Carefully, he slipped a hand in his pocket and drew out a second apple, holding it out to the boy.
“It’s yours if you’d like,” he said.
Behind him, concealed in the awning of Casa d’Oro Rosso, the wings of the Mnemo honeybees whirred faster. Ruslan saw everything. Good, thought Séverin. Watch me.
The skinny little boy took a couple of steps forward, then frowned at Séverin.
“Prendi il primo morso,” said the boy in a high voice.
Séverin’s knowledge of Italian was scant, but he understood: Take the first bite. He almost laughed. This child didn’t trust him.
Good for you, he thought.
He took a bite of the apple, and held it out to the boy. The boy waited a beat, then blurred forward on his skinny legs, snatching the apple out of his hand.
“Ora é mio,” the boy snarled.
It’s mine now.
Séverin held up his hands in mock surrender. Without a backward glance, the boy ran back to the ruined house. Séverin watched him go, feeling a touch confused. The boy hadn’t acted the way he’d imagined. For a moment, Séverin wondered how he’d ended up in that derelict house. Was the boy alone? Did he have someone?
“Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie,” called Eva loudly. “Patriarch Ruslan desires your presence for breakfast.”
Eva stood at the entrance, holding out the lyre to him on a red pillow. Two Fallen House members stood on either side. As he walked back, Séverin noticed the bloodred sheen on the door had begun to dull. The docks looked scrubbed clean of any evidence from last night’s murder. Séverin did not want to imagine how many days would pass before the entrance to Casa d’Oro needed replenishing.
If all went to plan, he would be far away from here before then.
* * *
EVA SILENTLY LED him through the scarlet-paneled halls of Casa d’Oro. Above the threshold of every passageway loomed a six-pointed star enclosed by a golden circle. It was the symbol of the Fallen House, and every time Séverin saw it, he remembered how many years he’d spent turning over that golden ouroboros, the sigil of House Vanth. For so long, he thought the House was his to inherit, but his true birthright was so much more than he imagined. Séverin ran his thumb down the glimmering strands of the lyre. When he touched it, sometimes he imagined a woman’s voice low in his ear … murmuring something to him that sounded like a warning and a song.
Eva paused at the threshold of the fourth passageway. Here, that smell of fresh earth he had caught last evening grew stronger, and the sound of wings grew louder.
“What do you think you’re doing?” hissed Eva, under her breath.
Séverin raised an eyebrow. “I assume ‘watching and waiting with bated breath for my apotheosis’ is not the answer you’re looking for.”
“Your friends,” said Eva. “I … I don’t understand.”
“You don’t?” said Séverin. “Perhaps we might put the question to Patriarch Ruslan. I’m certain he’d find your interest in my dead friends very intriguing.”
For a moment, something pained flashed in Eva’s eyes. Her hand flew to her necklace before she dropped it abruptly. Séverin kept his face blank. When he said nothing, Eva stepped away and held back the curtain, her eyes full of anger.
“He will be with you shortly,” she said in a flat voice. “I will work on the lockbox for the lyre immediately.”
“Good,” said Séverin, smiling.
Just before she let the curtain fall, Eva caught his gaze. “Be sure you know how to play.”
When she had left, Séverin saw that Eva had left him in a conservatory. Séverin stilled. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. He could not remember the last time he had willingly stepped foot into a greenhouse. Even on L’Eden’s grounds, he had ripped out the rose canes Tristan had once tended and salted the earth so they could never grow back. Unbidden came the memory of his brother walking toward him, a flower blooming in his hand, his tarantula, Goliath, perched on his shoulder. Séverin tightened his grip on the divine lyre, letting the metallic wires dig into the skin of his palm. This was the instrument of the divine, and it was his … his alone to use, his alone to remake the world as he saw fit.
I can fix this, Séverin told himself. I can fix it all.
Minutes later, he opened his eyes. Eva’s last words echoed in his thoughts. Be sure you know how to play. The boy killed in front of him yesterday … now the conservatory. Ruslan was deliberately taunting him with echoes of Tristan.
Séverin set his jaw as he stared around the chamber. It was half the size of L’Eden’s grand lobby. The walls were draped in ivy, and the vaulted glass ceiling overhead let in the early-morning sunshine. A white-graveled pathway wound its way to a bloodred door on the far side of the room, where Ruslan would no doubt be waiting for him.
There was something odd about the conservatory. He recognized some of the plants from Tristan’s gardening … milk-white datura and nightshade the color of fresh bruises. A trellis of lavender skullcap flowers bloomed on his left. On his right stood blush-colored foxgloves, and near the entrance of the other room, a stately horse chestnut cast a shade over the chamber. A faint headache brewed at the back of his skull, and Séverin understood what this place was.
A poison garden.
Tristan had kept a miniature version of one years ago, and had only stopped because of edicts from French officials that they could not cultivate fatal flora on the hotel premises. Séverin remembered how furious Tristan had been when he was told he needed to uproot the plants.
“But they’re not deadly,” Tristan had pouted. “Some of these have wonderful medicinal properties! Everyone uses castor oil, and no one seems to mind that it comes from ricinus communis, which is highly toxic! You have used skullcap and were completely fine.”
“At the time, you didn’t tell me you’d given me a poisonous flower,” Séverin had said.
Tristan had only flashed a sheepish grin.
Séverin looked at the skullcap blooms. Years ago, he had needed to conceal himself in a small cabinet, and to avoid detection from any Forged heartbeat-seeking creature, Tristan had given him a tincture of skullcap.
Be sure you know how to play.
On impulse, Séverin ripped off one of the skullcap blooms and tucked it into his pocket. Ruslan might be insane, but he was still clever, and if he had placed poison outside the room where they would meet, Séverin couldn’t fathom what venom waited for him inside.
Just then, the door swung open. Ruslan stepped into the garden. He was dressed in a plain black suit, the sleeves rolled up so as not to hide the molten skin of his left arm.
“Come in, my friend, come in,” he said, smiling. “How hungry you must be.”
Séverin joined him. Inside, Séverin understood the source of the rustling wings he’d heard the night before. The dining room was filled with Forged animal creations. Glass ravens roosted on the chandelier. Stained-crystal hummingbirds zipped across his line of sight. A marvelous peacock trailed its plumage of garnets and emeralds, the sound of its translucent feathers like chiming bells. The table was smoked glass, and laid out with steaming dishes: eggs baked in roasted tomatoes, frittata flecked with chili, fette biscottate, and golden cups filled with dark coffee.