The Gilded Wolves

by Roshani Chokshi

  “For?”

  “For putting Goliath on your dressing table.”

  “Where does Goliath belong? And for that matter, where do all your pet insects and whatnot belong?”

  Tristan looked wide-eyed. “Not in your room?”

  “Close enough.”

  He turned to the worktable beside him where a large, frosted glass terrarium took up half the space. He lifted the cover, revealing a single, deep-purple flower. The slender petals looked like snippets of evening sky, a rich velvetine purple hungry for the light of stars. Laila traced their edges softly. The petals were almost exactly the same shade of Séverin’s eyes. The thought made her draw back her hand.

  “Voilà! Behold your present, Forged with a little bit of silk taken from one of your costumes—”

  When he caught her frantic gaze, he added, “One of the ones you were going to throw away, promise!”

  Laila relaxed a bit.

  “So … am I forgiven?”

  He already knew he was. But she still decided to draw out the moment a little longer than necessary. She tapped her foot, biding her time and watching Tristan squirm. Then, “Fine.”

  Tristan let out a whoop of happiness, and Laila couldn’t help but smile. Tristan could get away with anything with those wide, gray eyes.

  “Oh! I came up with a new device. I wanted to show Séverin. Where is he?”

  When he caught sight of her face, Tristan’s grin fell. “They’re not back yet?”

  “Yet,” emphasized Laila. “Don’t worry. You know these things take time. Why don’t you come inside? I’ll make you something to eat.”

  Tristan shook his head. “Maybe later. I have to check on Goliath. I don’t think he’s feeling well.”

  Laila did not ask how Tristan would know the emotional states of a tarantula. Instead, she took her gift and headed back inside the hotel. As she walked, unease shaded her thoughts. At the top of the stairs, the grandfather clock struck the tenth hour. Laila felt the lost hour like an ache in her bones. They should have been back by now.

  Something was wrong.

  3

  ENRIQUE

  Enrique scowled as he held apart the bear’s jaws. “Remember when you said, ‘This will be fun’?”

  “Can this wait?” Séverin grunted through clenched teeth.

  “I suppose.”

  Enrique’s tone was light, but every part of Séverin’s body felt leaden. The onyx bear held Séverin’s wrist between its teeth. Every passing second, the pressure heightened. Blood began to run down his arm. Soon, the pressure of the creature’s jaws wouldn’t just trap his wrist.

  It would snap it in half.

  At least the emerald House Kore eagle hadn’t got involved. That particular stone creature could detect “suspicious” activity and come to life even when its own object was not in question. Enrique nearly muttered a prayer of thanks until he heard a soft caw. Air gusted over his face from the unmistakable flap of wings.

  Well, then.

  “Was that the eagle?” Séverin said, wincing.

  He couldn’t twist his body to turn.

  “No, not at all,” said Enrique.

  In front of him, the eagle tilted its head to one side. Enrique pulled more strongly on Séverin’s trapped wrist. Séverin groaned.

  “Forget it,” he wheezed. “I’m stuck. We need to put it to sleep.”

  Enrique agreed, but now the question was how. Because Forged creatures were too dangerous to go unchecked, all artisans were legally required to add a failsafe known as somno, which put the object to sleep. But even if he found it, the somno might be further encrypted. Worse, if he let go of the jaws, they’d only crush Séverin’s wrist faster. And if they didn’t get out by the eight-minute limit, the Forged creatures would be the least of their worries.

  Séverin grunted. “By all means, take your time. I love a good slow, painful death.”

  Enrique let go. Steadying himself, he circled the onyx bear, ignoring the ever-closer jumping of the emerald eagle. He ran his hands along the bear’s body, the black haunches and shaggy feet. Nothing.

  “Enrique,” breathed Séverin.

  Séverin fell to his knees. Rivulets of blood streamed, dripping down the creature’s jaws. Enrique swore under his breath. He closed his eyes. Sight wouldn’t help him here. With so little light in the room, he would have to feel for any words. He trailed his fingers across the bear’s haunches and belly until he caught something near its ankles: chipped-away depressions in the stone; evenly spaced and close together as if it were a line of writing. The letters and words came to life beneath his touch.

