Across the room, Séverin met his gaze and lifted one eyebrow.

Oh, thought Enrique, turning to face the room. In the past, Hypnos and Zofia would look only to Séverin. But now, their gazes were divided between them. Enrique felt as if some hidden light shone more closely on him.

“The matriarch of House Kore left plenty of documents containing rumors of what we might find. I’ve compiled my own research, but I think it’s most useful to compare it to what we can gather from the map,” said Enrique. When Séverin nodded at him, Enrique gestured to the box. “Shall we?”

As Séverin reached to unstopper the mind Forged perfume, a shudder ran down Enrique’s spine. The others might laugh at his fear, but Plague Island unsettled him. He couldn’t help but imagine the soft ash of human remains coating the ground. It seemed an unlikely place for a temple capable of tapping into such divine power … but what did he know of the preferences of gods?

“These sensations can get overwhelming,” said Séverin. “Remember … what you see is real but not presently before you. Nothing inside it can hurt you.”

“Yet,” muttered Hypnos.

Séverin twisted the top of the perfume bottle, and air hissed from the sudden opening. Enrique dug his fingers into the frayed silk of the armchair, bracing himself as fat ribbons of smoke rose, spreading across the ceiling. Then, it slowly dissolved … disintegrating into something like rain. The moment the droplets hit his skin, gray slivers of awareness wrapped around his senses.

Dimly he heard Séverin call out:

“Reattaching stopper now—”

But the sound of rushing water and bird calls lapped over Séverin’s voice until it seemed like an uncanny twist of the wind. Enrique blinked. He no longer felt the scratched-up satin of the armchair beneath his arms or the notebook in his lap or the smooth metal of the pen clutched in his hand, even as a corner of his mind whispered that he was still sitting in the palazzo’s salon. He was standing on an unkempt sidewalk, thorns and nettle jutting out from a tangle of wild grass. The pointed scaffolding of roofs thrust into the skyline. Villagers moved in the early light, their garments little more than animal skins and crude cloth.

The mind Forged visions around him sped up, winding his consciousness along the canals before they were ever canals, past hastily constructed temples and down a passageway until he stood before a statue bust of a woman. Her lips were pressed tight, her blank eyes opened wide in fury. He could just discern the carved feathers sprouting from her cheekbones when her jaw suddenly unhinged. The dais on which the bust stood lurched. Down, down, down he went, plummeting at least thirty meters or more into an underground tunnel. Here, the smell of unstirred, still water hit Enrique’s nose. His vision adjusted to the dimness of a vast cave. Pale stalactites studded its rooty ceiling, as sharp and numerous as teeth. Ankle-high brackish water stretched out nearly half a kilometer before him.