The Silvered Serpents

by Roshani Chokshi

  “It’s the capital of the Order of Babel’s learning, mon cher,” said Hypnos, as he walked to the back of the room. “There’s only one House in Russia, House Dazbog. Imagine that! One House to throw all your parties? It boggles the mind. Anyway, Russia does not have nearly as many colonies beyond some fur-trapping whatnots. Maybe it’s too distracted from its constant skirmishes with China and the like, so House Dazbog specialized in its own currency: knowledge. As for the portals, there needed to be secure ways for each House to get information or meet in secret, so Russia has the highest concentration.”

  Laila half listened as she made her way to one of the shelves lined with the painted dolls. A lump stuck in her throat. Growing up, she’d only ever owned one doll. And she didn’t like to remember what had become of it.

  “Those are matryoshka dolls,” said Hypnos, taking one down from the shelf.

  He twisted the doll’s top and bottom torso and it broke apart, revealing a smaller set. Then he did the same thing to that set … on and on, until there was a perfect, descending order of miniatures.

  “Beautiful,” said Laila.

  “They’re the latest design from Vasily Zvyozdochkin,” said Hypnos.

  Laila traced the doll’s design—the ice-blue coat and shell-colored skin, the painted snowflake over the doll’s heart.

  “Who is she?” asked Laila.

  Hypnos shrugged. By then, Enrique had made his way to them and peered over her shoulder.

  “Snegurochka,” he said.

  “Bless you,” said Hypnos solemnly.

  Enrique rolled his eyes, even as a small smile touched his mouth.

  “The snow maiden from Russian fairy tales,” explained Enrique. “Legend goes that she was made of snow, and though she was warned all her life not to fall in love, she couldn’t help herself. The moment she did, she melted.”

  Laila’s palms felt prickly with annoyance. She wanted to shake this Snegurochka for breaking so easily. After all, they were hardly different from each other. Laila was salvaged bones, and the snow maiden was only gathered snow. Love didn’t deserve to thaw their wits and turn their hearts to dust.

  “Is everything in order?” asked a familiar dark voice.

  A flash of heat wound through Laila’s traitorous body, and she turned sharply from the snow maiden dolls.

  “Yes, yes, everything is ready,” said Hypnos, looping his arm through Enrique’s and walking to a wooden crate heaped in hay.

  Beyond him, Séverin caught her eye and his gaze moved slowly to the dolls behind her. Laila stalked off toward Zofia, who was sitting at a low table and playing with her box of matches.

  “Shots?” asked Hypnos, pulling out a bottle of vodka netted in ice.

  “Spectacles,” said Zofia.

  “Never heard of that drinking game.”

  “I thought we were putting together the Tezcat spectacles,” said Enrique.

  “Not here,” said Séverin, casting an eye to the door. “Too noticeable. Vasiliev’s men could still be out there. We’re going to take the portal to Moscow first.”

  “And it’s bad luck to start a journey sober,” added Hypnos. He lifted up the vodka bottle. “Now. To Lady Luck?”

  “I don’t see the point of toasting to an anthropomorphization of chance,” said Zofia. “It doesn’t increase the frequency of its occurrence.”

  “And for that, you’re getting two shots,” he said. “Also, do be careful sitting on those wooden crates. They’re old and have a fair number of treacherous splinters.”

  Laila sat. She forced herself to smile, but those dolls had shaken her. She turned the garnet ring on her hand: 18 days.

  We have the Tezcat spectacles, she reminded herself. But her doubts snapped through her hope: What if it didn’t work? How did she know for certain that the secret to life lay in the pages of The Divine Lyrics? What if the book had been moved from the Sleeping Palace?

  “Laila?” asked Hypnos.

  She looked up. She hadn’t been listening.

  “We were going to go in order of birthdays. When’s yours?”

  “Eighteen days,” she said.

  Her stomach turned to say it aloud.

  “So soon, ma chère! You should have told me! Will you have a party?”