  Fiduciam in domum

  “Trust in the House,” translated Enrique. He whispered it again, running scenarios through his head. “I … I have an idea.”

  “Do enlighten me,” managed Séverin.

  The bear lifted one of its heavy, jet paws, casting a shadow over Séverin’s face.

  “You have to … to trust it!” cried Enrique. “Don’t fight it! Push your wrist farther!”

  Séverin didn’t hesitate. He stood and pushed. But his hand remained stuck. Séverin growled. He threw himself against the creature. His shoulder popped wetly. Every second felt like a blade pressed tight against Enrique’s skin. Just then, the eagle took off in the air. It circled the room, then swooped, talons out. Enrique ducked as the jewel claws grazed his neck. He wouldn’t be so lucky the next time. Once more, claws rasped at his neck. The eagle’s talons tugged him upward, his heels lifted off the ground. Enrique shut his eyes tight.

  “Mind the hair—” he started.

  Abruptly, he was dropped to the ground. He opened his eyes a crack. A bare ceiling met his gaze. Behind him, he heard the shuffling of talons on a podium. He raised himself up on his elbows.

  The eagle had gone statue still.

  Séverin heaved and rose to a stand. He clutched his wrist. Then, yanking his arm, he swung it forward. Enrique grimaced at the wet snick of joints popping back into place. Séverin wiped the blood on his pants and plucked out the Forged compass from the mouth of the still, onyx bear. He slid it into his jacket and smoothed back his hair.

  “Well,” he said finally. “At least it wasn’t like Nisyros Island.”

  “Are you serious?” croaked Enrique. He trudged after his friend to the door. “It’ll be ‘like dreaming,’ you said. As ‘easy as sleep’!”

  “Nightmares are part of sleeping.”

  “Is that a joke?” demanded Enrique. “You do realize your hand is mangled.”

  “I am aware.”

  “You almost got eaten by a bear.”

  “Not a real one.”

  “The dismemberment would’ve been real enough.”

  Séverin only grinned. “See you in a bit,” he said, and slipped out the door.

  Enrique lingered to give Séverin a head start.

  In the dark, he felt the presence of the Order’s treasure like the eyes of the dead. Hate shivered through him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the looming, salvaged piles. He might help Séverin steal, but the greatest thief of all was the Order of Babel, for they stole more than just objects … They stole histories, swallowed cultures whole, smuggled evidence of illustrious antiquity onto large ships and spirited them into indifferent lands.

  “Indifferent lands,” mused Enrique. “That’s a good line for later.”

  He could use it in the next article he submitted to the Spanish newspaper dedicated to Filipino nationalism. So far he didn’t have the connections that made anyone think his thoughts were worth listening to. This acquisition could change that.

  But first he had to finish the job.

  Enrique counted down the thirty seconds. Then, he straightened the borrowed servant’s outfit, adjusted his mask, and stepped into the darkened hall. Between the gaps of the marble pillars, he could make out the flutter of fans stabbing the air.

  Right on time for his meeting, the Vietnamese diplomat Vũ Văn Đinh rounded the corner. A falsif
ied letter poked out of his sleeve. Though he had hated doing it, Tristan was exceptionally good at faking people’s handwriting. That of the diplomat’s mistress was no exception.

  Last week, Enrique and the diplomat had shared a drink at L’Eden. While the diplomat was distracted, Laila had fished out the mistress’s letter from Đinh’s jacket, and Tristan had copied her penmanship to orchestrate this very meeting.

  Enrique eyed Đinh’s clothes. Like so many diplomats from colonized countries, he had outwardly allied with the Order. Once, there had been versions of the Order all over the world, each dedicated to their country’s source of Forging power—although not all of them called the artistry Forging and not all of them credited its power to the Babel Fragments. But those versions no longer existed. Now, their treasures had been taken to different lands; their artistry changed; and their ancient guilds given two choices: ally or die.

  Enrique straightened his false suit and bowed. “May I assist you with anything, sir?”

