Something on the back wall caught Séverin’s eye. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a heavy, emerald-colored curtain that hung from the ceiling to the floor. But a second glance revealed at least a dozen hands poking through the drapes.

Some patrons ignored the hands as they walked past. Others dropped coins and letters and ribbons. One partygoer wearing a feline mask lightly touched an extended hand. An invitation, it seemed, and one that, a moment later, was accepted as the feline-masked person was pulled, laughing, through the curtains.

Séverin was still staring at the curtain when Eva touched his arm. “Wait here. I’m going to get the masks myself.”

Séverin protested, but Eva held up her hand. “Ruslan might have sent us both here, but the Order will be looking for you. They may even have one of the mascherari workers reporting to them in disguise. You’re … you’re safer here.”

Eva was right, though why she would protect him when she had said she didn’t trust him was strange. Perhaps she was like him … hoping that she had placed her faith in the right person.

“Thank you,” said Séverin.

“I’ll find you soon,” said Eva. “It should not take me longer than half an hour.”

With that, she disappeared into the crowd. Séverin watched her go. The scraps of a plan itched at the back of his skull, but there was nothing for it to tether itself to. And there was still the problem of the lyre. Ruslan was not coming with them, which meant he would expect the lyre to stay by his side. Perhaps Séverin could switch the instrument with an object of identical weight, but how could he do that without Eva’s help—

“Do you wish to sample a different fate, signore?” interrupted a voice at his side.

Séverin turned to see a short, pale-skinned man speaking to him from behind a large mask carved to the likeness of a frog with bulging, glassy eyes.

“Here you can be anyone you wish,” said the man, gesturing to the back wall and the curtain of disembodied hands. “You merely have to pluck a face from the air itself … or perhaps you might wish to open your hands to fate, and see what love and fortune befalls you…”

Séverin was on the verge of dismissing the man entirely when a slender figure caught his attention. A woman. She was too far away for him to see her features, but there was something in the way she moved. She moved the way he imagined a star-touched goddess would step through the night sky, aware that the brush of her ankle or tilt of her hip might knock a man’s destiny askew.

“Signore?” asked the short man again.

“Yes,” said Séverin, distracted. “Let me open my hands to fate.”

He felt a low buzz ringing in his ears as the man led him to the samite curtains. The woman had disappeared on the other side, guided through some Tezcat portal hidden in the mirrored wall. Séverin felt the loss of her presence like a physical ache. Before him, masked patrons flitted past the curtain of hands. He watched a person pause before an open hand, dropping a kiss at the center of a palm before walking away. The hand curled around the kiss, then withdrew completely.