The Gilded Wolves (13 page)

“That hardly looks helpful.”

Zofia frowned. “Separate the numbers. The first line is seventy-
three. Seven plus three is ten. Move to the next line. Five and five is ten. Each of them becomes ten when treated as a separate integer. Or, perhaps it is not ten. Perhaps it is just one and zero. See?”

“It’s like the I Ching,” said Enrique, impressed. “The movement of zero to
one is the power of divinity.
Ex nihilo
and all that. That would fit if there’s a piece of verit inside this square because the stone was believed to examine the soul, the way a deity might. But that doesn’t give us a hint to how to open the box itself. Plus, do the letters look like they’re …
sliding
?”

Zofia held up the metal square, tilting it back and forth. She pressed the letter
S
and moved
her finger. It dragged a couple spaces to the right.

For the next hour, Enrique and Zofia copied out the letters on at least twenty different sheets of paper before cutting them up, and trying to arrange them as they went. Every now and then, his gaze darted to her face. As she worked, Zofia’s brows were pressed down, her mouth slanted in a grimace. In the past year or so that she’d worked for
S
é
verin, Enrique had never spent much time with Zofia. She was always too quiet or too cutting. She rarely laughed and scowled more than she smiled. Watching her now, Enrique was beginning to think she wasn’t really
scowling
 … maybe this was just the face she made when thinking … as if everything was an exercise in computation. And here, with the numbers and the riddle before them, it was like
watching her come alive.

“Language of the divine, language of the divine,” muttered Enrique over and over to himself. “But how does it
want
to be arranged? I see
A
and
O
which could theoretically be said to represent the
alpha
and
omega
power of God. Those are, coincidentally, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, said to suggest that God is first and last.”

“Then take out the two
A
s and two
O
s,” said Zofia. “Wouldn’t it make sense if it stood apart?”

Enrique did as she suggested. Maybe it was the light in the room or the fact that his eyes were strangely unfocused in exhaustion, but he thought of home as he muttered a quick prayer. He thought of kneeling with his mother, father, Lola, and brothers in the church pews, heads bowed as the priest recited the Lord’s Prayer
in Latin:
Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum
 …

“Pater Noster,” breathed Enrique, his eyes flying open. “That’s it. ‘Our Father’ in Latin.”

His eyes skipped over the arrangement of letters, hands moving furiously as he moved the bits of paper into a cross:

“Zofia,” he said. “I think I know how to use it.”

He took the metal disc from her, then dragged the letters into the
PATER NOSTER
formation, with the
A
s and
O
s placed outside of the cross. The square split down the middle, and a ghostly light shimmered before them. Zofia reeled back as the top half of the brass square slid away, revealing four gravel-sized pieces of verit stone that could ransom
a kingdom.

S
é
verin was ten years old when he was brought to his third father, Envy. Envy took them in after Wrath accidentally drank tea steeped with wolfsbane. It was not a peaceful death. S
é
verin knew, for he had watched.

Envy had a wife named Clotilde, and two children whose names S
é
verin no longer remembered. On the first day with Envy, S
é
verin fell in love. He loved the charming whitewashed
house and the charming children who were the same age as Tristan and him. When the men in suits and hats had dropped them before the house, Clotilde had told them, charmingly, of course, “Call me Mama.” When she said that, his throat burned. He wanted to say that word so badly his teeth hurt.

Clotilde allowed them almost one perfect week. Milky tea and biscuits in the morning. Warm hugs in the
afternoon. Pheasant shimmering in golden fat for dinner. Cocoa just before bed. Two feather-down beds down the hall from the other two children.

And then, before the week ended, S
é
verin had heard Clotilde and Envy fighting behind closed doors. S
é
verin had been on his way to her tearoom. In his hand were flowers that he and Tristan had spent all morning picking.

“I thought they were heirs!” Clotilde
yelled. “You said this was our chance to earn back a place!”

“Not anymore,” said Envy, his voice heavy. “One has an immense fortune, though he won’t see a penny of it until he comes of age.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do? Feed and clothe them on that measly allowance from the Order? This week’s meal cost a king’s ransom! We can’t go on this way!”

Finally, Envy sighed. “No. No, we cannot.”

That was the end of milky tea and biscuits, of warm hugs in the afternoon, of shining pheasant, of cocoa in bed. That was the end of “Mama,” for now she preferred to be known as Madame Canot. S
é
verin and Tristan were relocated to the guesthouse. The other two children no longer sought them out. The only blessing was that Tristan and S
é
verin were given a tutor from the university. And as it was
all he was given, S
é
verin abandoned himself to it.

After Madame Canot moved them to the guesthouse, Tristan cried for weeks. S
é
verin did not. He did not cry when Christmas dinner was only for Envy and his wife and children. He did not cry when Envy’s daughters received a silk-eared puppy for a present, while Tristan and S
é
verin received a scolding for keeping their narrow, chilly rooms unkempt.
He did not cry at all.

