaiming in delight. “Little Phoenix! You join us once more!”
Enrique stood straighter as Zofia entered the room. He was nervous about making eye contact with her, but it was impossible to see her over the pile of robes and masks in her arms. She lowered them slowly onto the wooden table in the library before turning to face them. She regarded Enrique mildly. It was as if nothing had ever happened between them, and he wasn’t sure if that left him grateful or gutted.
“Where’s Laila?” she asked.
“Here.”
Laila stepped inside, wearing a white dress. The color, he thought, looked funereal on her. Though she was no less kind, a distance had crept into her gaze since last night. Oftentimes, her fingers went to her wrist, as if she were checking her pulse.
“We’re supposed to meet Séverin at midnight,” she said.
Enrique’s jaw clenched. “How will he find us?”
Laila looked as if she was about to say something else and then thought better of it. “I’m sure it won’t pose a problem to him.”
“But where do we go when we get there?” asked Hypnos. “Iimagineif one is throwing a party, the setting will be magnificent, possibly labyrinthine—”
“Leave that to me,” said Laila, wiggling her fingers. “Servants always see something. It’s easy to brush against their sleeves or touch what they’re holding and look into the rest of the room. Zofia, what have you brought us?”
Zofia touched the robes on the table. “Six explosives, a silencing board, one spherical detection device, five filtration devices for smoke, and smoking light deflection.”
Hypnos blinked. “That’s… that’s rather thorough.”
“Not to mention what’s sewn into this,” said Laila, patting the corsetry of her dress.
“Three daggers, four meters of steel rope, and phosphorous lenses in case our light source fails,” rattled off Zofia.
Now Hypnos looked a little nervous. “This seems like an awful lot of dangerous objects required just to find a map…”
Zofia shrugged, chewing on a match. Hypnos looked to Laila, but she had gone distant once more. She twisted her ring, and Enrique’s heart broke a little. The number of days left was weighing on her. And why shouldn’t they? How could anyone breathe around that terror? But they were so close to finding an answer. So close to something that could change their lives.
Enrique reached out, holding her hand. He smiled. “We’ve got hope, a flimsy plan, and a great deal of explosives. We’ve gotten by on less. Let’s go.”
THE MIND FORGEDmasks told them where to go for the Carnevale, but not how to enter.
Half an hour before midnight, Enrique, Hypnos, Zofia, and Laila stood before a black-and-white wall of mosaic tiles at the entrance of a concealed alley that was empty and lined with refuse. Before them, the mosaics stretched about seven meters high, and three meters wide. Despite the arrangement of the tiles, it didn’t resemble anything. On the bare wall beside it was a small square full of colored Forged lights—red, blue, yellow, and orange—eachno larger than a coin. At its center was a blank, circular depression. The colorful lights would easily fit within it like a key, but why was such a thing necessary?
Enrique pushed back his mask. The cold, February air kissed his face. A passing breeze stung at his bandage, and he bit back a wince.
“Why does this feel like it’s going to be another riddle?” asked Hypnos. “I already hate it.”
