Laila stared down at him. “Plenty.”
“Not scared of death, are you?”
“I consider it a dear friend,” said Laila through her teeth. “Practically family.”
Ruslan grinned. “Then you will not mind taking the first step.”
“No!” cried out Séverin.
“Another word out of you, and someone else will pay for it,” said Ruslan quietly.
Séverin’s eyes looked wild and huge in his face. Laila wished she could tell him that she wasn’t scared. She couldn’t explain why she felt fearless in this moment. Maybe it was what she had glimpsed when the temple grasped hold of her mind… there was a vastness at work here, and she was not frightened by her smallness within it because she hadfeltthat there was a place for her.
“Go ahead, my dear,” said Ruslan. “Walk. Or do you need encouragement?”
He snapped his fingers, and two of the guards broke off to join her. Their rotting flesh stank. When one of them grabbed her arms,Laila could feel the man’s finger bones pressing into her skin as he spun her around.
The shining floor looked like a freshly scrubbed dawn. Laila hesitated when she felt the knife travel down her throat, moving between her breasts and encircling the line of her waist before settling at the small of her back. A fresh wave of nausea ran through her. She couldn’t help but imagine that it was Ruslan’s sickly, golden touch on her skin. Laila wanted to look at the others, but a dead Fallen House member blocked her view.
“Go,” said Ruslan.
Laila swallowed hard, keeping her gaze straight ahead and fixed on the ziggurat in the distance. It was less than thirty meters away. She had to tilt her head back just to see where it disappeared in the strange, green sky. The automatons remained still and serene as she took one step onto the floor. The knife dug into her back, forcing her to take another step. As she did, Laila noticed two raised lines encircling the ziggurat and the automatons.
She hadn’t noticed them before when the floor looked like a melted night sky. Perhaps they were too dark to pick out, but now, as the floor lightened, they became visible.
“There’s something here,” said Laila. “Two… raised lines… I don’t know what it is.”
Ruslan huffed, annoyed. “A demarcation, perhaps—”
“No,” said Enrique slowly. “Thebhuta vahana.”
“And what’s that?” asked Ruslan.
Boredom dripped from his voice, but Laila felt as if the air around her had grown taut. As if the temple was mad… as if they were trespassing.
“Spirit movement machines,” said Enrique, the words tumbling out of him. “I thought it meant the automatons themselves, but I was wrong. It has to be an actual device—”
A low rumble moved through the temple. A growl of thunder rippled through the temple, and a tremor rattled through the floor, powerful enough that Ruslan’s dagger at Laila’s back wavered, clattering to the ground.
“What is that?” demanded Ruslan.
From the corner of her eye, Laila saw the silvery fog bubbling. A dark shape moved behind the mist.
“Laila!” screamed Enrique. “Move! It’s a track!”
Laila had hardly taken two steps away from the others, but she felt the distance like a great chasm as two, massive chariots the size of elephants burst out of the mist and raced across the floor. Sharp, glossy spikes jutted out from their wheels, spinning so fast, they looked like pointed blurs. Laila stumbled backward, and Séverin caught her against him, pulling her away just as the chariot spun past them in a deafening roar. When it finally faded seconds later, Laila lifted her head, turning slowly…
On the glass floor, the bodies of the Fallen House members lay in clumps of meat. Zofia retched onto the ground. Even the dagger poised at her heart wavered.
“Hmm,” said Ruslan thoughtfully. “Perhaps you were right about the whole ‘go at noon’ business.”
Laila could feel the sharp rise and fall of Séverin’s chest. He moved to shove her behind him, but Ruslan was faster. The air sang as the golden blade cut through it and found her neck once more.
Laila tilted her chin, assuming the haughty L’Enigme expression that had once earned her strands of pearls thrown at her feet. She already wore death on her hand, a dagger at her throat made no difference.
“It’s a miracle you’re still alive, my dear,” said Ruslan.
Laila said nothing. Ruslan turned to Enrique, who was shakingwhere he stood. Hypnos swayed, his head turned resolutely from the mangled bodies on the floor.
