Pressure on her face. A rough-padded thumb lifting her eyelids. Enrique’s soot-streaked face slowly coming into focus.

“You must keep your eyes open! We’re nearly there!”

Laila tried. At least, she thought she was trying. She could still see the outline of Séverin limping up the steps. He clutched the lyre in one bloodied hand, his mouth a grim and determined twist.

Hypnos pivoted her just as bronze fists shattered on the steps, bronze fingers twitching weakly. Zofia and Enrique darted forward, kicking away the rubble. The Tezcat pendant now looked like a miniature sun.

“One more step and we’ll cross through to the other side—” said Zofia, lifting her foot.

Séverin called out: “Wait! We need to make sure there’s no final trap—”

Hypnos let out a ragged sigh, spinning her once more, and Laila’s vantage point was stolen. All she saw was the thin line of blue light on one of the shining steps, the promise of another place. Her consciousness slipped—

Here, the memory of standing in L’Eden’s kitchen for the first time, pouring ingredients for a cake, her hands dusted with flour and sugar. The beautiful silence of objects with no memory: pale eggshells, a palmful of finely milled sugar, split vanilla beans in a glass measuring cup.

Laila remembered hunger. Not the belly-pinching ache for food, but something else: her mouth watering, a cake slowly rising, water boiling for tea, the sound of friends’ voices just outside the door. The promise that this ache would be filled and then some. She missed that hunger.

“Laila!”

Her eyes opened to Ruslan wrestling Séverin to the ground. Blue light glowed at the back of her eyes, and voices flitted in and out through her thoughts.

“There’s writing on the steps.”

Hide—

—Your

Face—

—Before

God—

—This

Is—

—Not

For—

—You

To—

—See

Those words meant nothing to Laila. Her memories bled from her swiftly—

Séverin’s lips on her spine, kissing his way down her scar; the metallic smell of snow; the wax on the dance floor of the Palais des Rêves; the startling blue of Zofia’s eyes; the Forged tinsel decorations on the stair bannisters of L’Eden; Enrique leaning puppy-like against her legs; the strange tenderness of her first loose tooth; Hypnos’s throaty laughter; her mother splitting a pomegranate with her bare hands; the scratchy luxury of a raw silk gown against her skin; the thick heat of India; Séverin’s wolf grin; a straw doll catching fire and burning, burning, burning.

Dimly, she heard the others calling out, but their voices melded together until she could not distinguish the speaker.

“Turn around!”

“Don’t look!”

“Step backwards!”

Laila tried to anchor her consciousness to one spot, to raise the hand she knew she must still have, but she was fraying by the second.

Ruslan grabbed Séverin by the back of his neck. “You won’t go without me! It’s mine too! I want to know. I need to see—”

The last thing Laila saw was Séverin closing his eyes, throwing his arms up to shield his face. Laila did not see the light behind her, but she saw it fall across Ruslan’s golden face.