The Silvered Serpents

by Roshani Chokshi

  16

  LAILA

  Laila crossed and uncrossed her ankles, fidgeting with the end of her dress. Nearly four hours had passed since Eva rescued Séverin. Since then, he had been holed up with her and a physician Ruslan had brought in from Irkutsk. No one was allowed to enter his chamber despite Laila’s protests. On the one hand, she wasn’t waiting alone … but she was the only one left awake.

  After two hours, Hypnos had commandeered Enrique’s left shoulder as a pillow. After three, Zofia started to doze off, though she kept jerking her head back until Enrique—terrified she’d snap her neck—maneuvered his right shoulder into her pillow.

  “Don’t worry, Laila,” Enrique had said, yawning. “There’s no way I’ll fall asleep like this. We’ll see him soon. I’m sure of it.”

  That was twenty minutes ago.

  Now he was lightly snoring.

  Laila sighed and removed her blanket. Gently, she tucked it across the three of them and started clearing the papers on the table filled with Enrique’s notes recounting what he’d seen, and Zofia’s diagrams of the hallway. Hypnos had also asked for paper, for what purpose Laila couldn’t fathom until she looked down and saw doodles of snowflakes and the animals from the ice menagerie.

  Outside the window, the frozen lake gleamed sleek with new snow. Earlier, it had seemed so isolated. Now, activity buzzed around the palace. Armored Sphinxes stood, unmoving, around the perimeters. The familiar bloodred shimmer of Forged alarm nets stretched across the ice. Necessary precautions, Ruslan had explained, to keep them safe from the Fallen House members who had attacked them in Moscow.

  “What’s left of them is a small knot of fanatics,” Ruslan had said. “They won’t be able to make it past Irkutsk without our resources. Don’t worry. You’re under House Dazbog’s protection.”

  A small knot of fanatics could still kill, though. Laila had remembered that truth each night before bed, when she whispered a prayer for Tristan’s restless soul. With one slice of that blade-brimmed hat, Roux-Joubert had killed him. She’d never forget the fevered light in his eyes, or the way he had pathetically crumpled at the feet of the doctor, the masked leader of the Fallen House. She hadn’t been able to read anything of the man, but she hadn’t forgotten the stillness of him. It looked inhuman.

  The sound of footfalls on the staircase made her sit up straight.

  Ruslan appeared, carrying more blankets in his uninjured arm. He smiled apologetically when he saw her, and a warmth of gratitude spread through her. It was Ruslan who had thought to bring an extra couch, quilts, vodka, and several thimble-sized glasses, and a spread of Lake Baikal cuisine—cold, smoked omul fish, taiga meat wrapped in forest ferns and frozen berries, cloudberry jam cakes, and golden pirozhki baked into the shapes of fish and wild fowl. Laila couldn’t summon much of an appetite after what happened in the ice grotto, and so Enrique had eaten her share … as well as everyone else’s.

  “I know it’s not much, but, no need to wait in the cold,” said Ruslan. “Bad for the heart and the hair, and you have got the loveliest strands. Like a girl from a myth.” Ruslan held his slinged arm close to his chest. “Are you familiar with the eleventh-century Persian poet Ferdowsi? He wrote a fabulous poem called the Shahnameh, otherwise known as The Book of Kings. No?” Ruslan swayed a little, closing his eyes as if that simple act would pull him into another world. “Just imagine it … elegant courts and citrus trees, jewels in the hair and poetry dissolving like sugar on the tongue.” He sighed, opening his eyes. “With that hair, you remind me of the Princess Rudaba, and your Séverin is like King Zal! In the tales, she let down her mesmerizing tresses, and King Zal used them as a rope. I hope you do not use yours as a rope. Very unhygienic.”

  Laila laughed in spite of herself. “I assure you, I do not.”

  “Good, good,” said Ruslan, rubbing his head.

