The Gilded Wolves

by Roshani Chokshi

  Enrique went still. “See.” His eyes widened. “Zero and one … and seeing. Zofia, you’re a genius.”

  She raised her shoulder. “I know.”

  Enrique reached for the Bible he’d left on the coffee table and started flipping through the pages.

  “I was reading this earlier for a translation I’m working on, but Zofia’s mathematical connection is perfect,” he said. He stopped flipping. “Ah. Here we are. Genesis 11:4-9, also known as the Tower of Babel passage. We all know it. It’s an etiological tale not just meant to explain why people speak different languages, but also to explain the presence of Forging in our world. The basic story is that people tried to build a tower to heaven, God didn’t want that, so He made new languages, and the confusion of tongues prevented the building’s completion. But He didn’t just strike down the building,” he said, before reading aloud: “‘… and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, but the Lord delighted in His creation’s ingenuity and deposited upon the land the bricks of the tower. Each brick bore his touch, and thus left an impression of the power of God to create something from nothing.’”

  Something from nothing.

  She’d heard that phrase before …

  “Ex nihilo,” said Séverin, smiling widely. “Latin for ‘out of nothing.’ What’s the mathematical representation of nothing?”

  “Zero,” said Zofia.

  “Thus, the movement of zero to one is the power of God, because out of nothing, something is created. The Babel Fragments are considered slivers of God’s powers. They bring things to life, excluding, of course, the power to bring back the dead and create actual life,” said Enrique.

  Across from her, Zofia noticed that Laila’s smile fell.

  Enrique leaned out of his chair, his eyes uncannily bright.

  “If that’s what the diagram is really about, then what does that mean about the Horus Eye?”

  Laila let out a long breath. “You said looking through the Horus Eye revealed something … whatever it could see had to be dangerous enough that the instrument couldn’t be kept in existence. What would be dangerous enough to threaten an entire empire? Something that has to do with the power of God? Because only one thing comes to my mind.”

  Séverin sank into his chair. Zofia felt a numb buzzing at the edge of her thoughts. She felt as if she’d leaned over a vast precipice. As if the next words would change her life.

  “In other words,” said Séverin slowly, “you think this might be telling us that looking through a Horus Eye reveals a Babel Fragment.”

  5

  SÉVERIN

  Séverin stared at the luminous dark of the Eye of Horus. In that second, the air smelled metallic. He could almost see it. Gray rippling the sky as if it were hectic with fever. Fanged teeth of light flashing in the clouds—a taunt to snap. This realization felt like watching a storm. He couldn’t stop what would come next.

  And he didn’t want to.

  When he first heard about the compass, he imagined it would lead them to the lost treasure of the Fallen House, the only cache of treasure that the Order would do anything to possess. But this … this was like reaching for a match only to come out holding a torch. The Order had covered up their hunt for Horus Eyes, and now he knew why. If someone found the West’s Fragment, they could disrupt all Forging not just in France, but Europe, for without a Fragment to power the art of Forging, civilizations died. And while the Order might know the Horus Eye’s secret, the rest of the world didn’t. Including many colonial guilds that had been forced into hiding by the Order. Guilds whose knowledge of the Babel Fragments’ inner workings rivaled the Order’s. Séverin could only imagine what they’d do to get their hands on this information, and what the Order would do to keep it from them.

  “We’re not…” Enrique couldn’t finish his sentence. “Right?”

  “You can’t be serious,” said Laila. She was pinching the tips of her fingers repeatedly, a nervous habit of hers. When she was unhappily distracted, she couldn’t touch an object without accidentally reading it and the whole world became dangerously visible to her. When she was blissfully distracted, though, the rest of the world disappeared. Something he couldn’t quite forget. “This could kill us.”

  Séverin didn’t meet Laila’s gaze, but he could feel her dark eyes pinning him. He looked only to Tristan, his brother in everything but blood. In the dark, he seemed younger than his sixteen years. Memory bit into Séverin. The two of them crouched behind a rosebush, thorns ripping at the soft skin of their necks, their hands clutching each other’s while the father they called Wrath screamed their names. Séverin opened and closed his hand. A long, silver scar ran down his right palm and caught the light. Tristan had a matching one.

  “Are you?” asked Tristan softly. “Serious?”

  All this time, they’d been after an artifact that would be a bargaining chip to the Order. An artifact that would force the Order to restore his lost inheritance. Instead, he had information that was either a dream or a death sentence … depending on how he played this game. Séverin reached for his tin of cloves.

  “I don’t know enough to be serious,” he said carefully. “But I’d like to know enough to have options.”

  Tristan swore under his breath. The others looked shocked, even Zofia blankly stared into her lap.

  “This information is dangerous,” said Tristan. “We’d be better off if you just threw the compass at House Nyx’s door.”

  “Dangerous, yes, but the most rewarding things are,” said Séverin. “I’m not saying we approach the Order tomorrow and tell them we’ve got hold of one of their secrets. I have no intention to rush anything.”

