“Laila, wait!” someone called. “We opened the map again—”

But it was too late.

The door had opened. The moment she stepped inside, a wet droplet splashed onto her wrist. It felt like rain, but it was colder, and alive with a Forged awareness that snuck through her skin, entering her bloodstream and filling her head with visions. When she looked out, the salon room was gone, replaced with something she’d never seen before.

She was standing ankle-deep in a dark lake. Above her, glittering stalactite studded the vaulted ceiling of a cave, surrounded by glossy chunks of obsidian and jet so that it seemed as if someone had taken a hammer to the night sky and arranged its fragments into a cavern. Her consciousness felt pulled forward, skimming over the lake. Only now did she realize the lake was strewn with human bones. The water stretched out many hundreds of meters ahead, ending before a huge wall of carved, semitranslucent amber. The wall seemed backlit by distant fires, shadows licking across the surface and blurring the details of what lay behind it. There, huge and impossible, stood the unmistakable silhouette of giants flanking a squat, jagged structure.

Laila stretched out, as if she could reach past the amber wall …

“Not the cookies!”

She blinked, and the salon came into view once more. Enrique stood in front of her, one hand steadying the tray of treats. A bit of hot chocolate had sloshed down the sides of one of the mugs, and the rich scent of cocoa returned her to her senses.

“What was that?” asked Laila.

Séverin’s dark eyes found hers immediately. “Hope.”

ENRIQUE SLURPED DOWN the rest of his cocoa, frantically compiling the notes he’d taken on everything they’d witnessed through the mind Forged map. Beside him, Zofia happily munched on a cookie.

“Possible siren statue, lake full of bones, shiny skeleton—”

Hypnos raised his cup. “Can’t forget the shiny skeleton.”

“Massive structures!” said Enrique excitedly. “The kind that, I can’t believe I am saying this, but it could … I mean … could it be the Tower of Babel? I’m certain it is not the exact one that the Western world credits for the origins of Forging. For all we know, there could be multiple sources, but the tower—”

“It was not a tower,” said Zofia, frowning. “It was far too wide.”

“Which proves my point, actually,” said Enrique, setting down his mug.

He walked to his research table, rummaging around before he paused to pull out a faded, yellow illustration. It was a low-slung, jagged, rectangular brick structure with carved steps surrounding it from every angle. It looked about the size of a town square, and its flat top reminded Laila of a massive platform.

“This is an illustration of the Ziggurat of Ur, first excavated about thirty years ago in what we now know is the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk,” said Enrique. “The Tower of Babel was most likely not a narrow construction like we might imagine in Western architecture, but an ancient stepped pyramid like the temples of Babylon and Sumeria.” Enrique tapped the top of the illustration.