  Ruslan seemed lost in thought after that, murmuring to himself about braids and orange trees. House Dazbog—with its focus on the accumulation of knowledge rather than objects—was unlike the other Houses. And Ruslan seemed unlike most patriarchs. He didn’t even look European. His high, broad cheekbones reminded her of the perfume ateliers who had arrived from China and set up shop in Paris. There was an upswept tilt to his eyes, like Enrique, and his face seemed to belong to two worlds: east and west.

  Down the hall, the door to Séverin’s suite opened, and the physician poked his head out.

  “Patriarch Ruslan?”

  Laila moved toward the door, but the physician held out his hand.

  “I apologize, but the blood Forging artist said the mistress can’t come in yet. It might alter his heart rate and blood pressure, which we’ve only just stabilized.”

  Laila’s hand curled into a fist, but she stepped back as Ruslan made his way to the door.

  “I’m sure it will only be a moment longer,” he said kindly.

  When the door closed behind him, Laila heard the faintest laugh. She whirled around to see Delphine standing once more at the stair landing. Every twenty minutes she had arrived, each time demanding entry.

  “I am his patron, after all,” she’d said to the physician.

  To Laila, she sounded more like a worried parent.

  “No admittance yet? I believe the girl who resuscitated him has not encountered the same problem,” said Delphine, with a slanting smile. “She’s very pretty.”

  Laila remembered the crimson fall of Eva’s hair when she bent over Séverin.

  “She is,” said Laila stiffly. “And we are indebted to her.”

  Laila walked back to the others, taking a seat by the window and ignoring the other woman. Delphine sat beside her anyway, pushing aside the vodka bottle and reaching for the last remaining cake. Laila thought for sure Enrique would jolt awake, somehow sensing the last cake would be taken from him, but instead, he snored louder. Outside, dusk quickly descended into night, and the number in Laila’s ring changed shape. She forced herself to take even breaths. She still had sixteen days left. There was still time to live.

  “They said you were a nautch dancer when you broke into my home,” said Delphine.

  Laila smiled. She preferred this skirmish to the battle for her very life.

  “They lied. I’m not a nautch dancer.”

  “A small lie,” said the other woman, shrugging. “I understand that’s not far off from your actual profession. A courtesan, am I correct?” Delphine snorted, not waiting for her answer. “A euphemism for a prostitute, if I ever heard one.”

  Laila wasn’t offended, though perhaps the other woman wished her to be. Delphine’s hands stilled, waiting. Testing.

  “We have many things in common, Madame.”

  “And how do you suppose that?” asked Delphine drily.

  “Me and my ancient profession, you and your ancient Order. Me and my wiles to part men from coin, and you and your Order’s manner of forcing their hands,” said Laila, ticking off the reasons on her fingers. “The only difference being of course that my wares never go out of style. Corruption, murder, and thievery are, I imagine, not as easily welcomed into people’s beds.”

  Delphine stared at her, shocked. And then, impossibly, she laughed. She reached forward, pouring the vodka into two delicately etched quartz glasses.

  “To our shared interests, then,” she said.

  Laila knocked her glass against Delphine’s, and when she’d finished, she found the other woman staring at her. She seemed as if she wanted to say something more, but then the doors of Séverin’s suite swung open.

  Laila and Delphine sat up eagerly, and a House Dazbog servant poked his head out into the hall.

  “Mr. Montagnet-Alarie will see you now,” said the servant.

  Instinctively, Laila looked over her shoulder, expecting Enrique, Zofia, and Hypnos right behind her—but they were fast asleep.

  “Very well—” started Delphine, but the servant shook his head.

  “He did not ask for you.”

  “It doesn’
t matter if—”

  “He specifically asked not for you,” the servant finally admitted, his gaze downcast.

  Laila felt a pang of sympathy for the older woman. She’d been waiting so long to make sure he was well. Once, Séverin had confided that Delphine had treated him like her own child. When she abandoned Séverin, Laila thought her heartless. But looking at the matriarch now—her head bowed and lips pursed, hands clasped and ermine stole slipping off her shoulder like breaking armor—she wondered not at what she knew of her, but at what she didn’t.

  “Good to see his fond enmity remains intact,” said Delphine lightly.

