“May I?” asked Ruslan, holding out his hands to the box.

Séverin’s heart rate kicked higher. May he what? Open it? Hold it?

Séverin held out the box. As Ruslan took it, the garden pliers slid and knocked into the inner wall of the box. Séverin stilled, wondering if Ruslan would notice. But the patriarch merely turned on his heel.

“Come,” he said. “Our gondola awaits.”

AS EVA DIRECTED them toward the drop-off location for House Janus’s Carnevale, Séverin noticed that the patriarch never took his eyes off him. Séverin held his gaze.

“You’ve told us precious little about where to find the map to Poveglia’s temple,” said Séverin, with feigned boredom. “I assume it is something mind Forged, like the vial you showed me during supper some time ago.”

Ruslan ignored the query. Instead, he glanced at his Midas Knife, turning it in his hands. “I’ve never told you my House’s true name, have I?”

Up ahead, the lantern light of elaborate palazzos spilled across the lagoon. Judging by Eva’s gestures, they would dock any moment now. Séverin forced himself to be patient.

“No,” he said. “I have not had the pleasure of that information.”

“Hmm,” said Ruslan. He tapped his teeth with the point of his Midas Knife. “It is a teasing name. My father told us we had the greatest treasures out of all the Houses … and yet such priceless objects were mere nail clippings of the real source.”

He knew Ruslan meant the Tower of Babel, the biblical construction that had nearly touched the belly of heaven. Western theory held that it was the scattering of such a building—brought about by a confusion of languages that halted its construction—that ushered Forging to the world. Where the pieces fell, Forging bloomed.

But that was only one view, as Enrique would say. And it was a dominant view simply because it belonged to those who had dominated.

Ruslan turned the knife in his hand. “I thought I could change myself, you know … I thought I could make myself fit in the world, or make the world fit me.” He started to laugh. “Now I am walking alchemy! I am the transmutation of flesh to gold! I am … so hungry. Truth, godhood … they will fill me up and I shall never be hungry again. That is all I want, my friend. An end to emptiness.”

Séverin held himself still. Usually, Ruslan would pose a question, would try to play. But there was nothing in the other man’s face but a naked hope. An unwelcome pity streaked through him. Ambition had made Ruslan toy with an object that gave him power, but that power came with madness. In some ways, it was not Ruslan’s fault. But that was not Séverin’s responsibility.

“We shall have it soon,” Séverin made himself say.

“Promise?” asked Ruslan. He was staring into his lap, running his thumb along the golden blade. He whispered under his breath: “I’d do anything.”

Séverin felt as though he were looking at a corrupted mirror. He knew that pose, that focus, that endless repetition of touching an object that had brought both hope and sorrow. His mother’s voice moved through him: