The Gilded Wolves (16 page)

“Do you know what the napkins are for, young man?”

“I confess, I do not. But I am far too enthralled with fashion to deny a trend.”

Again, the man laughed. S
é
verin took a moment to study him. Like everyone else, he wore a black velvet mask across his eyes. There were wrinkles around his mouth, and his hair was streaked gray. What skin S
é
verin could see was pale and thin, waxen with
illness. The man’s mustard-colored suit wasn’t obviously Forged, so he likely wasn’t aristocratic. Something gleamed on the man’s lapel, but he turned before S
é
verin could get a closer look.

“The point of the napkins,” said the man, placing the napkin over his head, “is to hide your shame from God for eating such a beautiful creature.”

“Is it our shame that we’re hiding or our delusions that
we can hide at all?”

S
é
verin caught the edges of the man’s grin from beneath his napkin.

“I like you, Monsieur.”

S
é
verin didn’t look too closely at the brown flesh on the plate. He knew objectively that it was a delicacy. Gluttony always said he wished for a dish of ortolan to be his last meal. But S
é
verin had never approved them for L’Eden’s menu. It felt wrong.

Cautiously, S
é
verin bit into
the bird. The thin bones snapped between his teeth. His mouth filled with the taste of the bird’s flesh, tender and rich with the flavor of figs, hazelnuts, and his own blood as tiny bits of bone cut the inside of his mouth.

He licked his lips, hating that it was delicious.

Brandy followed dessert, and guests were encouraged to move to a separate lounge. As S
é
verin rose, he saw Hypnos whisper
something to the matriarch of House Kore. Her mouth pursed into a thin line, but she nodded and whispered something to her manservant. Hypnos summoned his factotum from the edge of the room. The man carried a black box.

This was it.

Hypnos had invoked Order rule, and now the matriarch would have to safeguard the object by entering the vault. While the guests streamed out of the dining room, S
é
verin lingered by the door, pretending he had just seen someone he knew. The matriarch walked out the door, Hypnos on her heels. The left corner of Hypnos’s mouth turned up as he passed him. A signal to join. S
é
verin waited, giving them a head start. Then, as he was about to follow, the man in the mustard suit blocked him.

He wheezed as he spoke, sweat shining on his forehead. “A pleasure talking
with you, Monsieur…”

“Faucher,” said S
é
verin, pushing down his annoyance. “I did not catch your name?”

The man smiled. “Roux-Joubert.”

Outside the dining room, the large staircase blocked off the light. The hall broke off into three separate vestibules. S
é
verin had memorized the layout earlier, including the entrance to the library where the Forged treasures were kept. He kept to the shadows.
From the blueprints, he knew where House Kore kept their mnemo bugs and moved against their patterns of surveillance. At the entrance of a hall full of twisting mirrors, S
é
verin paused. He reached into the sleeves of his jacket, slicing the silk seams that hid a Forged bell designed by Zofia. He rang it twice, and his steps turned silent.

Between the hall of mirrors and the library was a rotunda
full of astrological tools, and a wide skylight. The matriarch, Hypnos, and manservants all had their backs to him. S
é
verin touched the tip of his shoe to one side of the wall, then quietly ducked into one of the recessed niches on the opposite side. A slender, nearly invisible Forged glass thread stretched across the hall, connected to S
é
verin’s shoe. Outside the niche, he heard the others talking:

“—a moment for me to place the box within my vaults.”

“Of course,” said Hypnos. “I appreciate it, truly. Though, is it not tradition for us to hold our Rings together as proof of agreement? You know me, I am ironclad to tradition. Right down to my blood.”

S
é
verin smirked at Hypnos’s self-jab.

“I don’t believe that’s necessary,” she said, her voice slightly higher pitched. “We are old friends,
are we not? Old dynasties and all that is left of the Houses of France … Surely, as I am doing you a favor at great cost to myself, we might excuse the formality?”

Hypnos’s comment was a test. The matriarch must not have disclosed to the Order that the Ring had been stolen. Her words were proof that she too thought the theft had been an inside job.

