The Gilded Wolves (21 page)

“Is this a bad time to mention I only know the Fibonacci sequence up until the number twenty-one?”

“I’ve got the pattern,” said Zofia. “I don’t need anything
else. Start on the far left.”

On each of the thirteen levers was a row for three numbers. He
felt around the top of the lever for the small toggles, letting him push the numbers into view. For the first:

0 0 0

Then on the second:

0 0 1

0 0 1

0 0 2

On and on—three, five, eight, thirteen—until he hit the eighth lever, spinning the toggles atop it until the numbers read: 021.

In the distance,
Laila screamed. The ball of fire behind her roared livid as the dawn. She turned her face from the heat.

“Wait!” called Zofia.

Tears streamed down her face as her pale hands darted down the levers.

“Thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred forty-four,” she said. “Two hundred thirty-three!”

Immediately, the ground lurched to a stop. Zofia stumbled, nearly falling over the edge until
Enrique caught her. The ball of fire halted. Slowly, it moved backward, heat leeching from the room. Laila had scrambled to another rock once it got close enough. Around them, the floor stitched back together. Grinding sounds of rock and steel whined until the floor was, once more,
whole
.

Zofia’s heartbeat thumped wildly against his chest. He could feel her skin, feverish and damp, through his
linen tunic. The moment stillness returned to the atrium, she sprang from him, running to check on Laila. Enrique slid onto the floor, rubbing his temples.

When he looked up, both girls were staring down at him.

Laila grinned widely. “
My hero
.”

She kissed him on the cheek, and Enrique beamed. He wasn’t quite like the heroes he’d dreamed of becoming. He hadn’t saved a country from oppression
or rescued anyone on his white horse … but he still felt rather impressive. He turned to Zofia, about to congratulate her, when she crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m not going to kiss you like Laila did.”

Black ash streaked Zofia’s arms and the tops of her cheekbones. It made her eyes look like blue fire, her hair a wisp of candlelight. The farthest thing from his mind was her mouth on his,
but when she said it, he couldn’t help but look at her lips. They were red as candy. Abruptly, Enrique pinched the bridge of his nose. He must have hit his head because the strangest thoughts kept darting through it.

“I was only going to say that we make a good team, phoenix.”

A corner of her mouth quirked up. “I know.”

And that was true. Her math, his history. They were, he thought, a bit
like an equation where the sum was greater than its parts.

Ahead of them, the tunnel had been plunged into semidarkness. Still, he caught the glint of an amber door, the true entrance to House Kore’s library. It was a bit of a walk, but adrenaline raced through him, staving off any twinge of sore muscles and aching bones.

“What was the code for the pedestal?” asked Laila.

Zofia cleared her
throat. “Zero, one, one, two—”

“It was the Fibonacci sequence,” cut in Enrique.

If Zofia got started on numbers, they’d be here all day.

“Praise Fibonacci,” said Laila, pressing her palms together.

“Well, Fibonacci can have some credit, but not all. He was brilliant, of course. But did you know—”

Zofia groaned. Enrique ignored her.

“—the Fibonacci sequence itself appears as early as the
sixth
century in Sanskrit treatises by the Hindu scholar Pingala. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Laila made a face. “So who do we thank?”

“
Me
, naturally.”

The tunnel drew to a close, and the three of them stood before the amber entrance to the library. By now, the adrenaline coursing through his veins had faded. Exhaustion crept into the edges of him.

Enrique braced himself for what lay on the other
side of the door. The Horus Eye. As Zofia reached for the doorknob, Enrique wondered if it was possible for time itself to pause and expand, as if it were a vast pupil dilating to let in the light. Because he felt as if he could sense each second passing against his skin. As if every dream of his hung low and ripe as fruit for the plucking. If Marcelo Ponce and the rest of the Ilustrados group
could see him now, then maybe they’d see him as more than a clever
mestizo
boy, but a hero in the making. Like Dr. Rizal. Like someone who illuminated the dark.

The door swung open.