  He extended his hand. Fresh panic reared inside him. Surely Đinh would look. Surely he would know it was him. The very tips of his fingers brushed Đinh’s sleeves.

  “Indeed you may not,” said Đinh coldly, drawing away his arm.

  Not once did he look him in the eye.

  “Very well, sir.”

  He bowed. With Đinh still waiting on a meeting that would never take place, Enrique walked to the back of the ballroom. He dragged his fingers down his face and neck. A slight prickling sensation rolled down the skin he’d touched, and a thin film of color floated above his skin and clothes, swirling to match the appearance and apparel of Ambassador Vũ Văn Đinh.

  Thanks to the mirror powder dusting his fingertips, he now looked identical to the ambassador.

  Long ago, mirror powder had been banned and confiscated, and so the Order had not bothered to ward their meetings against it. They hadn’t counted on Séverin being friendly with the officer of customs and immigrations.

  Enrique moved quickly through the crowd. The mirror powder might be effective, but long-lasting it was not.

  Enrique jogged down the main staircase. At the base was a Tezcat door that seemed to date back to a time when the Fallen House had not yet been ousted from the French faction of the Order of Babel, for its borders held the symbols of the original four Houses of France. A crescent moon for House Nyx. Thorns for House Kore. A snake biting its own tail for House Vanth. A six-pointed star for the Fallen House. Of them, only Nyx and Kore still existed. Vanth’s bloodline had legally been declared dead. And the Fallen House had … fallen. Supposedly, its leaders found the West’s Babel Fragment and tried to use it to rebuild the biblical Tower of Babel, thinking it might give them more than just a sliver of God’s power … but the actual power of God. Had they succeeded in removing the West’s Babel Fragment, they might have destroyed the known civilization. Séverin always said that was a rubbish rumor and believed the Order had destroyed the Fallen House as a power grab. Enrique wasn’t so sure. Of the four Houses, the Fallen House was said to be the most advanced. Even the Tezcat doors Forged by the Fallen House did more than just camouflage an entrance. Rumor went that they were capable of bridging actual distances. Like a portal. But whatever the House had once possessed, no one knew. For years, the Order had tried to discover what had become of the Fallen House’s ring and massive treasure, but none had been able to find it.

  Today, thought Enrique, that might change.

  Through the Tezcat, Enrique could see glittering corridors, a handsomely dressed crowd, and the glint of far-off chandeliers. It always unnerved him that though he could see the people on the other side, all they would see was a slim, polished mirror. He felt strangely like a god in exile, filled with a kind of hollow omniscience. As much as he could see the world, it would not see him.

  Enrique stepped through the Tezcat and emerged in one of the opulent halls of the Palais Garnier, the most famous opera house in all of Europe.

  One man looked up, stunned. He stared at the mirror, then Enrique, before scrutinizing his champagne flute.

  Around Enrique, the crowd milled about obliviously. They had no idea about the Forged ballroom the Order kept secret. Then again, everything about the Order was kept secret. Even their invitations only opened at the drop of an approved guest’s blood. Anyone else who accidentally received one would see nothing but blank paper.

  To the public, the Order of Babel was nothing more than France’s research arm tasked with historical preservation. They knew nothing of the auctions, the treasures buried deep beneath the ground. Half the public didn’t even believe the Babel Fragment was a physical object, but rather a dressed-up biblical metaphor.

  Enrique strode through the crowd, tugging his lapel as he walked. His servant costume shifted, the threads unraveling and embroidering simultaneously until he was dressed in a fashionable evening jacket. He flicked his watch, and the slim band of Forged leather burst into a silk top hat that he promptly spun onto his head.

  Right before he stepped outside, Enrique hesitated before the verit stone bust. The verit bust wasn’t a decorative piece, but a detection device used to reveal hidden weapons. One ounce of verit rivaled a kilo of diamonds, and only palaces or banks could afford the stone. Enrique double-checked that he’d left his knife behind, and then stepped over the threshold.

  Outside, Paris was a touch humid for April. Night had sweated off its stars, and across the street, a black hansom glinted dully. Enrique got inside, and Séverin flashed him a wry grin.

