Some thirty meters away stood the ruins of a neighboring house. Once, it must have been a grand address, but now it was covered in scaffolding. The dock beside it looked half-rotted. From its stingy shadows, an orphaned boy no more than eight years old regarded him warily. The boy had greasy black hair and his huge, green eyes stood out in his pale face. Séverin felt an odd chill run through him. Laila used to make fun of him for walking in the exact opposite direction of a child.

“They won’t bite, you know,” she’d said. “You act as if they’re terrifying.”

They were, thought Séverin. It wasn’t just their epic tantrums, one instance of which had nearly convinced him to eject a family from L’Eden simply because they could not corral their child’s crying fit. It was that children had no choice but to need the care of others, and if someone could dangle your needs before you … you were powerless. To look at a child was to glimpse an ugly mirror of his past, and Séverin had no wish to look.

Carefully, he slipped a hand in his pocket and drew out a second apple, holding it out to the boy.

“It’s yours if you’d like,” he said.

Behind him, concealed in the awning of Casa d’Oro Rosso, the wings of the Mnemo honeybees whirred faster. Ruslan saw everything. Good, thought Séverin. Watch me.

The skinny little boy took a couple of steps forward, then frowned at Séverin.

“Prendi il primo morso,” said the boy in a high voice.

Séverin’s knowledge of Italian was scant, but he understood: Take the first bite. He almost laughed. This child didn’t trust him.

Good for you, he thought.

He took a bite of the apple, and held it out to the boy. The boy waited a beat, then blurred forward on his skinny legs, snatching the apple out of his hand.

“Ora é mio,” the boy snarled.

It’s mine now.

Séverin held up his hands in mock surrender. Without a backward glance, the boy ran back to the ruined house. Séverin watched him go, feeling a touch confused. The boy hadn’t acted the way he’d imagined. For a moment, Séverin wondered how he’d ended up in that derelict house. Was the boy alone? Did he have someone?

“Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie,” called Eva loudly. “Patriarch Ruslan desires your presence for breakfast.”

Eva stood at the entrance, holding out the lyre to him on a red pillow. Two Fallen House members stood on either side. As he walked back, Séverin noticed the bloodred sheen on the door had begun to dull. The docks looked scrubbed clean of any evidence from last night’s murder. Séverin did not want to imagine how many days would pass before the entrance to Casa d’Oro needed replenishing.

If all went to plan, he would be far away from here before then.

EVA SILENTLY LED him through the scarlet-paneled halls of Casa d’Oro. Above the threshold of every passageway loomed a six-pointed star enclosed by a golden circle. It was the symbol of the Fallen House, and every time Séverin saw it, he remembered how many years he’d spent turning over that golden ouroboros, the sigil of House Vanth. For so long, he thought the House was his to inherit, but his true birthright was so much more than he imagined. Séverin ran his thumb down the glimmering strands of the lyre. When he touched it, sometimes he imagined a woman’s voice low in his ear … murmuring something to him that sounded like a warning and a song.