“Of course,” said Hypnos brightly.

“May I
speak frankly with you?” asked the matriarch.

S
é
verin could sense the hesitation in his voice. But Hypnos answered, “Of course. What are old friends for?”

The matriarch took a deep breath. “I know you are aware my Ring has been stolen.”

Hypnos feigned a gasp, but the matriarch must have cut him off.

“Don’t humiliate me,” she snapped. “Every member of my House that I trust has been searching
for it … I am not asking for you to set your own guards to finding it, but I ask that you keep your wits about you. I know we’ve had our differences, but this … this damage that might be wrought would affect far more than just us.”

“I know,” said Hypnos solemnly.

“Very well,” said the matriarch. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

S
é
verin listened for the sound of something clicking open. The massive
doors of the library unlocking. Moments turned into minutes. Hypnos started tapping his foot. After exactly nine minutes and forty-five seconds, the door to the library opened once more.

“Shall we?” asked Hypnos.

The matriarch said nothing. Perhaps she had taken his arm. S
é
verin heard their footsteps quickly approaching.

He opened his watch, taking out some mirror powder. He smeared it onto
his fingers, dragged them down the wall behind him, and touched his clothes. Instantly, his clothing shimmered, turning the same brocade pattern as the wall. The disguise would last for little over a minute—all he needed. S
é
verin propped up his foot, ready. But the matriarch stopped just outside the thread, as if to catch her breath.

This was not part of the plan.

“It’s beautiful, is it not?”
asked the matriarch.

“Yes, yes, it is—”

Irritation flickered in Hypnos’s voice. S
é
verin’s fingers twitched. He glanced at his watch. He hadn’t been able to get another order of mirror powder in time, and that was all that was left. His clothing shimmered. Less than thirty seconds, and it would vanish. They would see him.

Ten seconds left.

The servants walked past.

Four seconds.

Hypnos escorted
the matriarch. S
é
verin willed himself to breathe, not to let his hands get damp and soak up what remained of the mirror powder.

Three seconds.

The matriarch was about to cross the glass thread. S
é
verin lifted his shoe. Right on time, she tripped. Hypnos caught her before she fell, but her dress had billowed, lifting high enough to reveal her shoes. S
é
verin looked intently for the one sign that
would have proved his theory, and found it: mud.

“Are you quite all right?” asked Hypnos.

Hypnos crushed the glass thread, spinning the matriarch so her
back faced S
é
verin just as the last traces of powder vanished from his fingertips.

WHEN S
É
VERIN ENTERED
his room at two thirty in the morning, he found his bed occupied.

“Flattered as I am, get out.”

Enrique clutched a pillow.

“No. It’s
deliriously comfortable.”

“You know I hate when my pillows get warm.”

“Like this?” Enrique started rubbing his face on the pillows and hugging them.

“Ugh. Just take them.”

On Enrique’s other side, Tristan lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t say anything when S
é
verin entered. Even when Enrique smacked his face with a pillow, he merely groaned and turned on his side. Blue-black
circles hollowed his eyes. He looked exhausted, and he kept flexing his hands, sinking his nails into his palms. He got like this sometimes … lost in his own head. And then either S
é
verin or Laila would have to bandage his hands to keep him from breaking his own skin. Laila moved to Tristan’s side, carefully flattening his palms. When it came to Tristan, all of them acted a little differently.
Laila coddled, Enrique teased, Zofia instructed. S
é
verin protected.

Ever since their fight in his office, he hadn’t been able to apologize. Everything left unsaid gathered and crackled in the air between them.

Footsteps echoed outside the door. Laila held a finger to her lips, glowering at the room.

The door opened. In glided Zofia. The first thing she did was kick off her heels. With the bed
and chair taken, Zofia plopped on the floor.

“How come we had to hide out in the laundry to get in here, and she just strolled into your bedroom?” asked Enrique.

Zofia started rubbing her feet. “We’re having an affair.”

“It’s clearly very torrid,” said S
é
verin.

Zofia grunted.