Warm air gusted over them, and his skin shivered. Once in the dark, and now on the threshold of light, his eyes adjusted.

Across the room, a second door swung open, and two shadows stretched across the floor.

S
é
verin’s fifth father was a man he called Pride.

Pride had married into the Order of Babel. His late wife had been the second-born daughter of a patriarch. Though born wealthy, an investment in far-off salt mines had left them penniless, forcing them to sell their possessions. Bitterness grew like a crust over Pride’s home. Pride showed them the collection catalogues of the
Order, whispering which items had once belonged to him and his wife. He showed S
é
verin and Tristan how to take back what belonged to you. How to make a harness that let one slip down roofs and into windows, how to pay off the right guards, how to step with a light foot.

He never used the word “steal.”

“Take what the world owes you by any means necessary,” Pride had said. “The world has a shit
memory. It will never pay its debts unless you force its hand.”

S
É
VERIN THOUGHT OF
Pride now as he met Hypnos at the entrance to the subterranean library. Hypnos slipped the copied key into the
amber door. The door swung open, revealing a long trail of steps that descended into the dark. S
é
verin took a moment to bow his head, the closest he would come to prayer. He whispered the words Pride
spoke every time he went to repossess an object: “I’ve come to collect my dues.”

Before him, the whole of the subterranean library sprawled. The room was the size of an amphitheater, and though the floor and ceiling was packed earth, a luminous underwater shine danced across the top. A small moat surrounded the library. It looked to be a built-in coolant system to regulate the temperature of
the treasure room. Forged lanterns and thuribles floated down the neat aisles that sprang out of the ground. Objects loomed into sight: caryatids and drinking horns, broken crowns and canopic jars, mirrors that floated in midair, and an azure jug that poured a continuous stream of wine.

“Oh no, shiny things,” moaned Hypnos, clapping his hands to his heart. “My weakness.”

Though the library could
bring kings to their knees, it wasn’t the sight S
é
verin craved. He walked down the aisle, toward the back end of the wall where an amber door identical to the one they had walked through now swung open. Three figures stepped into the room. Enrique, with a stunned expression on his face. Zofia, bewildered and clutching her necklace. And then Laila … streaked with what looked like ash. Laila in
that same dancing costume he hadn’t been able to shake from his thoughts ever since she’d thrown him the key.

Hypnos waved hello, and then he leaned down to whisper in S
é
verin’s ear, “You’re staring.”

S
é
verin looked abruptly away. He reached into his jacket for the silver tin of cloves and popped one into his mouth.

“Any trouble?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Zofia, matter-of-fact. “There was a fireball
and the ground broke, and we thought Tristan and Enrique were dead.”

“
What?
”

“Tristan is fine,” soothed Laila. “He’s upstairs now, standing guard.”

“Did you say fur ball?” asked Hypnos. “Like a puppy? How endearing.”

“She said
fireball
.”

“Oh. That is decidedly less endearing.”

S
é
verin clapped his hands together, and everyone fell silent.

“The convoy for the next guard shift comes in an
hour. We’ve got five empty seats on that convoy to get us out of here, so let’s get moving. We know the Horus Eye is in the west quadrant and eighth hall, but there could always be unexpected surprises. Zofia?”

Zofia tore the second layer of her dress. At her touch, it broke into five strips that fell to the ground. She wrapped one strip around her hands, and it molded instantly to their shape,
turning into a pair of translucent gloves.

“Forged rubber,” she said, raising her palms. “That way no object can detect a human touch.”

Laila shuddered. “Yes, let’s not get stuck to anything just by touching it.”

“And let’s not leave prints either,” added Enrique.

“Or blood,” said S
é
verin, glaring at Hypnos. He wasn’t going to get trapped into that letter scheme again. “Enrique?”

Enrique
pointed at the shelves. “Collections are tricky things. Sometimes there’re even decoys of objects. The Horus Eye should be about palm-sized, with a glass or crystal piece in the pupil to see through, although age might have clouded it so it looks stained.”

Hypnos looked around at the group, as if he were just seeing them for the first time.

