In his hands, the instrument of the divine weighed as much as a bird’s nest. For him alone, the ten strings on the lyre glowed like threads of sunlight, like a hope and a promise real enough to touch. With this instrument, the world would never be able to hurt him or his loved ones again. With this, Laila could live and perhaps even love. With this, Tristan could come back to life. Séverin could remake them all with a touch. He could pour sunlight down their veins and fashion them wings if they wished to fly. And he would. All he had to do was get to the temple beneath Poveglia, enter it, play the lyre.
“I will make us all gods,” Séverin vowed.
As the candles burned down to their stubs, Séverin weighed his next steps. He needed to get rid of Ruslan, but he couldn’t do that until the patriarch of the Fallen House revealed where he could find the map to the temple’s entrance hidden beneath Poveglia. In that time, he also needed to establish an excuse to leave Casa d’Oro … perhaps Eva could be of use.
Outside his bedroom door, he heard the Fallen House members moving down a hallway. He expected them to follow his every move, and if it looked as if he were cataloguing the home, it would be too suspect.
Ruslan had barely let him glimpse what lay inside Casa d’Oro before he had him escorted to his room. Séverin had walked slowly, feigning exhaustion, but all the while, he noted all that he could. He’d caught the scent of tilled earth and heard the distant flap of wings. A courtyard garden, perhaps? Or a menagerie? Past the entrance, he’d spied a grand, curving staircase disappearing to uppermost balconies, and a door halfway open revealing a kitchen on the main floor. It wasn’t enough to make a plan … but it was a start.
Though there were no windows in his chamber, Séverin could hear the boats on the water, and, just beyond his wall, the scamper of small feet and fighting orphans. Slowly, a plan began to form.
* * *
AT DAWN, SÉVERIN stepped outside the bedroom door. A pair of guards stood, unmoving, not two meters from him. In the dimness, Séverin could just make out the shape of Casa d’Oro. His bedroom branched off from a bloodred hallway with multiple arches. Mirrors lined the walls. Not six meters away, he spied the kitchen entrance. Excellent, he thought. He turned to his guards and smiled.
“Is Patriarch Ruslan awake?” he asked.
The Fallen House member refused to speak. Or perhaps he couldn’t. The volto mask covered everything but his eyes, and even those had a curious milkiness to them, as if he were blind. Or dead. In place of his lips, a golden Mnemo honeybee whirred. Séverin waved at it.
“Well, if you won’t tell me that, will you at least tell me where I might find the kitchen?” he asked.
As if on cue, his stomach growled. The man said nothing, but turned and walked some paces down to the half-opened door Séverin had seen the night before. When he stepped inside, Séverin felt a gnawing absence. He was used to the kitchens of L’Eden, bursting with Laila’s latest baking experiments. He imagined Enrique and Tristan fighting over the mixing bowl of cake batter, Zofia licking a spoon of white frosting while Laila hollered at all of them to leave her alone for a moment. He expected sugar on the countertops, a jam bubbling on the stove … but the kitchens of Casa d’Oro were entirely empty save for a bowl of red apples on a low-lying table. Séverin took a loud bite of one, then pocketed two more.
“I’ll wait to break the rest of my fast with Patriarch Ruslan, but in the meantime, I’d like to watch the sunrise,” he said. “If you have no objections, you’re welcome to join.”
Once more, the man said nothing. Séverin walked to the front door. As he did, four more members of the Fallen House seemed to melt from out of the shadows, falling into step behind him.
“A morning entourage,” he said. “I am flattered by the company.”
“Stop!” called someone loudly.
Séverin turned to see Eva striding toward him. She wore a yellow-silk morning robe that trailed over the red tiles. Around her neck lay that familiar silver pendant in the shape of a ballerina. Eva was the daughter of Mikhail Vasiliev, a St. Petersburg aristocrat, and a dead prima ballerina. Séverin remembered Laila pleading with her about her father …
“We can protect you,” she had said. “You don’t have to do this … we can bring you back to your father and we promise Ruslan will never be able to hurt him.”
He remembered Eva’s hesitation, the way her gaze dropped to the ice as Laila pleaded.
“I know you love him,” Laila had said. “I saw it in your necklace. I know you regret that you left his home … we can bring you back to him.”
So that was Ruslan’s hold on her. If she didn’t follow his commands, her father would pay. Séverin tucked that information aside for later.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Eva demanded.
“Going out to appreciate the sunrise,” he said. “Would you like to join me?”
Eva’s gaze narrowed, before her eyes fell to the divine lyre strapped to his side. “You cannot leave with that.”
Séverin shrugged. Biting down on the apple again, he removed the lyre from his person and handed it to Eva. Her eyes widened as she took it gingerly in her arms.
“You may keep it safe, then,” he said. He grinned. “Though I expect something more protective than just your arms. I’ve had them around me before, and I can’t say I felt very safe.”
Eva glared. Wisps of red hair curled around her face. She looked as if she was going to say something, but then her eyes darted to the five Fallen House members mutely surrounding them.
“I intend to make some excursions, so you will have to construct a box for me. Something that opens with a drop of my blood that can be kept with Ruslan,” said Séverin. “I assume that should pose no difficulties for an artist of your prowess.”
Without waiting for Eva to answer, Séverin walked to the door. After a moment’s hesitation, a Fallen House member jerked forward and opened it for him, and Séverin walked out onto the dock.
* * *
VENICE WORE THE dawn carelessly. To the floating city, riches were nothing. Gold slipped off the sky and splashed across the lagoon. Across from him, on the other side of the canal, elaborate homes carved of pale stone and affixed with the grinning faces of satyrs and unworshipped gods stared at him. Séverin loudly bit into the apple. He knew he was being watched in secret, and not just from the guards. He waited a couple of moments before the shy rasp of slippers confirmed his suspicions.
Some thirty meters away stood the ruins of a neighboring house. Once, it must have been a grand address, but now it was covered in scaffolding. The dock beside it looked half-rotted. From its stingy shadows, an orphaned boy no more than eight years old regarded him warily. The boy had greasy black hair and his huge, green eyes stood out in his pale face. Séverin felt an odd chill run through him. Laila used to make fun of him for walking in the exact opposite direction of a child.
“They won’t bite, you know,” she’d said. “You act as if they’re terrifying.”
They were, thought Séverin. It wasn’t just their epic tantrums, one instance of which had nearly convinced him to eject a family from L’Eden simply because they could not corral their child’s crying fit. It was that children had no choice but to need the care of others, and if someone could dangle your needs before you … you were powerless. To look at a child was to glimpse an ugly mirror of his past, and Séverin had no wish to look.