  Or a funeral? she thought. She shook her head as Hypnos put a cold glass in her hand, then handed one to Enrique and—though she scowled—Zofia. Séverin refused. He stood by the hearth, away from the rest of them. Shadows and firelight licked over him, rendering him almost inhuman. The curve of her neck prickled, remembering the near brush of his lips against her skin. Now you’re overselling your part. Séverin’s gaze lifted sharply to hers. A second too late, she turned her head.

  “May our ends justify our means,” intoned Hypnos.

  Any time she thought of ends, Tristan’s quicksilver smile twisted through her heart. Laila murmured his name under her breath, then knocked back the icy vodka in one swallow. It tasted like ghosts, she thought, for even after she’d finished her drink, the alcohol lingered bitterly on her tongue.

  “L’Chaim,” said Zofia softly, throwing back the vodka.

  Enrique drank his, then sputtered, clutching his throat. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Here, have more,” said Hypnos, holding out the bottle. “Enough shots and you won’t taste a thing.”

  “I’d like a word alone with my team,” said Séverin quietly. “Go check on the portal, Hypnos.”

  Hypnos slowly put the bottle on the ground. The smile slipped off his face.

  “Of course,” he said.

  When he stood, Enrique caught his hand, squeezing it for a moment before letting go. Laila recognized that longing expression on his face, and it made her pause … It was the same expression he wore when he had become enamored with an idea. Like with his piano playing or his short-lived obsession with bonsai trees that annoyed Tristan to no end. Laila watched as Hypnos absentmindedly smiled at Enrique before turning to his guard and heading to the portal. She was happy for them, of course, but that didn’t stop the pang of misgiving in her heart. Hypnos enjoyed falling in and out of love as if it were a hobby. If someone fell too hard along the way, Laila wasn’t sure he’d stop to care.

  Enrique turned to Séverin, his eyes cold. “I think he’s earned his place here by now.”

  “He’s earned a place in your bed,” said Séverin. “Not at my table.”

  Splotches of red appeared on Enrique’s cheeks. If Séverin noticed this, he ignored it.

  “Besides, he’s still part of the Order.”

  Laila thought of Hypnos carefully assembling snacks for them in the stargazing room, the sheen of his eyes when he surprised them with everything he’d made and the fall in his shoulders when he realized it wasn’t the surprise he’d intended. She glared up at Séverin.

  “Hypnos is every bit as trustworthy as any of us,” she said, slamming her hand down.

  All she’d wanted was to make a point. Instead, white-hot pain flooded her senses. Too late, Hypnos’s warning sounded in her mind: Do be careful. Blood welled onto her palm from the puncture of a loose nail.

  “Gods, Laila, are you all right?” asked Enrique, rushing to her.

  Laila’s hand pulsed as she pressed it to her dress, heedless that it destroyed the golden fabric. She was so careful not to cut herself. The last time she’d been twelve. The monsoon rains had swept through their village, and the bark of the lime tree she usually climbed was rain-slicked. When she fell and cut her hand, she’d run to her father, her ego bruised and her hand bloodied. She just wanted him to fuss over her, to tell her she would be fine. But instead, he’d recoiled.

  Get away from me. I don’t want to look at whose blood the jaaduagar filled you with.

  Whose blood was on her hands?

  It made her sick.

  “Excuse me,” she said, pushing away Enrique’s hand. “I need some air.”

  Her breath felt tight in her lungs as she ran outside. The Sphinx merely turned h
is head, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her. Too late, Laila realized she’d left her coat on the wooden crate. She thought she knew what winter was, but the cold of Russia felt … vindictive.

  “Laila?”

  She turned and saw Enrique and Zofia standing at the door. Enrique held out her coat.

  Zofia held up a lit match. “Fire cauterizes wounds.”

  Enrique was appalled. “It’s a tiny cut! Put that flame away!”

  Zofia blew it out, looking mildly annoyed. In one of his hands, Enrique balanced a roll of bandages and a tiny shot glass full of vodka. He poured it over her hand. It stung so sharply that Laila couldn’t breathe.

  Zofia took the bandage from him and started wrapping her hand. It was such a small thing. To be fussed over. To be the one treated tenderly. When she’d last cut herself, she’d merely stood in the rain, her hand throbbing as she let the water rush over her palms until there was no trace of someone else’s blood on her skin. Tears started running down her cheeks.