But he watched.

He watched them fiercely.

S
É
VERIN STARED AT
the bone clock.

He’d moved it from its original place on his bookshelf to his desk to help him concentrate. Behind him, late afternoon sun poured through the tall, bay windows of L’Eden.

It had been two weeks since they’d uncovered a few precious pieces of verit stone and the Horus Eye location from the catalogue
coin. In three days, they would leave for House Kore’s Spring Festival celebration at Ch
â
teau de la Lune, House Kore’s country estate.
On those sprawling grounds hid the Horus Eye, the rare artifact that could see the Babel Fragment.

The acquisition that would change everything.

And yet one fact kept pressing at the back of his skull … Enrique and Zofia had reported that a man had been waiting
for them in the dark of the exhibit. That fact haunted all of them. Tristan, especially. Not that this particularly worried S
é
verin. Tristan was always the most terrified out of them, always concerned they were on the brink of death, always looking for a way out of it. Only this time, S
é
verin hadn’t indulged him.

Last night, they’d been laying traps in the garden, trying to catch whatever creature
had been killing off all the birds.

“You’re sure it’s not Goliath?” S
é
verin had asked.

“Goliath would never do that!” said Tristan, blushing. “But forget the bird killer. What about the man that almost killed Enrique and Zofia? S
é
verin, this acquisition isn’t
safe
.”

“When was it ever going to be safe?”

“But no one was after us before. They could hurt us.
Really
hurt us.”

Tristan scowled.
“I bet it’s Hypnos. I bet he’s leading us into a trap. How else would someone know we’re after the Horus Eye?”

“He swore an oath of no harm. He can’t break it.”

“But what about someone working with him?”

“Our intelligence cleared all of his guards.”

“But obviously there’s someone—”

“—likely from House Kore,” said S
é
verin. “They’ve had teams dedicated to finding their matriarch’s missing Babel
Ring, and they might have mistaken Zofia and Enrique for the thieves.”

“You’re too excited to see what’s right in front of you! This is different! And you’re not listening to me!” shouted Tristan. “Honestly, it’s all about your ego. What’s the point of this—”

“
Enough
.”

Tristan had flinched. Only when S
é
verin looked down did he realize he’d slammed his hand against the desk. But he couldn’t
help it.

“What’s the
point
?” S
é
verin had repeated. “The point is getting back what was taken, but you don’t get that, do you? You were always used to Wrath, but I wasn’t. I used to have a family, Tristan. A fucking future. What do I have now?”

Tristan opened his mouth, but S
é
verin spoke first. “I have you, of course,” he’d said.

Tristan eyed him warily. Tense. “But?”

S
é
verin turned his palm
skyward, eyeing his silver scar. “But I used to have more.”

Tristan had stormed out. When S
é
verin had gone to talk to him, he’d found the Tezcat door locked. No matter how many times he knocked and twisted the gilded ivy leaf … he couldn’t get through.

Apparently, Tristan wasn’t the only one angry with him. Laila was acting unusually distant, and no matter how many times he ran through their
interactions, he wasn’t sure what he’d done.

A knock at his door jolted him from his thoughts. He straightened in his chair. “Come in.”

At first, all S
é
verin’s mind registered was raven hair. Something caught in his chest. A hundred memories just like this. Laila entering his study unannounced every single week, sugar sparkling in her hair. In her hand, a new dessert she simply couldn’t
wait
for someone to try.

“Um, hello?”

Enrique stood inside his office, carrying a piece of paper and looking very bewildered.

S
é
verin shook himself. He needed more sleep. He glanced at Enrique, noting the dark circles beneath his eyes, his usually impeccable black hair twisted into horns. Sleeplessness frayed at all of them.

“What’ve you got there?”

“Well, considering the way you were looking
at me, I feel like I should be holding the secret to world domination. Sadly, I am not.” Then Enrique grinned widely. “Out of curiosity …
who
did you think I was?”

S
é
verin rolled his eyes. “No one.”

“Didn’t look like no one to me.”

“Enrique. What’ve you got for me?”

Enrique collapsed into the chair across from him and slid a piece of paper scrawled in sloppy notes across his desk. “You asked
for a report on honeybee imagery, but there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here for me to tell you. Same as I told you before. They appear across a cultural spectrum of mythology, most often as portents of prophecy given the ancients’ understanding of their honey, or as psychopomps, creatures capable of spiriting the dead from one world to the next. In terms of how it relates to France,
all I could find is that Napoleon Bonaparte used them as part of his emblem, perhaps trying to make himself seem more aligned with the ancient Franco kings, the Merovingians.”

S
é
verin reached for his tin of cloves. “That’s all?”

