Somewhere, a bell tolled, startling her from her thoughts. It was nearly midnight, and the others would be wondering where she had gone. There was work to be done. Objects that needed reading, plans that required finalizing.

But for that moment, Laila wished she could unfasten herself. She wanted to let in the moon and the clouds, the roofs of the cathedral and dim stars, and let it all burn and scrape inside her.

Around her, the sky deepened to shadows and velvet. Her mother used to tell her the oncoming night was the god Krishna wrapping them up in his arms, for his skin was the color of midnight. Laila used to love hearing tales of Krishna, the god of preservation reborn as a mischievous, human child.

One day Krishna’s human mother suspected he had eaten something he should not, and told the boy to open his mouth. Eventually, she convinced him. Behind Krishna’s teeth—in the lightless dark of his throat—burned suns and moons, dying stars and ice-rimed planets. His mother did not ask him to open his mouth again.

Laila knew some people could carry such things inside them.

Some people could walk with galaxies tilting at their heart, planets grinding against their ribs, whole worlds dragging in their wake and never stealing their balance.

Her mother used to say Laila was one of those people. She was born to carry more than herself. She could hold up, and cherish, the weight of others—their worries, their mistakes, their hopes of who they might be.

All this time, she had tried not to think of Séverin, but that foolish daydream had summoned his face to her thoughts. Now she knew for certain that he was the one person she could never hold.

She didn’t doubt that he cared for his friends in his own way. She didn’t even doubt that he felt deeply for her, or that it must have hurt him to forsake her and pretend to kill the others just to keep them safe.

But they would forever want different futures, and she could not hide that from herself anymore.

Laila wanted safety. A home. A dining table groaning with food, always set for friends and family.

And Séverin? Séverin wanted godhood. Holding on to him would be like trying to wrestle down the moon. Already, Laila’s death was a needy, cloying thing, so heavy it felt as if she were carrying the night and all its stars. Already, a nonexistence—that blankness she’d felt on Isola di San Michele—mushroomed through her body.

She had no room left for Séverin.

Not anymore.

In the distance, a sleek gondola cut through the onyx water, as if heading straight to the Bridge of Sighs. Laila took one last look at the bouquet of snowdrops, then dropped the bouquet. The ribbon broke, the bells tolled midnight. The white petals scattering into the lagoon looked like a broken star.

11

SÉVERIN

Séverin had once imagined that gods had no weaknesses, but now he knew he was wrong.