Séverin walked down the row of outstretched hands. At least a dozen or so stretched before him, but only one called to him like a siren.

Near the end of the row, he paused before a woman’s bronze wrist. His breath caught when he saw her index finger. There, a familiar welt that had healed to a pale scar caught his eye. He knew that mark. He was there when it happened, standing beside her in the kitchens of L’Eden, furious that a pot had dared to burn her hand.

I cannot stand to see you hurt.

Unthinking, Séverin caught hold of the woman’s wrist. He felt her pulse, frantic as his. And maybe it was that—that barest hint that perhaps she felt as much apprehension as he did—that possessed him to do what he did next. Séverin raised her hand to his lips, pressing his mouth to the place where her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird.

An internal mechanism within the floorboards reeled him in through the Tezcat curtains until he found himself in a small silk-lined room. Forged, floating candles dripped pools of golden light.

Laila stood before him, her eyes wide with shock.

Just days ago, he had memorized the poetry of her features. To be faced with them so unexpectedly struck him like bottled lightning let loose behind his ribs. He knew she’d had every right to leave him standing beneath that Bridge of Sighs. He knew that he should fall to his knees and start groveling the moment he laid eyes on her, but for this second, he could not help himself. Joy transfixed him.

Séverin smiled.

Which was precisely when Laila slapped him across the face.

13

LAILA

It was not the first time that evening Laila had left a man heartbroken.

An hour ago, Hypnos had thrown quite the fit before she’d left the matriarch’s safe house.

“I said I’m sorry,” said Laila, her hand on the doorknob. “You know if the circumstances were different, I would have no issue with you going in my stead.”

Hypnos lay facedown on the ground of the matriarch’s safe house. He had refused to move for the past two minutes and counting. Enrique sighed and crossed his arms. Zofia chewed on a matchstick, staring down at Hypnos curiously.

“So, the weight of his sorrow brought him to the ground?” she asked.

“The weight of unfairness,” groaned Hypnos into the carpet. “I have been waiting to go to the mascherari salon for nearly five years, and now, all because of the Order lurking about, I cannot. Everyone is out to harm me, and I don’t know why.”

“Yes, completely unjustified paranoia on the Order’s part,” said Enrique. “There’s nothing alarming about going to a Winter Conclave, then finding yourself paralyzed for several hours and an exiled house resurrected and run by a psychopath who will take one look at you, know the rest of us are alive and probably kill us all—”

“Oh very well, I understand,” said Hypnos, rolling onto his back. “But I can’t move from the sheer injustice of it all.”