To Enrique’s bewildered expression, he added, “We raised a glass of wine to each other across a dinner table and threw
in a lingering look. Voil
à
. Easiest way to go somewhere unnoticed is to tell everyone where you’re going. Now. What do you have for me?”

The door creaked open. All five of them leapt up, hands immediately reaching for knives or fire tape—

Hypnos.

He grinned in the doorway and waved.

“
Why
are you here?” asked S
é
verin.

“It’s my plan too. I helped downstairs…”

“You’re drawing unwanted attention—”

“On the contrary, I’m affirming your penchant for eccentric proclivities. A rumor I judiciously spread at dinner. And as you just said, the easiest way to go somewhere unnoticed is to tell everyone where you’re going. If I left now, and someone saw, it might draw, what was it you said? Oh.” Hypnos beamed. “Unwanted attention.”

S
é
verin scowled.

“Fine. Just sit and don’t talk or touch anything.
Or anyone.”

Hypnos sat on the floor beside Zofia.

Laila spoke first. “I confirmed that the only guards with loaded weapons are the ones surrounding the terrariums and hothouse garden wall. I also confirmed they’re being regularly transferred. Every eight hours, twenty guards are switched out.”

“And the outdoor grounds facing the library?” asked S
é
verin.

“All blanks in their shotguns.”

Enrique
and Zofia looked shocked.

“How did you figure that out without firing their rifles?”

“I rummaged through their artillery and wardrobe room. It’s right next to the maids’ quarters,” said Laila.

“But why does the matriarch have her best men guarding her
flowers
?” demanded Enrique. “Does that mean she doesn’t care about the objects at all? Maybe the Horus Eye was moved somewhere else—”

“No,”
said S
é
verin. “It’s here. On these grounds.”

“Then why wouldn’t she be hiding it in the library where she said it was?”

“It is in a library,” said S
é
verin, thinking of the mud. “She has another one.”

“In the greenhouse?” asked Enrique flatly.

“No,” said S
é
verin, grinning. “Beneath it.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I saw the mud on her shoes. Besides, you’ve seen the blueprints. The dimensions
of the library are too small for the size of the rumored collection. She has to be accessing the real library underground. That must be why the guns are guarding the gardens. Which is where our next stage comes into play. Enrique and Tristan, are you all set to release the piranha solution?”

They nodded.

“Good. The solution will take about eight hours to work. Laila. What happened with the icebox?”

But Laila didn’t have a chance to answer.

“It’s all set to be debuted as a surprise to the matriarch for tomorrow evening!” said Hypnos. “I’ve even arranged for it to be wheeled into the office where the matriarch keeps the physical key to the vault. She can’t access it using her Ring anymore, so it’s not Forged. Laila’s nautch dancer costume has already been hidden under the cushion of the chaise
lounge. Once she has the key, she
can exit the office dressed as a nautch dancer who presumably got lost. Then, S
é
verin, the ever helpful gentleman, assists in finding her way while she slips him the key. He gives the key to Zofia, who makes a copy. At dinner, Zofia gives the key to me, and I return it to the study. Me and S
é
verin go through the House access, while the others go through the greenhouse
and we meet in the library vault!”

“Hypnos?”

“Yes?”

“Are you Laila?”

Hypnos hung his head. “… No.”

“Laila?”

Laila pointed at Hypnos. “What he said.”

“Are we clear?” asked S
é
verin. “Laila gets the key. Zofia makes the copy. Me and Hypnos take the library route, meet you in the underground vault. We get the Horus Eye, and we’re out no later than an hour after midnight when our transport comes.”

Hypnos, Enrique, Zofia, and Laila nodded as one. Tristan, who had silently been curled up on the bed, was the last to nod.

Enrique left first, escaping down the laundry chute armed with Forged bells that muffled his sounds. Next went Hypnos and Zofia, their heads bent close. Which left Tristan and Laila.

“Stay a moment, Laila?” asked S
é
verin.

She frowned, but nodded.

Tristan shuffled to him.
S
é
verin shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at him.