  * * *

  THE FIRST THING Laila’s gaze went to was the giant four-poster bed, covered in silver damask silk and pale sapphire pillows. A Forged canopy of thinly hammered ice shot through with strands of silver draped over the bed and moved lightly to an invisible breeze. An irregularly shaped rug stitched together from the pelts of various white-furred animals stretched out beneath it, and at its four corners curled the yellowed talons of dead beasts. Polished ice formed the ceiling, and she caught her reflection wavering on its mirrored surface. In the blue light and dressed in furs, she hardly looked like herself, and her mind conjured up Enrique’s tale of Snegurochka, the snow maiden. Perhaps that girl would have known what to do in this cold, beautiful room with a cold, beautiful boy waiting to see her.

  As she took one step into the room, the diamond necklace on Laila’s skin felt like a collar of winter at her throat.

  You have just agreed to spend every night in my bed for the next three weeks. I will hold you to that.

  Sitting in a carved ice throne was Séverin. He looked up at her, his dusky eyes burning. She could tell someone else had changed him out of his clothes because he wore a black silk night robe that opened at his throat. He used to hate dark sleepwear after Tristan once said it made him “look like a bat striving for glamour.” The memory almost made her laugh when she noticed who else was with him.

  Eva stood behind him, her hands raised, blood glistening on her fingertips. She didn’t smile when Laila entered the room, instead shooting a glance of dismay at Ruslan.

  “It may not be safe for her to be here,” said Eva.

  Ruslan made a tsk sound. “Oh hush, cousin.”

  The doctor put away the last of his tools and bid them a good day. “How attentive of you to wait on him. You’re a lucky man, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie, to have so many beautiful girls concerned for your health.”

  Ruslan scowled, and Laila thought she heard him mutter, “What about me?”

  When the door shut, Eva glided to the basin at the end of the room, plunging her bloody hands into the water. Laila glanced at Séverin, but he was sitting too still … altogether too quiet.

  “What did you do to him?” she asked.

  “Aside from save him?” shot back Eva. “I regulated his blood pressure, but it has a slight sedative effect. He could’ve gone into shock from the hypothermia, so his limbs are momentarily paralyzed to allow a heating effect to work through his body and restore him back to perfect health.”

  Laila raised her chin higher. “You have our thanks,” she said icily.

  “And what about your trust?” demanded Eva. “If you’d just let me work with you from the beginning, he wouldn’t even be in this state.”

  “Cousin—” Ruslan warned.

  “As I pointed out to Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie earlier, I am proficient in Forging affinities with ice. I could help when you return to the chamber tomorrow. You need me,” said Eva. She lightly touched her lips the way a lover recalls a caress. She looked to Séverin and then back to Laila. “But there were some benefits, at least.”

  Laila bit back a glower. Eva and Ruslan had to leave … and there was only one way to do that. She walked to Séverin, placing her hand at his cheek and looking over her shoulder.

  “What I need is time alone with him.” Laila smiled sweetly. “Thank you for taking care of him, but I can handle it from here.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Eva, crossing her arms. “He needs rest and sleep. Maybe you can retire elsewhere tonight, and I can watch him.”

  “As it so happens, I know just how to put him to sleep.”

  Séverin looked up at her, and for the first time, the haze in his eyes had subsided somewhat. She sank into his lap, and his body stiffened beneath hers. In her mind, she ignored what she was doing. But her body noticed. Every part of her remembered and catalogued the hardness of his muscle, sinewy and lean from days spent working alongside L’Eden’s workers for various installations; the heat that rose off his skin despite being in a palace of ice; and the faint scent of cloves that he could never get out of his garments.

  “Put your hands on me,” she whispered in his ear.

  Séverin glanced at his limbs, his jaw clenching slightly.

  “I cannot,” he said, the words halting as if it took effort to fight the sedative. Séverin tilted his head forward, his lips at her ear. “If you want my hands on you, Laila, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

  So she did.