“That’s all,” said Enrique. “And it’s not like we can go back and take a look at the area of the Exposition where we were attacked either. It’s crawling with police
officers. And while I’m not saying we don’t have someone on our tail, I am saying the man’s necklace and pendant was just a honeybee ornament. Maybe he had someone in his family who once worked for Bonaparte.”

“Maybe.”

Enrique eyed him. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

S
é
verin waved his hand. “No, no. Thank you for this. Just keep digging up what you can find.”

Enrique nodded, then
pushed back his chair. As he stood, his gaze
fell to an object on S
é
verin’s desk. The bone clock that had allegedly belonged to the Fallen House.

“Is that new?” asked Enrique.

“Old.”

“The markings on it are … distinct. Though why someone would choose to twist perfectly good gold into the shape of human bones is rather macabre. And is that a pattern of a six-pointed star? It almost looks as
if—”

“It is.”

Enrique’s eyes widened. “It’s a relic of the Fallen House? Why do you have it?”

“It serves as a reminder.”

Enrique shifted on his feet. “You don’t … I mean … You’re not planning to—”

“The last thing I want is to emulate the Fallen House,” said S
é
verin. “I’m only looking for the Horus Eye. I have no intention of trying to unite every Babel Fragment and build my way to the heavens
or whatever it was the Fallen House intended to do with them.”

“I wonder why they did it,” said Enrique quietly, fixated on the bone clock.

“I believe they thought it was their sacred duty. Though, how they went about doing so led to some nasty murders, or so I’m told. Who knows. Who cares. The Fallen House fell. This bone clock is a reminder of that.”

“You have such cheerful taste, S
é
verin.”

“I try.”

Enrique stared at the clock longingly. He always got that look whenever there was an object he desperately wanted to analyze. S
é
verin sighed.

“
After
this acquisition, you may inspect it—”

“Mine! Huzzah! I win!” Enrique gave a little wriggle of joy,
straightened his jacket, and then collected himself. “Meet you upstairs?”

“Yes. Get everyone ready. I want to run through the layout of
Ch
â
teau de la Lune. Hypnos will be here too, with the invitations and new identities.”

Spots of color touched the top of Enrique’s cheeks.

“He’s been coming around a lot, hasn’t he?” Then, as if to explain it himself, he added, “I mean, I guess he
has
to.”

The patriarch of House Nyx had been over quite a lot, though always undercover. The Order wouldn’t take kindly to them socializing even
though the second he came of age, they’d deemed S
é
verin forever beneath their notice. It made S
é
verin suspicious. As much as he wished that everyone found Hypnos’s company repulsive … they didn’t. Well, most didn’t. Tristan refused to speak to him. Someone had even played a prank on him by hiding his shoes, though no one confessed to it. Hypnos hadn’t been mad at all. Instead, he’d clapped excitedly.
Ah! A prank! Is this what friends do?

It was not.

Though Hypnos refused to be swayed.

“I think L’Eden’s cuisine is the most deciding factor.”

Enrique laughed. “Probably.”

S
é
verin chewed on a clove. When Enrique left, he opened a concealed drawer in his study and took out the file he’d had stolen from the coroner’s office.

Enrique had guessed right. There was something he hadn’t told them:
The House Kore courier was dead.

He had been found in a brothel with his throat cut, and all his personal effects removed, save for the catalogue coin. It had either been left on his person by accident or intention. S
é
verin remembered when he and Tristan had interrogated the man. How when he removed his catalogue coin, it was not on his body as they had
imagined, but inside his mouth, hiding
under his tongue like a golden drachma placed as payment to the ferrier of the dead. But when the coroner had looked in the man’s mouth, he found something else hiding behind his teeth:

A golden honeybee.

EVERYONE WAS ALREADY
waiting in the stargazing room.

Tristan paced back and forth, spinning a daisy with golden petals in one hand. It was, S
é
verin remembered, a prototype for the hotel’s
summer installation: the Midas Touch. Zofia sat with her legs crossed beneath her, a matchstick dangling from her lip, her black smock striped with ash. Enrique hunched over a book that he handled with kid gloves. Laila reclined on her chaise. Her hair was elegantly coiffed, and she wore a dove-gray gown with pearl beading at the neck. In her hand, she lazily twirled what looked like a piece of black
string. S
é
verin looked at it closely. Not a string at all … a shoelace. Not that he’d paid remarkable attention to Hypnos’s choice of footwear, but he was fairly certain those belonged to him. Laila met S
é
verin’s gaze and flashed a conspiratorial grin. She was reading Hypnos’s objects. S
é
verin smiled back.

“Where’s Hypnos?” he asked, looking around the room.

“Who knows.” Tristan scowled. “Do
we have to wait for him?”

“Given that he has our identifications and invitations—yes. It’s the last piece left to plan.”

At his name, the door swung open. In walked Hypnos wearing a dark green suit and shoes studded with emeralds.