The Gilded Wolves (25 page)

“I think ‘bone’ fits,” he
said quietly.

Hypnos cast him a strange look. Enrique had no desire to be the focus of that attention, so he said, “The last two lines fit as well. We know that the Fallen House had some macabre interests. It’s possible that meant using bone. In which case, that line, ‘all this world was meant to be,’ might fit with their own interests and not all humans’ everywhere. Which leaves the second-to-last
line—‘my quantity will let you see’—as the final hint. Maybe it means the number of bones found in a human body. How many are there, anyway?”

“Two hundred and six,” said S
é
verin instantly.

Enrique frowned. “Do I want to know why you had that answer immediately?”

S
é
verin’s smile gleamed wolflike. “I doubt it.”

“But how do we get 206 to show up on a clock?”

S
é
verin let out a soft laugh. As
if he were remembering something. “Six minutes past two. Two-oh-six. Two hundred and six.”

The three of them stared at the clock. Some crackling energy that had not been there before now wafted out of it. Enrique had the bizarre notion the clock could now sense that they knew how to drag out its secrets.

Slowly, Enrique pushed the hour and minute hand. Hypnos and
S
é
verin had moved closer without
him noticing. He saw the scene, suddenly, in his mind’s eye, as if from afar: three boys kneeling around a clock made of bone, the light behind them rendering them sharp shadows brought to life, and he felt that thread of hunger sewing them all together in the moment, so that when it came right down to it, perhaps their souls would have been indistinguishable.

Enrique waited.

He waited for the
Forging power to unravel into the air, to push back. But he felt nothing.

“It’s not working,” said Hypnos. “Did we get it wrong?”

Enrique’s heart seized. He hoped not, but then—

“We didn’t follow directions,” said S
é
verin, pointing to the little script on the clock’s crescent:
nocte. Midnight
.

“But midnight is hours away!”

S
é
verin’s gaze shuddered. He rubbed the scar on his palm, then reached
for his tin of cloves. He chewed one thoughtfully, ignoring the tension building up with everyone else.

“At least by then, the girls will be back.”

S
é
verin left not long after that to attend to L’Eden business, which left Enrique and Hypnos alone in the stargazing room. Enrique wasn’t sure what he should do. In the end, both of them returned to what they had been doing before—poring over the
shredded documents of the Fallen House. Searching for clues in the detritus. The shadow of evening stretched over them. Food had been called up and eaten without either of them lifting a head from their research. Always, the bone clock stared back. Waiting. Smug. When Enrique looked at the room, he saw the strange pall over it. The cushions upturned. Tristan’s pillow shoved under a chair so no one
could sit in it.

“Why are you helping us?” Enrique realized the words were out of his mouth before he could even think them.

Hypnos looked up, his face unguarded. “Is it so strange to think I might have reasons of my own for wanting the Babel Ring found?” he asked.

“That’s not an answer. You could be doing this work from home. I’ve heard the House Nyx library is the envy of scholars. You don’t
have to be here.”

Hypnos was quiet for a moment, and then he folded his hands on his lap. “If I had someone on my side … someone of equal standing to me, then maybe life in the Order would be … easier.”

Enrique processed this. “You
want
S
é
verin to become a patriarch?”

Hypnos nodded. “When we were little, I thought we’d grow up and be kings or something. A whole kingdom to divide between us.”
He glared at Enrique. “Do
not
tell him I said that.”

Enrique mimed a zip over his mouth, and Hypnos relaxed once more. He looked so young, so unlined, and yet his ice-colored eyes looked ancient.

“The truth is I need someone on my side,” said Hypnos. He wrapped his arms around his knees. “Someone who might understand what it means to live in two worlds as I do. I have tried and I have failed.
I cannot be both the descendant of Haitian slaves and the son of a French aristocrat, even if that is what I hold in my heart. I had to choose, and perhaps the Order forced my hand in this. But what no one tells you is that even when you decide which world you will live in, the world may not always see you as you would wish. Sometimes it demands that you be so outrageous as to transcend your very
skin. You can change your name. Your eye color. Make yourself a myth and live within it, so that you belong to no one but yourself.”

Enrique’s mouth felt dry. He knew exactly how that felt. The feeling like his own skin betrayed him. That his own dreams didn’t match his face and would therefore never come to pass. “I understand.”

Hypnos snorted. He dropped his head back against the couch, and
the light caught on the long line of his throat. Hypnos looked like a seraph who spent his whole life in ripe sunshine. He had always been beautiful, but now the light gilded his beauty into something unearthly. Enrique used to feel a twinge of shame when it came to his feelings … He used to pray that when it came to attraction, his body would just choose between men and women, and not both. It
was his second-oldest brother, bound for priesthood, who told him that God made no mistakes in crafting their hearts. Enrique still hadn’t quite parsed out his own relationship to faith, but what his brother said had made him stop hating himself. It made him stop turning from what lay inside him and embrace it. But it wasn’t until he arrived in Spain for university that he started doing more than
just looking at beautiful boys. He was reminded of it now, staring at Hypnos … and he was far too distracted to realize the other boy had noticed.

