“Plague Island,” said Enrique softly. “Do you remember that prank Tristan pulled on me? We were all talking about whether or not to pursue that acquisition there, and he knew I was a little unsettled by all the talk of bones in the soil—”
“A little unsettled?” teased Laila, a soft smile curving her mouth. “I remember you screamed so loud when Tristan’s Forged vines wrapped around your ankles that half the guests in L’Eden thought someone had been murdered in the drawing room.”
“It was terrifying!” said Enrique, shuddering.
Laila grinned despite herself. She thought the memory of that day would leave a bitter tang, but instead, it brought unexpected sweetness. Thinking of Tristan had begun to feel like an old bruise rather than a fresh wound. With every passing day, his memory became less tender to touch.
“I remember,” said Laila softly.
“Burial grounds disturb me,” said Enrique, making a quick sign of the cross. “In fact…”
He broke off suddenly, his eyes widening. At that moment, Hypnos and Zofia stepped through the Tezcat portal. Behind them, Laila could see a long stone hallway that opened up into a marketplace. There was a white bridge in the distance. Seagulls swooping around the stands of fishmongers.
“Enrique?” prompted Laila. “What is it?”
“I … I think I know where we need to look for the safe house key,” said Enrique. “The island of the dead … it must be a reference to Isola di San Michele. Almost a hundred years ago, Napoleon decreed that the island would become a cemetery because of unsanitary burial conditions on the mainland. I remember I’d studied about it in university. You know, there happens to be a particularly unique Renaissance church and monastery on the island that—”
Hypnos clapped his hands. “It’s settled! Let us away to the cemetery!”
Enrique scowled.
“What about the rest of the riddle?” asked Zofia.
Laila turned over the words once more: On the island of the dead … lies the god with not one head … show the sum of what you see, and this will lead you straight to me …
“I … I don’t know,” admitted Enrique. “Certainly, there are many deities with multiple heads, particularly in the religions of Asia, but ‘show the sum of what you see’ sounds like we won’t know any more until we get there.”
Hypnos’s smile deflated. “So you aren’t certain what it is we’re looking for inside the cemetery?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” said Enrique.
“Are you certain about Isola di San Michele?”
“… No.”
A quiet fell over them. There used to be a rhythm to determining where to travel. Zofia’s calculations, Enrique’s knowledge of history, Laila’s readings of objects, and then—Séverin. The one who put their findings into context like a lens drawing everything into focus.
We don’t need him, Enrique had said.
Did he believe it?
Laila studied her friend: the high color on his cheeks, the wideness of his eyes, the slope of his posture. He’d drawn his shoulders in, as if he suddenly wished to make himself inconspicuous.
“I think it’s as good an idea as any.”
Enrique looked startled. He smiled at her, but his smile fell the moment his gaze went to her hand and the garnet ring that stared accusingly at them all. Laila knew what it said without looking.
Nine days.
Even so, she would put her trust in those who deserved it. Laila reached out, grabbing Enrique’s hand and looking Zofia and Hypnos in the eye.
“Shall we?”
* * *
LAILA’S FIRST SIGHT of Venice stole her breath away, and though she had so little of it left, she could not bring herself to mind. Venice seemed like a place half-sculpted from a child’s daydream. It was a floating city knitted all over with marble bridges, full of sunken doors wearing the faces of grinning gods. Everywhere she looked, the city appeared enchanted with liveliness. On the merchant tables set up along the banks of the lagoon, Forged lace folded itself into the likeness of a crescent moon and played peekaboo with a grinning child. A string of stained-glass beads floated up from a velvet settee to clasp playfully around the neck of a laughing noblewoman. Elaborate masks covered in gold leaf and decorated in swirling pearls floated regally past them, buoyed into the air by the craftsmen mascheraris who worked near the water.
“To get to Isola di San Michele, we’re going to need a boat,” Enrique said.
Hypnos had turned out his pockets mournfully. “How will we pay?”
“Leave it to me,” said Laila.
She walked quickly along the docks. First, she swiped a black shawl left unattended on a stool—a memory of warm, brown hands knitting the shawl pushed through her mind. Sorry, she thought. She swept it over her stained and ripped gown. At her throat, her L’Enigme mask lay folded away in a tiny pendant dangling from a green silk ribbon. She tapped it once, and the elaborate peacock mask unraveled and settled around her face. If the other mascherari hawkers wearing their products noticed something amiss, they said nothing as she passed.
Laila kept an eye on the waters. They had emerged through a passageway of pale, Istrian stone that opened up right beside Ponte di Rialto, the huge bridge that looked like a crescent moon had abandoned the sky simply to adorn the city. In the late afternoon, gondolas swiftly cut through the jade water.
The gondoliers paid her no mind as they smoked and played chess by the stone steps. Laila touched the prows of their boats one by one, skimming through their memories—
The first: A girl with a flower in her hair, her eyes fluttering closed as she leaned in for a kiss …
The second: A man’s frustrated voice: “Mi dispiace…”
The third: A child holding his grandfather’s hand, the smell of cigar smoke surrounding them.
On and on and on until—
Laila’s hands stilled as a static sound filled her thoughts. It was the kind of static that only belonged to a Forged object.
She smiled.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, Laila sat on the prow of the gondola, watching as a frost-colored moon rose over an island in the distance. The cold wind on her face was bracing, and even though she was never rid of the weight of her death on her hand, at least she could have this too.
On the other side of the gondola, Enrique and Zofia seemed lost in their own thoughts. Enrique stared out at the water. Zofia, who had lost her box of matches, had taken to ripping up the scorched ends of her dress. On the cushion beside Laila, Hypnos leaned over and dropped his head against her shoulder. “I fear I am getting ill, ma chère.”
“And why is that?”
“I am craving boredom, as if it is the rarest vintage of wine in all the land,” he said. “Such depravity.”
Laila nearly laughed. In the past week, she had seen riches that rivaled kingdoms and witnessed the kind of intoxicating power that could unravel the world with a song … but nothing compared to the luxury and allure of being able to waste a whole day and think nothing of it. If she could fill a box with impossible treasures, that was what Laila would hide away: luscious, sun-ripened days and cold, star-strewn nights to waste in the company of loved ones.