Through the colorful fog, someone ran toward her. The lights of the grotto still stung her eyes, cloaking the figure in darkness. Zofia tried to throw up her hands, but they were bound with rope. Was Enrique still safe? Where had Séverin gone? Had anyone in Paris remembered to feed Goliath?

“You’re alive!” shouted the figure.

The person dropped before her: Laila. Her friend grabbed her in a fierce hug, her body shaking with sobs and then, unaccountably, laughter. Zofia did not normally like being hugged, but it seemed that Laila needed this. She held still.

“You’re alive,” said Laila again, smiling through her tears.

“… Yes?” said Zofia. Her words came out as a croak.

Séverin had told her she would be paralyzed for a few hours, that was all. Such a thing was not deadly.

“I thought Séverin killed you.”

“Why would he kill me?”

Zofia searched Laila’s face. From the trail of salt down her cheeks, she knew her friend had been crying. Her gaze dropped to the garnet ring on Laila’s hand, and Zofia stilled. Séverin had refused to play the divine lyre, which should have saved Laila’s life. There was no reason to do that unless the lyre could not save Laila’s life. But where did that leave their plan to save her? There were still only ten days left before Laila’s body failed.

“He said the paralysis was part of the plan.”

Laila’s expression changed. From relief to hurt and then … confusion. A loud groaning sound caught Zofia’s attention. It took great effort to turn her head, for her neck ached terribly. To her right, Enrique was pushing himself up. At the sight of him—alive and frowning—warmth surged through Zofia’s chest. She studied him. Dried blood was spattered down his neck. One of his ears was missing. She did not remember that happening, although she did remember many loud screams. At the time, she had tried to ignore everything around her. She had been running through the scenarios, trying to find a way to escape.

“What happened to your ear?” she asked.

Enrique clapped one hand to the side of his head, wincing before he glared at her. “I nearly died and your first question is what happened to my ear?”

Laila threw her arms around him, then drew back.

“I don’t understand. I thought—”

From the oval pool came a churning sound, and they turned as one to look. The water frothed, steaming as a mechanical pod breached the surface and slid onto the icy floor. Zofia recognized it as an escape pod that had once been inside David the Leviathan, who had held the Fallen House’s treasures all these years. The pod, which was fish-shaped and equipped with several windows and a winnowing fan of blades where its tail might be, steamed and hissed as a section of it flapped open.

Hypnos, dressed in his brocade suit from the Midnight Auction last evening, stepped onto the ice and waved happily.

“Hello, friends!” he said, grinning.