Hypnos swiped his thumb across his lips. “Do I have something on my mouth?”

“No, not at all,” said Enrique, turning quickly.

Hypnos muttered something that almost sounded like:
That’s a pity
.

TIME MARCHED STEADILY
toward midnight.

By then, Laila
and Zofia had returned. They shared their findings with one another—the bone clock and the hidden Tezcat—and settled down to wait in the stargazing room. The chairs had lost some of their ghostly attributes, and everyone took a seat, leaving only Tristan’s cushion untouched.

In those final stretches to midnight, Enrique thought he could feel everything … From the heat vibrating off Hypnos’s hand,
which was
just an
inch
too close, and the glow of Zofia’s candlelight hair as she bent her head to inspect her newest invention, to the sugar crystals from the cookie Laila had snuck him and the cold of S
é
verin’s fury as he stared at the clock. Enrique, who had always dreamed about what magic might feel like, thought he had found it then: myths and palimpsests, starlight sugaring the air, and
the way hope feels painful when shared equally among friends.

At the stroke of midnight, they slid the clock into position: six minutes past two.

Light burst across the room.

Laila jerked backward, but Zofia leaned toward the light. Curiosity flickered across her face.

“It works like a mnemo bug,” she observed.

The vision contained in the clock splayed across the room, blotting out the glimpse
of the stars overhead.

A hall full of bones. Grinning skulls crowded together. Compacted earth where a great spiraled pattern like the logarithm floor of House Kore spread out across an abandoned auditorium. And Enrique thought he might even be able to sniff out the smell of that place regardless that he could only see the image of it. Great crosses made of femurs, and an eerie lake where stalactites
dripped their mineral tears. Here, finally, was the secret hiding place of the Fallen House. The place connected to the Forged exhibition. The place where, somewhere, Tristan lay trapped in the dark.

Enrique didn’t know who spoke first, but the truth of the words brushed against his skin, raising the hairs along the back of his neck.

“The Fallen House is waiting for us in the catacombs.”

S
é
verin’s sixth father was a man he called Greed. Greed was a pretty thief with a petty trust fund, and often resorted to stealing. Greed liked to keep S
é
verin as a lookout while he ran his “errands.” On one such occasion, Greed broke into the home of a rich widow. He cleared out the curio cabinet, which was full of precious porcelain pieces and elaborate glasswork, but then
he saw that atop the cabinet was a clock made of jade. S
é
verin had been standing outside, watching the street. When he heard the steady clip of horse hooves, he whistled, but Greed shushed him. He reached for the clock, only for the ladder beneath him to crash. The heavy clock fell on his head and killed him instantly.

Greed taught him to beware of reaching too high.

S
É
VERIN PLACED A
clove
on his tongue, chewing slowly as he mulled over his information.

They knew where the Fallen House hid.

They knew what the Fallen House wanted: the Babel Fragment rejoined.

Everything else was just a matter of timing.

As the light from the bone clock dissolved, Hypnos sighed. “Technically, all House heads are supposed to report any Fallen House activity to the Order.”

“Technically?” repeated
S
é
verin. “Technically, we don’t know if someone from the Order is acting through Roux-Joubert.”

“Which is why I said ‘technically,’” added Hypnos. “I
have
to report to the Order, but they never specified
when
I had to do that. I could supposedly do it after we find Roux-Joubert, when we’re sure that no one from House Kore was involved in stealing the Ring.”

“Sneaky.”

“I’m following someone’s
example.”

“Do you really think someone from the Order would be behind this?” asked Enrique. “Wouldn’t they be betraying the whole point of the Order?”

“Never underestimate the human capacity for betrayal,” said Laila quietly.

Like the rest of them, she had avoided her usual seat on the velvet chaise lounge. Instead, she leaned against the bookcase, the train of her green silk dress tucked over
her legs. Laila rubbed the back of her neck, her fingers disappearing behind her collar to trace her scar. She thought of it like a seam, as if it made her more ragdoll than human, but to S
é
verin it was just a scar. Scars sculpted people into who they were. They were scuffs left by sorrow’s fists, and to him, at least, proof of being thoroughly human. And then, unbidden, came the memory of touching
that scar, how it felt cold as glass and just as smooth. He remembered how she tensed when he touched her there, and how he’d kissed the length of it, desperate to show her he knew what it meant and it didn’t matter. Not to him.
Suddenly Laila looked up and their eyes met. The slightest color touched her cheeks, and he wondered if she was remembering too. She looked away from him abruptly.

“What’s
the plan?” she asked.