  Enrique snorted. “Slow and painful death is far better than getting it over with quickly, sure.”

  Séverin rose to his feet. For a decision like this, he didn’t want to be eye level. He wanted them to look up. They did.

  “Think about what this could mean for us. It could bring us everything we wanted.”

  Enrique dragged his palm down his face. “You know how moths look at a fire and think, ‘Oooh! shiny!’ and then die in a burst of flames and regret?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Right. Just checking to be sure.”

  “What about Hypnos?” asked Laila.

  “What about him?”

  “You don’t think he’ll notice what went missing? He has quite the reputation for … zealousness when it comes to his possessions. And what if he knows what the compass really contained?”

  “I doubt it,” said Séverin.

  “You don’t think he could figure it out?” asked Laila.

  “He can’t. He doesn’t have you.” When Laila’s eyes widened, he caught himself and gestured to the whole group: “All of you.”

  “Awww…” said Enrique. “What a sweet sentiment. I shall take it to my grave. Literally.”

  “Besides, Zofia and Enrique made a perfect fake artifact. There’s no way Hypnos can trace it back to us.”

  Enrique sighed. “God, I’m brilliant.”

  Zofia crossed her arms. “I am too.”

  “Of course you are,” soothed Laila. “You’re both brilliant.”

  “Yes, but I’m more—” huffed Enrique.

  Séverin interrupted them with two sharp claps. “Now that we have the piece, let’s examine it thoroughly. We make no plans beyond that. We make no speculation about what comes next. We don’t do anything until it’s clear what we’re working with. Understood?”

  The four of them nodded. Just like that, the meeting was concluded. They rose slowly. Enrique was the first to head to the door.

  He paused in front of Séverin. “Remember…”

  And then Enrique hooked his thumbs together and made a strange waving motion with his hands.

  “You’re a bird?”

  “A moth!” said Enrique. “A moth approaching a flame!”

  “That�
�s a very alarming moth.”

  “It’s a metaphor.”

  “It’s an alarming metaphor too.”

  Enrique rolled his eyes. Behind him, Zofia smuggled more cookies on her plate before brushing past him.

  “How are the Sphinx masks coming along?”

  Zofia did not break her gait or even turn as she said, “Why?”

  “Might need them sooner than later,” Enrique called after her.

  “Mmf.”

  When Séverin turned back to the room, he went still. Though the room was nearly dark, whatever light clung to its corners now raced to illuminate Laila. It seemed the world couldn’t help but want to be near her … every beam of light, pair of eyes, atom of air. Maybe that’s why sometimes he couldn’t breathe around her.

  Or maybe it was memory that choked him in those seconds. Memories of one night they’d both sworn to put behind them. Laila had. It was fate that, of course, he couldn’t.

  Laila practically stormed toward him. Usually, she had a habit of being relentlessly radiant. She hated seeing someone hold an empty plate and always thought everyone was hungry. She knew everyone’s secrets even without having to read their objects. At the Palais des Rêves, she turned that radiance into an allure that earned her star billing and the name, L’Énigme. The Mystery. But this evening, she spared him no smile. Her dark eyes looked like chips of stone.

  Uh-oh.

  “No tea and sympathy for me?” he asked. He lifted his hand. “I am wounded, you know.”

  “How thoughtful of you to delay the hour of your death so that I might witness it firsthand,” she said coldly. But the longer she looked at his wrist, the more her shoulders softened. “You could’ve been hurt.”

  “It’s the price one pays for chasing wants,” he said lightly. “The problem is, I have too many of them.”

  Laila shook her head. “You only want one thing.”

  “Is that so?”

  He meant it teasingly. But Laila’s posture changed almost immediately. More languid, somehow.

  She moved closer, sliding her hand down the front of his jacket. “I will tell you what you want.”

  Séverin held still. This close, he could count her eyelashes, the starlight gilding her face. He remembered the soft flutter of her eyelashes against his cheek when she’d brought him down to her long ago. The heat of her skin seeped through the linen of his shirt. What game was she playing? Laila’s fingers slipped into the inner breast pocket of his jacket. She pulled out his silver tin, popped the latch, and withdrew a clove. Eyes still locked on his, she dragged her thumb across his lower lip. The motion felt like the afterburn of sunshine on his retina. Two images lazily superimposed: Laila touching his mouth then, Laila touching his mouth now. It jarred him so much, he didn’t remember parting his lips. But he must have because a moment later, a sharp clove hit his tongue. Laila drew back. Cold rushed in to fill the space. All in all, it took no more than a few seconds. The whole time her composure had stayed the same. Detached and sensual, like the performer she was. The performer she had always been. He could see her staging an identical routine at the Palais des Rêves—reaching into a patron’s jacket for his cigarette case, placing it on the man’s lips, and lighting it before she took it for herself.

  “That’s what you want,” she said darkly. “You want an excuse to go hunting. But you have mistaken the predator for prey.”