“You know, in this lighting, you lot are rather fearsome.”

“
All lighting
,” corrected Enrique.

The moment everyone had slipped on their gloves, S
é
verin led the way to the eighth hall.

“Once we have the Horus Eye, we’ll walk out—”

“That’s
it
?” asked Enrique, his voice rising. “But it’s House-marked—”

“Shhhh, beautiful,” said Hypnos. He held out his hand, where his Ring—a bright crescent moon—gleamed. “This Ring is welded to my skin. If it’s taken off
and not delivered to a blood heir within a fortnight, the House mark fades. And I know for certain the matriarch had no time to pass it on to her abominable nephew.”

“So…” Enrique looked around the room. “
Technically
 … we could take anything right now?”

“Focus,” warned S
é
verin.

Around them, the library stretched for nearly a kilometer underground. As the world’s largest purveyor of ancient
Egyptian artifacts, House Kore’s shelves overflowed with Forged treasures plundered from pharaohs’ tombs and scrolls encased in glass and sand that had been lifted from the foundations of crumbling temples. But though the owners and artisans of the objects had long since passed, the power within them still crackled. Glass beetles with lightning storms flashing across their carapace scuttled into the
shelves. Once or twice, a telescope’s eye turned toward him, and S
é
verin saw not the dirt floor and treasures mirrored behind him, but a skull hovering over his head, a ripped rose on either side of him. Shaken, he kept walking.

As they neared the eighth aisle, a cold wind gusted into the hall. Zofia reached for her necklace. Laila stood back, fingers skimming down the wooden beams of the shelves.
She turned to S
é
verin, her chin dipping ever so slightly in a silent signal:
Safe to enter
.

S
é
verin entered first. Then stopped. He heard the others round
ing the corner, the shuffle of their feet abruptly stopping. Enrique stood at his shoulder and groaned.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The entire eighth aisle … were Horus Eyes. All of them were bronze and the size of one’s hand. All of them
had a perfect glass pupil and were completely identical. Only the objects stuffed between their spaces on the shelves distinguished them. Odds and ends not worthy enough to be catalogued. Silver ankhs dangled from slender hooks, and broken canopic jars were shoved alongside bits of pottery strewn about the shelves.

Zofia stepped forward. “Not all of the Horus Eyes are Forged.”

“How do you know?”
asked Enrique.

Zofia touched her palm, not looking at anyone directly. “They’re just not.”

“She’s right,” said Laila, taking her hand off the Horus Eye closest to her.

Hypnos eyed her shrewdly, and Laila gestured at the shelves. “It’s nearly impossible that so many would actually be here. In existence.”

“Fair,” said Enrique. “In which case, we’re looking for a special Horus Eye amongst the
decoys. Presumably, looking through the correct Horus Eye will reveal a Babel Fragment, so it won’t show the floor beneath you. It will show something else.”

Hypnos groaned. “But there’s got to be
hundreds
of Eyes!”

“All the more reason to get started.” S
é
verin moved to the first shelf. “Shall we?”

There were fifty sections, ten for each of them. S
é
verin began reaching for the Horus Eyes. Every
time he could see his shoes through the glass, he put an Eye back and reached for another. One after another after another, and each time he saw the ground reflected at him. Three sections. All of them decoys.

S
é
verin slid yet another decoy into its section when a slip of silver
cloth fell. When he reached for it, his fingers skimmed across the surface, as if it were a pane of ice. He’d never
seen anything like it. And frankly it was just so
lustrous
, like a mirror poured onto the ground. He pinched the edges of it, lifting it off the floor and stowing it away.

Across from him, Laila paused in running her hands along the Horus Eyes. Her gaze swept from his face to his jacket pocket and lingered there. He couldn’t seem to hide anything from her.

S
é
verin cleared his throat. “Enrique?
Zofia? Anything?”

Enrique shook his head. Zofia didn’t answer. S
é
verin turned, about to move back to the shelf when he saw Laila struggling to pull a Horus Eye from its shelf. There was a large, black tome wedged next to it. The base of its spine seemed stuck to the wooden board.