S
é
verin forced his gaze to the others. “We infiltrate the Fallen House’s meeting location in the catacombs. We take back both the House Kore Ring and the Horus Eye.”

“I doubt he’d leave the Ring lying around on the ground,” said Laila. “Wouldn’t he be wearing it?”

Hypnos wiggled his fingers. “He can’t. He might have managed to tear it off, but it’s still welded to us.”

S
é
verin nodded, then added, “Looking through the Horus Eye will give us the Fragment’s location, which, assuming there’s no sign of House Kore’s involvement in the theft, we’d then relay directly to the House Kore matriarch. That way, the Order can dispatch people to protect the site of the Fragment and immobilize Roux-Joubert and his accomplice.”

“How are we entering the catacombs?” asked Laila.

“Through the normal route on rue d’Enfers.”

“But they can just escape through the hidden Tezcat in the exhibit,” pointed out Hypnos.

From where she sat, Zofia drew out the silver cloth and dangled it before them.

“No, they can’t.”

“Is
that
supposed to impress me?” asked Hypnos, horrified.

“This cloth is impenetrable,” said Zofia.

“It’s true,” said Laila. “She stabbed the poor thing.”

“Fascinating
as that is, it’s still no bigger than a handkerchief,” pointed out Hypnos.

“I know,” said Zofia. “I can reproduce it.”

“A
hundred
handkerchiefs? I’m quaking.”

“You should,” said Zofia mildly.

“Zofia, if you can manipulate the size of the silver cloth, I wonder if you can play with one other thing.”

S
é
verin took out a mnemo bug from his pocket. It was small and lightweight and cold to the
touch. And yet in its Forged body, it could hold the image of a mind’s eye and project it into the air.

“
A mnemo bug?
” groaned Enrique. “What’s that going to do? Record the moments before our inevitable death? Because I don’t actually want a souvenir of that.”

“Just trust me.”

“Maybe I could stay behind,” said Hypnos. “I could be a point of contact on the street or—”

“What happened to being
excited about teamwork?” asked S
é
verin.

“That was before I realized how little regard you hold for mortality.”

“If you follow the plan, your mortality will stay intact.”

Hypnos looked highly suspicious. “What is this plan of yours,
mon cher
?”

Before S
é
verin could answer, Zofia struck a match against her tooth. “Crocodile teeth.”

The four of them turned to her. S
é
verin laughed. Zofia had guessed
exactly what they were going to do.

“Great minds think alike.”

Zofia frowned. “No, they don’t. Otherwise every idea would be uniform.”

BY NOW, S
É
VERIN’S
mouth burned, but he still reached for another clove. He wasn’t sure where he had first heard that the aro
matic herb helped preserve memory. A hotel guest, perhaps, leaving a present for him on the eve of his or her departure. Now, he couldn’t
stop the habit. Memories unsettled him. He hated the thought that he might have missed something, and he didn’t want time warping how he remembered things because he didn’t trust himself to remember without bias. And he needed to. Because only then, only with absolute impartiality, could he detect where he had gone wrong. As he made his way to the grand lobby of L’Eden, he combed through—for
the thousandth time—his last moments with Tristan. Tristan had been trying to warn him of something, and S
é
verin had turned him away. Was it then? Did Tristan step outside and get trapped by the Fallen House? Did he try to knock himself unconscious when they showed him the Phobus Helmet, the way he used to when they stayed in the home of Wrath? Roux-Joubert’s words found their way back to him
with perfect clarity and for a moment, S
é
verin wished the cloves he chewed didn’t work half as well: “His love and his fear and his own cracked mind made it easy to convince him that betraying you was saving you…”

Guilt curdled in his stomach. He should have listened.

S
é
verin stood at the base of the grand staircase that opened into the lobby, surveying L’Eden. Except Tristan wasn’t here, and
S
é
verin was alone. Then, from behind him, came a thin and reedy sound.

“Mama?”

S
é
verin’s spine stiffened.

He turned and saw a young boy clutching a ragged teddy bear. Children rarely stayed at L’Eden with their parents. He had expressly forbidden any “family-friendly” allure and had succeeded up until now. For a moment, S
é
verin was riveted by the sight of the child. Where he went, he rarely
saw young children. And he forgot that he had ever been so small, barely hip-height and utterly lost.

“Mama?” called the little voice again.

What had happened to the boy’s parents? Had they actually presumed to abandon him …
here
?

Fat tears slid down the child’s face, and S
é
verin fought down the urge to yell at him.

Why mourn those who didn’t want you?
he wanted to scream.
You’ll be fine without
them.

But then a woman rushed past him, gathering the boy in her arms and laughing. “Darling, did you not hear me say I was only going to check with the concierge for a moment?”

