“Something about the room prefers this temperature,” he said.

“You make it sound like the room is alive,” said Hypnos, uncomfortable.

“Perhaps it is,” said Séverin. He eyed the staircase, then the panel of glass coils before stepping onto the first landing. “I’m going down.”

“Very well,” said Laila, following after him.

Séverin blocked her way. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, let me—”

“Let you what?” demanded Laila. “Martyr yourself? Again? If you die, this whole thing fails anyway because we can’t use the lyre. So either you stay back and watch us go, or suffer the fact that we’re going in with you.”

Behind her, Enrique, Zofia, and Hypnos looked a little shocked. Hypnos raised his hand.

“I … don’t have to go?” he said.

Laila glared at him.

Séverin sighed, then moved back. “You are right. I am yours to command.”

“If only,” muttered Laila, walking down the staircase.

The moment she stepped onto the top step, she reached inside her sleeves, touching the corsetry around her waist that Zofia had outfitted with her Forged creations. Laila drew out one of the portable lights, flashing it onto the perfume bottle on the first pedestal. Something flashed inside.

“Keep an eye on the back wall,” said Séverin.

Zofia nodded, positioning herself at the front of the room.

Inside the first perfume bottle was a small, golden key. Here, the smell of rotting meat was even stronger.

“It’s definitely holding a key,” she said, covering her nose.

“May I?” asked Séverin.

Laila tossed him a portable light. He shone it across the bottles.

“They all have keys,” he said.

“How do we know what they unlock?” asked Enrique. “It could be any of these.”

“There’s only one way to find out where the maps lead,” said Séverin, eyeing the bottles. “Split up. Unstopper them as little as possible … mind Forged maps are intense and very powerful, so be prepared.”

“We’re looking for signs of the temple beneath Poveglia … think craggy land, caves, that kind of setting,” added Enrique.

Laila braced herself as she reached for the cold, smooth glass of the bottle. She glanced at the back wall, alight with coiling glass. It looked unchanged.

Laila slowly unstoppered the bottle. A tiny wisp of mind Forged perfume wafted into the air. The moment she breathed in, it was as if her consciousness had been yanked elsewhere. When she blinked, she saw a ruined cliffside deep in a jungle where coffins dangled from the canopies of trees and a pit of bones glinted with gold. She blinked again, and the vision faded.

Laila replaced the stopper, her hands shaking as she turned to the others.

“A jungle somewhere,” she said. “Not Poveglia.”

“Ugh, this one’s a grave pit,” said Hypnos, stoppering a bottle.

Enrique set down a different bottle, shaking his head. “This one leads to a castle.”

“A glass door in a tundra,” said Zofia, moving to a different pedestal.

Laila removed another two stoppers, her vision clouding with images of snowy temples with curved peaks and secret alleys hiding in plain sight of bustling cities. But nothing she reached for held any resemblance to Venice’s Plague Island, which made her wonder if it was even here …