One by one, they pushed their masks over their heads. Enrique touched the Forged lights, frowning as they wiggled beneath his fingertips. He’d seen this kind of decoration before in L’Eden. Depending on its arrangement in a wall sconce, the colorful lights could recast the hue of an entire room.
“Found something,” said Laila.
He turned to see Laila walking toward a lone shoe at the end of the alley. When she touched it, she startled and glanced back at the mosaic.
“It’s not supposed to look like that.”
“What do you mean?” asked Enrique.
Laila frowned. “Itlookslike we’re in the same place, but what I saw showed that this wall isn’t supposed to be black and white tiles. It’s supposed to be colorful… like an actual painting of something, but I couldn’t see too clearly, the details were muddled.”
Zofia reached beneath the neckline of her robes, tugging out her necklace. One of her pendants glowed.
“It’s a Tezcat entrance,” she said, before placing her hand against the tiles. “But it’s locked somehow. Like it requires a key or a password.”
At her touch, words swirled across the mosaic tiles.
Hypnos groaned. “Again?”
DEAR GUEST,
MAY OUR JOYS BE VERDANT.
Oh, thought Enrique, glancing at the bright lights. It was a color puzzle.
He waited for someone to speak first, but the others were silent. When he looked at them, he realized they were looking athim. It was a look of trust and expectation, an expression that Enrique had never felt the full weight of.
“What do we do?” asked Hypnos.
Enrique felt as if his rib cage were expanding as he gestured to the square of lights. “It’s simple really… the hint is even in the line. ‘Verdant’ comes from the Latin ‘viridis,’ which means… green. So we must make green on the color wall.”
“There is no green light,” said Zofia.
“Right—we must make it.”
He reached for the blue light. It peeled easily off the wall. He slid it into the depression of the square, filling half of its depth. Then he reached for the yellow tile, placing it on top. Green light radiated outwards, first soft and then building in intensity. The green hue melted outwards, spreading across the black and white mosaic tiles like pooling ink. An image took shape as the wall soaked in light and color. A blue tinge spread up from the bottom half of the wall, narrowing into a glassy stream. The dappled emerald of stately cypress trees leapt up on either side. At the center, a pinprick of light grew and grew, and the wall of tiles shimmered with translucence until it melted away entirely to reveal a grand hallway.
Enrique’s eyes widened as he took in the entrance to House Janus’s Carnevale party. The festivities were spread across three levels. From here, the design of the main floor was like a sun withradiating beams. Or, Enrique realized as he tilted his head… a compass rose, which seemed fitting given House Janus’s cartographical treasures.
At the center of the room revolved a golden, circular platform roughly the size of L’Eden’s grand ballroom where dancers laughed and spun around, sometimes teetering on the very edge, centimeters away from the surrounding pool. Others splashed in the water, thin gowns clinging to their wet skin. Above the partygoers rotated a stained-glass and crystal candelabra, from which masked musicians performed.
If the center was the sun, then each of its beams led to a different entrance. On their left, a group of women wearing velvetmorettomasks and bloodred gowns appeared to ride past a dark archway on the back of a massive, winged horse carved of stone. To Enrique’s right, a pale-skinned woman wearing acolombinamask that appeared to be made of solid gold walked through a wall of roses.
“It’s a whole network of Tezcat doors,” said Zofia.
For the first time that evening, she seemed mildly interested.
Hypnos clapped his hands. “Come, let’s go! The drinks await!”
Laila coughed lightly.
“Allow me to amend that. Our mission… and drinks… await?”
Laila rolled her eyes.
Some paces from the mosaic entrance rocked a Forged barge in an inky stream. Twin rows of potted cypresses, like an extension of the mosaic mural, arched over the water.
Enrique pulled his mask down over his head, feeling its weight press against his temples, his scalp, the tenderness of his wound. Through the eyeholes, the world seemed focused, the Carnevale party less like a fantastic Otherworld and more like a secret half-revealed. It stoked a familiar hunger inside him. The simple desire toknow…