“I can’t get to it!” said Laila. “The Horus Eye is stuck behind this book.”

S
é
verin couldn’t have explained why
the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly raised. He didn’t like how that book was stuck to the shelf. It felt too intentional. Besides, there was something unnerving about the ink-stained pages and how the charred leather-bound cover looked far too smooth to be made of animal skin. Even the library felt entirely too still and silent in that moment. Before he could warn her, Laila pried the book
off the shelf. The moment she wrenched it from its spot, it split down the middle. Indigo plumes spilling out from the opened pages.

“Get back!” yelled S
é
verin.

Laila dropped the book and darkness erupted from the pages. Amidst the dark, a snatch of white slipped from the page to the floor. It was a slender white feather.

Before, he thought the cavernous library had been still and silent. He
was wrong.
This
was silence. All the sounds he had taken for granted—rustling fabric, whirring insect wings, running
water—disappeared. Shadows seeped in from all sides of the library, rushing to give the book’s smoke new shape. A snout formed. Teeth glinted. Paws covered in blood-slick fur outstretched. S
é
verin could see Laila, her mouth shaped into a scream. He darted between the thing’s legs
toward her just as a low snarl reverberated through the library. Slowly, the five of them looked up.

The shadow creature towered above them, the top of its head stretching far above the high shelves. The front of its body belonged to a lion, the hindquarters belonged to a hippo, and its head swung back and forth, crocodile jaws snapping. The creature slammed its paw against the floor.

“Duck!”
hollered S
é
verin.

The five of them ran to the end of their respective sections.

“Ammit,” said Enrique, loudly.

“What?”

“That’s what
that
is,” he said. “The devourer of souls from Egyptian mythology.”

“But we’re not in Egypt!” wailed Hypnos. “What’s it doing here?”

“I’m guessing they brought it over to protect a powerful Horus Eye,” said Enrique.

“Which means you must have found the true
one,” said S
é
verin.

The ground thundered. The snuffling sound of an animal searching for something filled the air.

“If we went back and got the Eye, maybe it will disappear,” said Zofia.

Hypnos choked back a laugh. “That’s
your
experiment,
ma ch
è
re
. Enjoy. I am
not
going out there.”

“Not all of us have to,” said S
é
verin.

He looked over his shoulder.

Ammit breathed heavily, its head lowered,
eyes half-lidded and unfocused. Near its foot was the white feather that had fallen onto
the ground. Ammit paced back and forth across that small section. The fur on its body bristled as it hunched protectively near the shelves.

“It’s definitely guarding something,” said S
é
verin.

Now all they had to do was lure it away from that thing.

“You four go around the other side of the shelf and get
to the section with the Horus Eye. When you’re close enough, signal me. I’ll jump out. Ammit will come after me. Then all you have to do is close the book and grab the Eye. Got it?”

All of them began to creep to the other side of the shelf except one: Laila.

“You’re far too fond of martyrdom,
Majnun
,” she said. “I’m not leaving you.”

Yet
, he thought.

“It’s your grave, Laila.”

“As long as
it’s my choice.”

The two of them peered through the cracks in the shelves. Zofia, Hypnos, and Enrique crept ahead …

Ammit didn’t move. Its whole body was rigidly trained in S
é
verin and Laila’s direction. Zofia leaned forward, her fingers inches away from the book. Hypnos and Enrique crouched on either side of her.

Then, Enrique met S
é
verin’s eyes, nodding once.

Zofia reached for the book.
Ammit’s neck twitched, as if it were about to turn. S
é
verin jumped from his hiding place.

“Hungry?”

The creature roared.

Steam blew from its nostrils. It pawed the ground, then charged. The floor trembled. Objects rattled off the shelves. A ripe, putrid scent wafted from the creature, choking off the mineral scent of the air. S
é
verin braced himself, digging his heels into the floor. In the
distance, he saw Zofia reach for both sides of the book, slamming it shut. Beside her, Enrique plucked the Horus Eye from the shelf.