  The whole rhythm of their movements—of sinking against him, draping one arm around his neck—took up only a couple of seconds, and yet time felt slow as poured honey. Séverin’s hand seemed heavy and burning, and when she placed it at her waist, his fingers dug into her skin. His brows knitted together, as if touching her physically hurt him. Laila almost forgot why she’d done this at all until she heard someone clearing their throat. At the entrance to the suite, Ruslan was practically shoving Eva out of the room.

  “Until the morning, then,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Eva, her eyes on Séverin. “The morning.”

  Laila waited until the door of their chamber closed. She held her breath, all too aware of how close they were, how the hair curled at the nape of his neck was damp … the pressure of his fingers at her waist. She immediately slid off his lap.

  “Tell me what everyone saw in the ice grotto,” demanded Séverin haltingly.

  Laila quickly filled him in on all they had discussed. As she spoke, she watched as his fingers slowly curled and uncurled, movement returning to him. When she was finished, he said nothing except: “Tomorrow morning, we go back.”

  After a few minutes, he flexed his hands. “It’s finally wearing off.”

  Soon after, he rose and disappeared into the adjacent bath suite. A rush of foolish nerves hit Laila as she walked to the bed. He would be here. With her. All because of an impulsive oath she’d wrung out of him.

  You have just agreed to spend every night in my bed.

  A low rustle of movement across from her made her head snap up. Séverin stood on the opposite side. He hadn’t changed out of the supple, dark silk nightclothes, and she saw that the color shifted from indigo to black. It matched his eyes, though she wished she hadn’t noticed. He looked at her and raised one eyebrow.

  “You must want it very badly,” he said.

  Laila jolted. “What?”

  “The Divine Lyrics,” said Séverin coolly. “You must want it very badly if this is what you’ll put yourself through.”

  But the corner of his mouth twitched up. It was the ghost of his former self pushing up against this new, ice exterior. Stop haunting me, she pleaded silently.

  “Of course I want the book,” she said.

  “Yes, I know,” said Séverin flippantly. “For the purpose of discovering your origins, etcetera…”

  Laila smiled grimly. He had no idea that her life hung in the balance. He didn’t deserve to know.

  “… or perhaps it was all an excuse to get me here,” added Séverin with a cruel smirk.

  She could have wrung his neck. “I didn’t need an excuse last time.”

  If he’d meant to taunt her, to push her farther away, he’d misstepped. And judging by the look on his face, he knew it. So she went in for the kill. She wanted him to flinch again. She wanted any ghost of his former self to retreat so far in
side that fistful of snow he called a heart that she would never be reminded of how much he had changed. She crawled onto the bed, rising up on her knees, watching as his eyes narrowed.

  “Remember that last evening in your study? You said yourself I was not real, Séverin,” she taunted, enjoying how he flinched. “You could always rediscover that for yourself.”

  She reached for him, knowing she’d gone too far the second he caught her wrist. He stared at his fingers encircling her skin.

  “I know you’re real, Laila,” he said. His voice was a poisonous silk. “I merely wish you weren’t.”

  He let go of her hand then shut the gossamer curtains. Laila watched him retreat to the armchair. It took a few moments before she realized he wouldn’t return. Good, she thought, easing herself into the large, empty bed. Exactly what I want.

  As she closed her eyes, she imagined the cold, unlit spaces of the Sleeping Palace. Somewhere inside this place lay The Divine Lyrics, the secret to more life. But nothing was without sacrifice.

  The week before she had left her father’s home, he had given her a gift. Not her mother’s wedding bangles as she had asked for, but a small knife inlaid with ivory and gold filigree that swept like a peacock’s tail over the hilt.

  “Better by your own hand, than the jaadugar’s,” he’d said.

  His meaning was clear. Laila thought of it now as she pulled the covers to her chin. She turned her back on Séverin, on the evenings they’d spent playing chess, the minutes she pretended she didn’t see him waiting for her outside the kitchens of L’Eden, the way he didn’t realize he smiled when he looked at her, and every single second when he never once made her feel like she was anything less than his equal.

  She thought of her father’s knife and words, of snow maidens with thawed hearts, and the collar of winter at her throat.

  If surviving meant cutting out her heart, then at least she could do it by her own hand.

  17