  “Laila … Laila, what’s wrong?” asked Enrique. His eyes were wide with alarm. “Tell us.”

  Tell us. Maybe it was the pain in her hand or the pained note in his voice, but Laila felt her secret slip out of her control.

  “I’m dying,” she said softly.

  She looked into Enrique’s face, but he only shook his head with a small smile. Zofia, however, looked shocked.

  “It’s just a cut, Laila—” said Enrique.

  “No,” she said sharply. She looked at them, memorizing their features. Maybe this would be the last time they would ever look at her like this—like they cared.

  “There’s something you don’t know about me,” she said, looking away from them. “It’s easier if I show you.”

  Laila’s heart leapt as she reached out, touching the rosary that Enrique wore around his neck.

  “Your father gave this to you when you left the Philippines,” she said.

  “That’s not exactly a secret,” said Enrique gently.

  “He told you that he too once dreamt of running away … on the night before he married your mother. He thought of giving it all up, the Mercado-Lopez Mercantile Enterprise, everything … for the love of a woman in Cavite. But he chose to see his duty through, and he has never once resented it … He gave you his rosary and told you he hoped it would guide you on the right paths…”

  Enrique looked stunned. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “I can read the memories of objects,” said Laila, drawing back her hand. “Not all of them, of course. But strong emotions or recent ones. It’s because I … I’m Forged.”

  Without looking at them, she told them the story of her making. Not her birth. Because she’d never really been born. She’d died inside her mother’s womb, and the rest of her was cobbled together.

  “It’s why I need to find The Divine Lyrics,” she said. “The jaadugar who made me said I wouldn’t live past my nineteenth birthday without the secrets inside that book.”

  The seconds of silence stretched into a full minute. Laila thought they’d turn around or step away, or do something, but instead, they just stared, and all she wanted was to run. Zofia’s blue eyes sharpened with a new light, and Laila nearly winced from the resolve she saw there.

  “I will not let you die,” said Zofia.

  Enrique gripped her hand, his touch full of warmth.

  “We won’t let anything happen to you.”

  You.

  No conditions. No change in how they referred to her. No change, even, in how they looked at her. Laila held back, and it took a moment to realize that her whole body had seized up, ready to flinch. To flee. Knowing, for the first time, that she didn’t have to run made her stare at her hands, utterly lost. And then, as if he knew what ran through her thoughts, Enrique reached out. That touch shocked through her, and a second later, Laila threw her arms around Zofia and Enrique. Miraculously—more miraculous than a girl brought back from the dead or the terrible wonders of the Catacombs—they held her tight. When she finally let go, Enrique’s eyes were full of question.

  “… So you could do that the whole time?” he asked, turning a little red. “Because if so, I know it may have looked like I stole that feathered boa from the cabaret, but I swear it—”

  “I don’t need to know, Enrique,” said Laila, laughing despite herself. “Your secrets are still yours. I never read the objects of my friends.”

  Unbidden came the memory of Tristan and all his hidden darkness, all the ways he’d needed help and all the missed times she could’ve figured out how to give him that. Maybe she should change that policy.

  “Does Séverin know?” asked Zofia.

  Laila clenched her jaw.

  “Séverin knows that I was … made. And that I can read objects. But he doesn’t know why I need The Divine Lyrics,” she said, adding in a colder voice, “He doesn’t need to know. I don’t owe him my secrets.”

  If he knew and it made no difference, she would be no wiser than Snegurochka whose thawed heart turned her to nothing more than a gathering of lacy snowflakes. Laila wouldn’t do that to herself. Maybe for girls made of snow, love was worth the melt. But she was made of stolen bones and sleek fur, grave dirt and strange blood—her heart wasn’t even hers to give. Her soul was all she had, and no love was worth losing it.

  Enrique squeezed Laila’s shoulder, then walked ahead of them. Laila swiped at the last of her tears and lifted her chin. She was nearly through the door when the light touch of Zofia’s hand made her turn.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?” asked Laila.

