“Well, now you’re appealing to my vanity and my curiosity,” said Séverin. “Which means, of course, that I can’t help but be tempted.”

“So it’s working, then?” said Laila, grinning.

“Of course it’s working,” said Séverin. He reached out, snapped off a bit of the larkspur’s sugar leaf, and ate it. The taste of vanilla and cardamom rolled over his tongue. He held out a bit to Laila, who immediately popped it into her mouth. She raised her eyebrows at the taste, clearly pleased with her work.

“What do you think?” she asked, looking up at him.

She was so close, he had to look down at her. It was before he had ever touched her, ever kissed her lips or the scar down her spine. She was a wonder to him, a sunlit crystal that could peel back the light to reveal its secret, multihued veins.

“I think it’s fair to say that you have witchcraft in your lips, and hands, and there is as much eloquence in a sugar touch of them as there is in any of your desserts.”

He had meant the words to sound sophisticated … distant, even. After all, they were not his words, but a line stolen from Shakespeare’s Henry V. But when he uttered them, the words turned like a spell. Maybe it was the soft lights of the tent or the painted sugar petals. Whatever it was, his elegantly meant words came out earnestly, and though they were obviously borrowed lines, his tongue did not know the difference. They felt true.

“Fine words,” said Laila, color deepening in her cheeks. “But words without action are hardly convincing.”

“What do you I propose I do to be convincing?”

“Surely you can think of something,” Laila had said, smiling.

He was too stunned by what he’d said and that she hadn’t laughed at him outright that it didn’t occur to him until the next morning that she might have actually welcomed his attention. He should have kissed her hand. He should have told her that her smile was a snare from which he never wished to escape.

I should have, I should have, I should have …

There was no poison more potent than the shadow cast by those words, and they haunted him with renewed fervency ever since he had left the mascherari bar.

Séverin was still thinking of this when he heard footsteps behind him in the poison garden. He did not turn. His hands were behind his back, clasping a pair of garden pliers.

“Did you find something?” asked Eva. She touched his back. The gesture was soft, but her voice was harsh.

“In my hand,” he said.

He had found the pliers this morning when he was searching for an object of comparable weight to the divine lyre. He would need it if he was going to fool Ruslan.

Eva took the pliers, and he heard the rustle of silk as she tucked it into her sleeves. She angled her body as if she were embracing him fondly, wrapping her arms around his waist. In his ear, she hissed: “If I catch even a whiff that you are trying to deceive me, I will kill you. I could make your blood literally boil.”