  The second Séverin rapped his knuckles against the hansom’s ceiling, the horses lurched into the night. Reaching into his coat pocket, Séverin pulled out his ever-present tin of cloves. Enrique wrinkled his nose. On its own, the clove smell was pleasant. A bit woodsy and spicy. But over the past two years he’d been working for Séverin, cloves had stopped being a scent and become more of a signal. It was the fragrance of Séverin’s decision-making, and it could be delightful or dangerous. Or both.

  “Voilà,” said Séverin, handing him the compass.

  Enrique ran his fingers over the cold metal, gently tracing the divots in the silver. Ancient Chinese compasses did not look like Western ones. They were magnetized bowls, with a depression in the center where a spoon-shaped dial would have spun back and forth. A thrill of wonder zipped through his veins. It was thousands of years old and here he was, holding it—

  “No need to seduce the thing,” cut in Séverin.

  “I’m appreciating it.”

  “You’re fondling it.”

  Enrique rolled his eyes. “It’s an authentic piece of history and should be savored.”

  “You might at least buy it dinner first,” said Séverin, before pointing at the metal edges. “So? Is it like what we thought it’d be?”

  Enrique weighed the half of the compass in his hand, studying the contours. As he felt the ridges, he noticed a slight deformity in the metal. He tapped on the surface and then looked up.

  “It’s hollow,” he said, breathless.

  He didn’t know why he even felt surprised. He knew the compass would be hollow, and yet the possibilities of the map reared up fast and sharp in his head. Enrique didn’t know what, specifically, the map led to … only that it was rare enough to send the Order of Babel into a furtive clamoring. His bet, though, was that it was a map to the lost treasures of the Fallen House.

  “Break it,” said Séverin.

  “What?” Enrique clutched the object to his chest. “The compass is thousands of years old! There’s another way to pry it, gently, apart—”

  Séverin lunged. Enrique tried to snatch it away, but he wasn’t as fast. In one swift motion, Séverin grabbed both sides of the compass. Enrique heard it before he saw it. A brief, merciless—

  Snap.

  Something dropped from the compass, thudding on the hansom’s floor. Séverin got to it first, and the minute he held it up to the light, Enrique felt as if a cold hand had pushed down on his lungs and squeez
ed the breath out of him. The object hidden within the compass certainly looked like a map. All that was left was one question: Where did it lead?

  4

  ZOFIA

  Zofia liked Paris best in the evening.

  During the day, Paris was too much. It was all noise and smell, crammed with stained streets and threaded with hectic crowds. Dusk tamed the city. Made it manageable.

  As she walked back to L’Eden, Zofia clutched her sister’s newest letter tight to her chest. Hela would find Paris beautiful. She would like the linden trees of rue Bonaparte. There were fourteen of them. She would find the horse chestnuts comely. There were nine. She would not like the smells. There were too many to count.

  Right now, Paris did not seem beautiful. Horse shit marred the cobbled roads. People urinated on the street lanterns. And yet, there was something about the city that spoke vibrantly of life. Nothing felt still. Even the stone gargoyles leaned off the edges of buildings as if they were on the verge of flight. And nothing looked lonely. Terraces had the company of wicker chairs, and bright purple bougainvillea hugged stone walls. Not even the Seine River, which cut through Paris like a trail of ink, looked abandoned. By day, boats zipped across it. By night, lamplight danced upon the surface.

  Zofia peeked at Hela’s newest letter, sneaking lines beneath every shining lantern. She read one sentence, then found that she could not stop. Every word brought back the sound of Hela’s voice.

  Zosia, please tell me you are going to the Exposition Universelle! If you do not, I will know. Trust me, dear sister, the laboratory can spare you for a day. Learn something outside the classroom for once. Besides, I heard the world fair will have a cursed diamond, and princes from exotic lands! Perhaps you might bring one home, then I will not have to play governess to our stingy stryk. How he can be father’s brother is a mystery for only God to ponder. Please go. You are sending back so much money lately that I worry you are not keeping enough for yourself. Are you hale and happy? Write to me soon, little light.