  Zofia hesitated. “For the truth.”

  “I should be thanking you,” said Laila. “Secrets are heavy burdens.”

  Zofia’s expression shuttered. “I know all about burdens.”

  * * *

  ON THE OTHER SIDE of the door and in an alleyway of Moscow, a troika stood waiting to take them to House Nyx’s secure location. In the distance, she caught the sound of the second carriage laden with their belongings heading to their new hideout. A bright lamppost illuminated the falling snow, and the alchemy of its light seemed to turn the snow to gold coins. The air smelled of distant woodsmoke and tin, and the shards of ice on the deserted sidewalk snapped like bones beneath their boots. Wooden shutters cloaked the storefronts in shadows and silence. From the troika, three inky horses tossed and turned their heads. Two of the House Nyx guards waited to take them, but as they started walking toward the troika, Zofia reached out, grabbing Laila’s wrist.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked.

  Hypnos wrinkled his nose.

  “Wasn’t me,” said Enrique quickly.

  There was a slight … burn to the air.

  “That’s saltpeter,” said Zofia. Her eyes widened as she looked at them. “It’s an explosive—”

  She hardly got the word out before something behind the troika exploded into flames. The horses shrieked, jetting off into the darkness as huge flames rolled toward them.

  11

  SÉVERIN

  Séverin stumbled backwards. The horses reared, snapping free of their tethers and fleeing into the night just before tall flames swallowed up the troika, and choked off their exit. He slammed his hand against the brick wall behind him, scrabbling for any sign of a dent, any sign of escape. But the brick was slicked over with ice. Whatever stronghold he managed slipped out from under his fingers. Not like this, he thought, staring at Hypnos, Laila, Zofia, and Enrique … Not like this.

  “I don’t understand … I don’t understand…” whispered Hypnos over and over, staring at the slowly blackening troika. Screams erupted from within the carriage. Two of the House Nyx guards were burning alive.

  Hypnos tried to run to the carriage, but Zofia held him back.

  “Water!” shouted Enrique. “We need water to put out the flames!”

  Enrique grabbed handfuls of the dirty city snow, stuffing them in his hat and tossing them on the encroaching
flames. Dimly, Séverin realized Enrique was trying to put out the fire. It was useless and stupid and … brave. Séverin could only stare at him. Enrique looked over his shoulder and called out over the sound of the flames, “Don’t look at me like that!” He glowered. “Trust me, I know how it looks!”

  Séverin dropped to his knees and started gathering the snow, pushing it between the flames and the others. His hands froze, and the long scar down his palm burned. Zofia moved beside him, filling his hat with snow, melting it with a touch of her fire pendant, and flinging it—uselessly—against the flames. He looked at her, at their hands working side by side. He heard the others beside them, and he turned on impulse, his eyes filling with the sight of all of them.

  I wanted to make you gods.

  I wanted to protect you.

  Séverin felt like he was watching Tristan die all over again, only this time his failure had become a living thing, snapping at the heels of everyone who got too close. He saw his hands not moving fast enough, his legs frozen, a terrible consequence slipping past outstretched fingers. It was the same and it was different. No one in gilded wolf masks, no heads thrown back and throats bared and stars peeling off the ceiling. Just snow and fire and screaming. Flames rolled toward them, and Séverin’s breath ached in his lungs. He would choke on the smoke before the fire got to him, but at least he could go before them. At least he wouldn’t have to see. Someone drew him back sharply. Even in the reek of sulfurous flames, he caught the fairy-tale scent of sugar and rosewater.

  “Majnun,” said Laila.

  He had to be hallucinating. She no longer called him that.

  Séverin jerked his shoulder out of her grasp, refusing to look at her. He could not watch her die. He could barely handle the sight of pain on her face. Heat seared his face, and Séverin forced his gaze to the flames rolling toward them. He could hear Hypnos, Enrique, Zofia, and Laila shouting for him to move away. He took one step forward and stretched out his hands, his palms turned toward them as if he could hold them back from death or offer himself to the world’s twisted sense of mercy that he might not see how he’d failed them one last time.