“Or…” said Hypnos, grabbing his chin and pointing it to the floor. The thin layer of frost on the marble floor began to melt. When Enrique leaned closer, a mirror-bright shape caught his eye, like the outline of a letter. “Perhaps you have not debased yourself enough to a room full of goddesses.”
“Of course,” said Enrique, sinking to his knees. “The floor.”
Zofia drew her torch closer. There, a riddle took shape:
THE NOSE KNOWS NOT THE SCENT OF SECRETS BUT HOLDS THE SHAPE.
8
SÉVERIN
Séverin had seven fathers, but only one brother.
His seventh father—his favorite father—was Gluttony. Gluttony was a kind man, with many debts, and that made him dangerous to love. Tristan used to count the minutes he left them alone, terrified Gluttony would abandon them, no matter what Séverin said to calm him. After Gluttony’s funeral, Séverin found a letter shoved under his desk and streaked with dirt:
My dear boys, I am so sorry, but I must relinquish my role as your guardian. I have offered my hand in marriage to a rich and lovely widow with no desire for children.
Séverin held the letter tightly. If Gluttony was to marry, then why had he taken his life with rat poison? A poison that was only kept in the greenhouse to ward off pests, a greenhouse that Gluttony never entered, but that Tristan loved.
You will always have me, Tristan had said at the funeral.
Yes, thought Séverin now. He would always have him. But would he always know him?
* * *
AS THE TROIKA rumbled over the streets of St. Petersburg, Séverin drew out Tristan’s penknife. A shimmering vein of Goliath’s paralyzing venom ran down its edge. When he touched the blade, he imagined the soft brush of ghostly feathers, remnants of Tristan’s kills. And then he’d remember Tristan’s wide grin and sly jokes, and he couldn’t reconcile this blade with his brother. How could someone hold so much love and so many demons in one heart?
The troika pulled to a stop. Through the pulled velvet curtains, Séverin heard laughter and violin music, the bell-like chime of glasses clinking together.
“We’ve arrived at the Mariinsky Theatre, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie,” called his driver from the front.
Séverin hid the blade behind a steel-lined pocket of his jacket where it couldn’t hurt him. Before he stepped outside, Séverin closed his eyes and pictured Roux-Joubert in the catacombs, his mouth dripping with golden ichor, that shining blood of the gods. Phantom sensations crawled over his skin—black feathers shooting from his spine, wings draping around his shoulders, horns unraveling from his head, and that unmistakable rush of invincibility. Of godhood. Bad or benevolent, he didn’t care. He just wanted more of it.
Inside the Mariinsky Theatre, the glittering elite of St. Petersburg glided about before the ballet performance. At the entrance, a Forged ice sculpture of Snegurochka—the snow maiden from Russian fairy tales—twirled slowly, her gown of ice stars and crystal pearls catching the light and spreading nets of frost over the red carpet floors. Women wearing kokoshniks of golden appliqué and swan feathers laughed behind pale hands. The air smelled of ambergris perfume and tobacco smoke, salt and the occasional metallic tang of snow. A couple of women draped in ermine and sable fur walked past him, trailing gossip in their wake.
“Is that the hotelier from Paris?” whispered one. “Where’s he sitting?”
“Don’t look at him like that, Ekaterina,” snapped the other. “Rumor has it he’s got a cabaret star or courtesan warming his bed tonight.”
“Well, I don’t see her on his arm,” she said with a sniff.
Séverin ignored them, turning instead toward the ivory-and-gilt doors of the entrance. The minutes ticked slowly past. Séverin twisted the diamond signet ring around his pinky. Laila would hate him for summoning her like that, but it’s not as though she’d given him a choice. She was supposed to meet him here fifteen minutes ago. Séverin turned about the room. A server in a crisp silver jacket balanced a platter of etched glasses carved from ice and filled with black peppercorn vodka beside zakuski on small porcelain dishes: pickled cucumber and glossy roe, bits of meat suspended in aspic, and thick slabs of rye.
A man wearing an ermine ruff caught his eye and followed his gaze to the door. He flashed a knowing smile, then picked up two glasses, handing one to Séverin.
“Za lyubov!” he said, and cheerfully knocked back the glass. The man lowered his voice. “It means ‘to love,’ my friend.” He winked and looked back to the door. “May she not keep you waiting for long.”
Séverin drained his vodka in one swallow. It smoldered down his throat. “Or may she never find me at all.”
The man looked confused, but before he could say anything, an announcer from the top of the golden, spiraled staircase called out: “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats!”
The crowd moved toward the staircase. Séverin hung back. Laila still wasn’t here, and yet even in her absence, she’d managed to drive him mad. He heard her in the chime of another woman’s too-throaty laugh, the whip of a fan she’d never bother to carry. He thought he saw her through the golden haze of a floating candelabra, trailing a bronze hand down someone else’s jacket. But it was never her.
Inside the auditorium, golden champagne chandeliers drifted over the guests, who waved down flutes with a sharp flick of their hand. An artist with an affinity for silk matter had Forged the embroidery of the stage’s scarlet curtains, so the threads moved fluidly into the shape of swimming koi fish. The stirring of a long-ago childhood impulse flickered inside his chest … to watch the audience, to follow the paths of their gaze. To make wonders. But he shoved it down.
Séverin snuck a glance at the empty box beside his. The art dealer, Mikhail Vasiliev, was due to arrive any minute now. Impatiently, he tapped his foot against the ground, and then let out a small curse. Some of the anti-magnetic dust Zofia had coated their shoes with left a fine grit along the wooden floor. He looked down at his hand, to the diamond signet ring that was bonded to Laila’s choker. He scowled at it. Either it wasn’t working, or she’d chosen to ignore him entirely.
At the sound of the door opening, Séverin sat up straight. He expected Laila, but it wasn’t his door that had opened—it was Vasiliev’s. Two armed guards entered the booth beside his. Their cuffs were rolled, and the blood Forged tattoo that allowed them entrance into the downstairs’ private lobby salon cast a scarlet glow beneath the gas lamps. Séverin could just make out a small symbol … an apple … before the guards turned, scanning the box.
“This isn’t the usual,” murmured one of the guards.
“The other was under construction,” said the second. “Even Vasiliev’s salon is under construction. They had to add new metal beams or something in the corners.”
The other guard nodded and then made a sound of disgust as he scraped his feet on the floor. “Do they no longer clean this establishment? Look at all this dust. Disgusting.”
“Vasiliev won’t like all these changes … he’s nervous tonight.”