At the center of the room revolved a golden, circular platform roughly the size of L’Eden’s grand ballroom where dancers laughed and spun around, sometimes teetering on the very edge, centimeters away from the surrounding pool. Others splashed in the water, thin gowns clinging to their wet skin. Above the partygoers rotated a stained-glass and crystal candelabra, from which masked musicians performed.

If the center was the sun, then each of its beams led to a different entrance. On their left, a group of women wearing velvet moretto masks and bloodred gowns appeared to ride past a dark archway on the back of a massive, winged horse carved of stone. To Enrique’s right, a pale-skinned woman wearing a colombina mask that appeared to be made of solid gold walked through a wall of roses.

“It’s a whole network of Tezcat doors,” said Zofia.

For the first time that evening, she seemed mildly interested.

Hypnos clapped his hands. “Come, let’s go! The drinks await!”

Laila coughed lightly.

“Allow me to amend that. Our mission … and drinks … await?”

Laila rolled her eyes.

Some paces from the mosaic entrance rocked a Forged barge in an inky stream. Twin rows of potted cypresses, like an extension of the mosaic mural, arched over the water.

Enrique pulled his mask down over his head, feeling its weight press against his temples, his scalp, the tenderness of his wound. Through the eyeholes, the world seemed focused, the Carnevale party less like a fantastic Otherworld and more like a secret half-revealed. It stoked a familiar hunger inside him. The simple desire to know …

Enrique hadn’t felt that twinge of curiosity in what felt like months. Lately, all his research had an undercurrent of panic and urgency. It still did, but now there was a new facet to it … he was learning not just for the sake of others, but for himself too. Slowly, Enrique felt as if the pieces of himself were falling back into an order he recognized. And when his friends moved around him, he was less like a piece buoyed along by momentum, and more like an anchor, certain and secure. Around him, the world seemed to reveal more and more of itself, and with every revelation, Enrique felt certain he would discover his place within it.

Beneath the mask, he smiled.

IT TOOK LAILA no more than ten minutes to determine where House Janus kept their treasures. As they moved through the party, Laila brushed her fingers against platters held by servants, towels slung over arms, the occasional lantern hanging on a pillar.

“This way,” she said.

Laila led them past the throng of partygoers, and down one of the many hallways radiating off the main platform until they arrived before a short, empty hallway. At the far end, a sprawling silk tapestry covered one wall.

Enrique studied the tapestry. Embroidered across it was another compass rose, the diamond-shaped points reflecting the territories that fell north, south, east, and west of them. In the north, glaciers sewn together with silver thread. In the south, thready, golden sands. In the east, mountains of green knots, and in the west, woven blue waters.