Zofia turned her head a little. “Is that true?”

He lies, sister! Come away, come away—

“How do you know you like me as more than a friend would?” she asked.

Around them, the waves slowly curled over. The skeletons loomed six meters away. Now five. Hypnos’s voice turned scratchy and thin. Even with the amplifier, his song would give out soon.

Enrique wished he could show Zofia the strange equation that rebalanced the room whenever she entered it. He wanted to show her the sum frequency with which her candle-blue eyes and candy-red lips cropped up in his thoughts. But she knew him well enough to know that he did not process the world as such, and so he could only give her the answer that was honest.

“How do I know I like you?” repeated Enrique. He forced a grin to his face. “I don’t know. It comes from some other place inside me. The place that believes in superstitions … stories. It feels like … like belonging.”

Zofia whirled to face him. Her eyes adjusted, widened. With a sharp gasp, she let go of the skeleton’s hand. She staggered toward Enrique, and he caught her shivering, sobbing body in his arms.

“Hush, Phoenix, it’s all right, I’m here,” he murmured into her hair.

YOU CANNOT TAKE THAT WHICH BELONGS TO THE TEMPLE. SHE IS OURS NOW—

At that exact second, Hypnos’s song gave out. The siren song built into a crescendo, but it was ruined by the sound of water threatening to crash down over their heads.

“Now!” yelled Hypnos.

He grabbed Enrique’s hand, and the three of them ran to the bridge. The water arced over their heads, threatening to drown them. Dozens of pale, skeletal hands stretched out, spindly fingers cutting through his bandages, catching on his sleeves. The bridge of bone loomed larger. Water swirled around Enrique’s ankles and he slipped. For a moment, the world seemed to slow. He could feel every passing second as if it were a needle trailing along his skin.

As he fell, he pushed Hypnos and Zofia onto the bridge. Water closed up around his waist. A skeletal leg folded around his hip, the movement a corruption of intimacy.

He blinked wildly as water sprayed in his face. The emerald glow of the lake haloed Hypnos’s and Zofia’s bodies, gilding them like saints. If they were his last sight, he would have been happy—

Zofia flung something into the water. Fire caught on one of the skeletal heads, and the thing roared. The mind Forged creatures scuttled back, their hold on him loosening. The water slammed over their heads, but instead of sweeping them into the lake, it flowed over a hidden Forged obstruction. Enrique stared up at the glassy tube encircling the bridge of bone. Brackish water flowed around them, and the only sound came from the ugly thud of skeletal bodies crashing into one another. The moment Enrique clambered onto the bridge, Zofia and Hypnos grabbed his hands, and together they ran to the sudden glowing light on the far end of the wall.