The Order of Babel riffled through history as if it were a drawer. To them, culture was little more than an appealing ribbon or glittering ornament. Then there were those like Séverin and Ruslan … people who could flip the world order, but only if their wants were at the center of it all. And then there was Enrique, suspended between it all like a useless jewel left to hang between them—wanted merely for appearance’s sake.

“Their view of themselves,” said Zofia slowly. “Perhaps they do not know how to see.”

“Perhaps,” said Enrique.

His gaze went to the mirror on the far side of the wall. He didn’t understand why the matriarch had placed it there. It did not fit amongst the books and objects. It didn’t even seem to face the rest of the room. From this angle, it was unevenly skewed to show the library’s entrance. Perhaps it was to keep track of strangers entering the room? At first they had suspected it might be a Tezcat door, but Zofia told them it was not.

How does a treasure wish to make itself known? Séverin used to say when it came to finding something. What does it want you to see?

Enrique shoved the words out of his head. The last thing he wanted to do was think of Séverin.

“I have not found anything,” Zofia announced. “No key. No object that changes.”

Enrique blew out a breath. “I figured as much.”

“On Isola di San Michele, you said Janus was a god of time.”

“And?”

“And time does not share the same traits as a key,” said Zofia.

“The key was more of a manifestation of the setting he rules over,” said Enrique, waving his hand. “Art is very self-referential and such…”

He sank into the nearest chair, letting his head fall into his palms. Hypnos would be back within the hour, and he would have to admit that he’d been wrong. There was no hint about House Janus here. He would have to watch Hypnos’s smile turn smug and sympathetic, hear him fawn over how Séverin would have known what to do—

“Tell me more about the setting he rules over,” said Zofia loudly.

Enrique looked up, torn between annoyance and the faint flicker of joy at the thought of explaining anything about myths and symbols. None of the others had asked about Janus’s particular role in the Roman pantheon. Leave it to Zofia to question him when he had no wish to discuss further.

“He is said to guard passages of all kinds,” said Enrique. “He was a god of dualities and transitions … oftentimes worshipped in the same breath as Zeus, who they called Iupiter. Janus also went by Ianus, which lent its name to Ianuarius and, thus, the month of January. As the first month of the year, it’s the moment where we may look backwards and forwards at once. It’s why Janus is often depicted presiding over doorways and doorframes. Why, even the Latin word for door is ianus—”