Zofia reached forward, grabbing at his sleeves and tearing. “The robes are Forged to inhibit heat. We can use it as a barrier against the hot glass.”
Hypnos shrugged out of his robes, tossing it to Zofia. The liquid glass pooled around the edges of the cloak. It wouldn’t last more than three minutes, but it was something.
“We need something to throw against the skylight!” said Séverin, casting about.
Zofia pointed at the metal spheres at the base of the pedestals. Séverin followed the line of her finger and grinned.
“Gaia Dots,” he said. “Phoenix, that’s brilliant! They should’ve absorbed plenty of shock by now—”
The glass dragon roared, its wings flapping, waves of heat fanning against Zofia’s cheeks.
“What are you waiting for?” shouted Enrique.
Séverin swiped one of the Gaia Dots off the ground, wincing a little as he tethered the sphere to the rope. He lassoed the whole contraption around his head, flinging the bottle up where it shattered against the skylight.
The glass fractured, but it didn’t break.
“Again!” yelled Enrique, tossing him another Gaia Dot.
Séverin swung the rope. The window fractured a little more, but still it did not break.
“The cloak—” said Hypnos, pointing at the mess of Enrique’s flame-retardant cloth.
Liquid glass seeped over it, hardening over the golden cloak in the disturbing way of insects trapped in amber. The glass dragon closed in on them. In the glossy sheen of its belly, Zofia could see her reflection stretched and twisted. The heat closed around them. Sweat ran down her back, and her clothing gummed to her skin. She hated the sensation.
Think, Zosia. Think.
She touched the pendants of her necklace. One of them was an explosive, but would it be enough to break the glass? Laila choked on the air, her hand flying to her mouth, and Zofia’s decision crystallized on the spot.
She tore the pendant, flinging it toward Séverin—
“Try this!” she yelled.
He caught it one-handed. At the same time, Zofia felt awhumph!of concentrated air—
At the periphery of her vision, an enormous glass wing shot through with green and gold paint knifed toward her head. One moment, Zofia had only just registered it. The next she found herself slammed to the ground, her skull thudding on the marble. She blinked to see Enrique braced above her, the dragon’s glass wing missing his head by mere centimeters.
“I, um—” started Enrique, rolling away from her.
“Cover your heads!” called Séverin.
A huge shattering sound echoed far above them. The dragon screeched.
Zofia shielded her head as shards of glass rained down above them. The glass dragon howled. The temperature in the room dropped, the heat ebbing away—
The panic she had fought down for so long now asserted itself. Heat on her face, a hollow in her heart left behind from losing Hela’s letter, worry for Laila, Enrique, Séverin, and Hypnos.
Count, she told herself.13, 26, 39, 52, 65, 78, 91…
The seconds melted together. The weight squeezing her chest slowly lifted until she could concentrate once more on her surroundings. She lowered her arms, lifting her head. It was silent. The glass liquid had stopped a meter away from them and begun to harden. Zofia looked up to see the enormous glass dragon frozen right above them—its wings outstretched and gleaming, jaws flung wide and talons extended.
Séverin flopped back onto the marble, resting his head against one of the podiums. He kicked out his legs, smoothed back his hair, and flashed a smile.
“Good work, Phoenix.”
Séverin used to say that with frequency back in Paris. The words felt comforting. The longer she looked at him, the more she recognized his smile. Laila had once called it his “sated wolf” grin.
She had not seen it since Tristan died, but she remembered it. It was the smile before an acquisition fell into his hands; the smile when the plan performed to standards; and it was as familiar to Zofia as the glass alembics and measuring devices that had once lined the shelves of her L’Eden laboratory.