The boy shook his head, sobbing, and his mother held him close. Right then, his jealousy was a living thing, settling into his heart, pulsing through his veins. Of course, the boy hadn’t been abandoned. Of course, he
had only been temporarily misplaced.

“What is wrong with me?” he murmured, turning away from the sight of the boy and his mother.

Across the sea of guests, his factotum caught his eye and waved. S
é
verin waited at the end of the staircase, occasionally nodding his head in acknowledgment to various guests until his factotum appeared. In one hand, he carried a small box that he held at arm’s length.
Distaste rippled across his features.

“Sir, we can easily find someone else to perform this … task.”

S
é
verin took the box. Inside, a handful of brown crickets chirped and jumped. “I would prefer to see to it myself.”

“Very well, sir.”

Out the corner of his eye, he saw a sleek cheetah bound across the lobby. “And please inform the Marchessa de Castiglione that if Imhotep eats someone’s poodle
again, the hotel is not responsible.”

His factotum sighed. “Yes, sir. Anything else?”

S
é
verin closed his hands into a fist. “The guests with the child …
tell them their room is under construction. Find them comparable lodgings elsewhere. The Savoy perhaps.”

His factotum eyed him suspiciously. “Very well, sir.”

AT THE ENTRANCE
to Tristan’s workshop, S
é
verin pinched the gilded ivy leaf of the
Tezcat door only to stop short.

He wasn’t alone.

Silhouetted by candlelight and bent over a glass terrarium was Laila. She was singing a lullaby, though not particularly well, and dropping crickets into Goliath’s cage. Now he wished he’d let someone else come. He hated seeing her like this … going through routines, settling herself into a life she couldn’t wait to leave behind.

He took a step
toward the table. Around her gleamed the miniature worlds that Tristan crafted. Minuscule spires lording over a painted sky. Gardens where porcelain petals gathered dust. Amidst it, Laila looked like an icon. Her hair was pulled over one shoulder, and he imagined he could smell the sugar and rosewater sprayed at the hollow of her throat.

Not wanting to alarm Laila, S
é
verin set down the box of
crickets. But he ended up placing the box near the table’s edge where it nearly slid and toppled to the ground. S
é
verin rushed to grab it, only to stab his thumb on a concealed thorn.

“Majnun?”
said Laila, whirling to face him. “What are you doing here?”

S
é
verin winced and gestured at the box of crickets. “Same as you, it seems. Although you managed to do so without injury.”

“Here, let me,”
she said, walking toward him. “I know he keeps bandages around here somewhere.” Laila rummaged through one of the drawers until she found a length of gauze and a pair of scissors.
“For a moment I thought you might be the elusive bird killer on the grounds.”

S
é
verin shook his head. It was a pesky problem, but chances were, it was just a cat.

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” he said. He brought his
pulsing finger to his lips, intent on sucking the skin as he would any cut, but Laila batted away his hand.

“You could get an infection!” she scolded. “Now hold still.”

She reached for his hand. S
é
verin did as she commanded. He held still as if his life hung in the balance. Right then, it seemed as if there was too much of her. In the air. Against his skin. When she bent her head to tie the
gauze, her hair trailed over his fingertips. S
é
verin couldn’t help it. He flinched. Laila looked up. Her uncanny eyes, so dark and glossy they reminded him of a swan’s stare, bored into his. One corner of her mouth tipped up.

“What’s wrong? Do you think I’ll read you?”

His pulse scattered. She had told him before that she could only read objects. Not people.
Never
people. “You can’t do that.”

Laila raised one slender eyebrow. “Can’t I?”

“That’s not funny, Laila.”

Laila waited a beat, then two. Finally, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry,
Majnun
. You’re quite safe from me.”

She was wrong about that.

FOR THE NEXT
eighteen hours, none of them slept. Enrique spent so much time scouring books in the library that Laila had arranged for his bedding to be sent there. Hypnos was scarcely
seen without a drink in his hand—
the better to help me think!
—and spent all his time corresponding with his own spies, accomplices, and guards. Zofia, meanwhile, lived up to her nickname, for she spent half the day
submerged behind veils of smoke. And Laila … Laila kept them alive. Her hands were always working … pouring tea, offering food, rubbing tired scalps, grazing the edges of objects, while
her smile stayed as still and knowing as ever.

One day, then two, and now midnight was nearly upon them.

Far away from the glitter and glamour, midnight soaked the gritty streets. Beggars slept huddled in corners, and skinny cats slipped around stone corners. S
é
verin and Laila walked lightly, their shoulders hunched against any curious glares. S
é
verin had never had any interest in seeing the
catacombs. He knew that it was an underground ossuary holding the remains of
millions
. Cradled in its earth were the bodies of duchesses and aristocrats, plague victims, and those whose heads had been snapped off by a guillotine’s teeth. Countless, unnamed individuals who were now nothing more than ghastly halls and arches made from grinning skulls and cracked jaws.