Hypnos frowned, but he stayed quiet. Zofia looked at Laila. Her friend seemed distant as she cradled her jeweled hand against her. The longer Zofia looked at her, the more she realized that she was not the only one stuck in the dark. Laila, for all her smiles, walked through it too. Séverin, wherever he was, had no idea that they had lost the meeting point. Hypnos’s expressions suggested confusion, and even Enrique’s plans carried much unknown.

In that second, Zofia remembered her mother sitting beside the fire. She had tilted up Zofia’s chin, her watery blue eyes shining. Be a light in this world, my Zosia, for it can be very dark. Zofia had not forgotten her mother’s words, and she was determined to embody them.

“We will find the map,” said Zofia. “Solving a problem requires a piece-by-piece approach, and that is what we are doing.”

Laila looked up at her, a soft smile curving her lips. Hypnos nodded. Even Enrique flashed a small smile. A rare feeling of calm centered Zofia. For her friends … for herself … Zofia would find a way out of the dark.

8

SÉVERIN

At dawn, Séverin stood by the docks and turned an apple over in his hand. In the astrology room at L’Eden, he had kept a bowl of apples on the low table. Once, early on, when Enrique had demanded food during the discussion of a new acquisition, Séverin gestured at the bowl of apples and said, “Help yourself.”

Enrique had looked appalled. “Apples are hopelessly boring, either too sweet or too sour.”

“It will satisfy your appetite for a time.”

“Or it shall tempt me to abandon this intellectual endeavor entirely in pursuit of real food,” said Enrique. “It is the fruit of temptation, after all. Eve tempting Adam into sin and such.”

As if to demonstrate, Enrique had placed a red apple in his mouth and raised his eyebrows suggestively at Laila, Zofia, Tristan, and Séverin, who were seated across from him. Tristan grimaced. Laila bit back a laugh, and Zofia tilted her head to the side. “I saw a similar pose last night on the banquet table.”

Enrique spat out the apple. “That was a roasted pig!”

Zofia shrugged. “The pose is identical.”

“Focus,” Séverin had said. “We need to think about this next acquisition—”

“Thinking requires better incentive than an apple.”

“Like cake?” suggested Laila.

Séverin remembered how she had reclined on her favorite green settee. She’d plucked an apple from the bowl and stroked its shiny peel, and his mouth had gone oddly dry at the sight.

“Definitely cake,” said Enrique.

“And cookies,” added Zofia.

Séverin had given up. He shook his head, and such began the tradition of Laila baking, pushing in a cart piled high with sugary treats every time they started to plan a project.

Now, Séverin stared at the apple, bemused. He wanted to annoy Enrique with the fruit. He wanted to hold it up to Laila’s lips and compare their colors. Temptation, indeed, he thought, lowering the apple. When Tristan had died, Séverin had tried to isolate himself from his friends, and he thought he’d succeeded.