Eva paused at the threshold of the fourth passageway. Here, that smell of fresh earth he had caught last evening grew stronger, and the sound of wings grew louder.

“What do you think you’re doing?” hissed Eva, under her breath.

Séverin raised an eyebrow. “I assume ‘watching and waiting with bated breath for my apotheosis’ is not the answer you’re looking for.”

“Your friends,” said Eva. “I … I don’t understand.”

“You don’t?” said Séverin. “Perhaps we might put the question to Patriarch Ruslan. I’m certain he’d find your interest in my dead friends very intriguing.”

For a moment, something pained flashed in Eva’s eyes. Her hand flew to her necklace before she dropped it abruptly. Séverin kept his face blank. When he said nothing, Eva stepped away and held back the curtain, her eyes full of anger.

“He will be with you shortly,” she said in a flat voice. “I will work on the lockbox for the lyre immediately.”

“Good,” said Séverin, smiling.

Just before she let the curtain fall, Eva caught his gaze. “Be sure you know how to play.”

When she had left, Séverin saw that Eva had left him in a conservatory. Séverin stilled. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. He could not remember the last time he had willingly stepped foot into a greenhouse. Even on L’Eden’s grounds, he had ripped out the rose canes Tristan had once tended and salted the earth so they could never grow back. Unbidden came the memory of his brother walking toward him, a flower blooming in his hand, his tarantula, Goliath, perched on his shoulder. Séverin tightened his grip on the divine lyre, letting the metallic wires dig into the skin of his palm. This was the instrument of the divine, and it was his … his alone to use, his alone to remake the world as he saw fit.

I can fix this, Séverin told himself. I can fix it all.

Minutes later, he opened his eyes. Eva’s last words echoed in his thoughts. Be sure you know how to play. The boy killed in front of him yesterday … now the conservatory. Ruslan was deliberately taunting him with echoes of Tristan.

Séverin set his jaw as he stared around the chamber. It was half the size of L’Eden’s grand lobby. The walls were draped in ivy, and the vaulted glass ceiling overhead let in the early-morning sunshine. A white-graveled pathway wound its way to a bloodred door on the far side of the room, where Ruslan would no doubt be waiting for him.

There was something odd about the conservatory. He recognized some of the plants from Tristan’s gardening … milk-white datura and nightshade the color of fresh bruises. A trellis of lavender skullcap flowers bloomed on his left. On his right stood blush-colored foxgloves, and near the entrance of the other room, a stately horse chestnut cast a shade over the chamber. A faint headache brewed at the back of his skull, and Séverin understood what this place was.