  With that, her skirts swirled around her heels as she left. Séverin bit down on the clove and watched her leave. She was right. He was hunting. And so was she. Neither of them could afford to lose sight of their prize, so one night in each other’s arms stayed as one mistake, and the memory of it was shoved into the dark. He waited a moment before turning back to Tristan.

  He knew what argument he’d have with his brother. He had prepared for it, and yet it still wrenched something from him to see the shine in Tristan’s eyes.

  “Just tell me,” he said wearily.

  Tristan looked away from him. “I wish this were enough for you.”

  Séverin closed his eyes. It wasn’t about enough. Tristan would never understand. He had never felt the pulse of an entirely different future, only to see it ripped from his grasp and smothered in front of him. He didn’t understand that sometimes the only way to take down what had destroyed you was to disguise yourself as part of it.

  “It’s not about enough,” said Séverin. “It’s about balancing the scales. Fairness.”

  Tristan didn’t look at him. “You promised you would protect us.”

  Séverin hadn’t forgotten. The day he said that was the day he realized some memories have a taste. That day, his mouth was full of blood, and so his promise tasted like salt and iron.

  “Let’s say this whole venture doesn’t kill us. What if you get what you want? If you get back your House, you’ll be a patriarch…” His voice pitched higher. “Sometimes I wished you didn’t even want to be a patriarch. What if you become like—”

  “Don’t.” He hadn’t meant for his voice to sound so cold, but it did, and Tristan flinched. “I will never be like our fathers.”

  Tristan and Séverin had seven fathers. An assembly line of foster fathers and guardians, all of whom had been fringe members of the Order of Babel. All of whom had made Séverin who he was, for better or worse.

  “Being part of the Order won’t make me one of them,” said Séverin, his voice icy. “I don’t want to be their equal. I don’t want them to look us in the eye. I want them to look away, to blink harshly, as if they’ve stared at the sun itself. I don’t want them standing across from us. I want them kneeling.”

  Tristan said nothing.

  “I protect you,” said Séverin softly. “Remember that promise? I said I’d protect you. I said I’d make us a paradise of our own.”

  “L’Eden,” said Tristan miserably.

  Séverin had named his hotel not just for the Garden of Paradise, but for the promise that had been struck long ago when the two of them were nothing but wary eyes and skinned knees, while the houses and fathers and lessons moved about them as relentless as seasons.

  “I protect you,” said Séverin again, this time quieter. “Always.”

  Finally, Tristan’s shoulders fell. He leaned against Séverin, the top of his blond head tickling the inside of Séverin’s nose until he sneezed.

  “Fine,” grumbled Tristan.

  Séverin tried to think of something else to say. Something that would take Tristan’s mind off what the five of them were planning to do next.

  “I hear Goliath molted?”

  “Don’t pretend like you care about Goliath. I know you tried to set a cat on him last month.”

  “To be fair, Goliath is the stuff of nightmares.”

  Tristan didn’t laugh.

  * * *

  OVER THE NEXT week and a half, Laila spied on the Order members who frequented the Palais des Rêves, keeping an ear out for any rumors of theft following the auction. But all was quiet. Even the notorious Sphinx guards who could follow the trail of any House-marked artifact had not been glimpsed outside the city residences of House Kore and House Nyx.

  Everything was fine …

  It was a hope Séverin was still clinging to when his butler came in with the mail.

  “For you.”

  Séverin glanced at the envelope. An elaborate letter H was emblazoned on the front.

  Hypnos.

  He dismissed the butler, and then stared down at the envelope. Bits of brown flecked the front, like dried blood. Séverin touched the seal. Instantly, something sharp stabbed into the pad of his finger, a Forged thorn concealed in the melted wax. He hissed, drawing back his hand, but a drop of blood hit the paper. It sank into the envelope, and the elaborate letter H shivered, unraveling before his eyes until it opened into a short missive.

  I know you stole from me.

  PART II

  Excerpt from Reports of New Caledonia

  Admiral Théophile du Casse, French faction Order of
Babel 1863, Second Republic of France under Napoleon III

  The indigenous population, the Canaque, are becoming rather agitated. Through our translators, we have surmised that Forging is considered the provenance of native priests. None of their artisans appear to possess an affinity for mind. Instead, they are mostly gifted in matter affinity of salt water or wood. Each of their homes is adorned with a fléche faîtière, a carved finial where their ancestors—whom they worship—supposedly reside. But we have discovered another use of these finials.

  As you know, sir, we discovered the presence of nickel along the banks of the Diahot River. While our colonists have taken great pains to extract the mineral, the best instrument for detecting its presence comes from their supposed sacred finial monuments. Regretfully, I must inform you of an event that occurred last week. During the hours of dawn, one of my men had been working hard to tear down the finial from the top of a Canaque hut. Though he was successful in removing the finial, the family refused to tell us how to make the Forged finial respond to nickel. A skirmish arose. The Canaque man took his own life, declaring that “some knowledge is not meant to be known.”

  We have not found a way to make the Forged finials work.

  But I will persevere.

  6

  ENRIQUE

  Enrique had been summoned to the bar of the grand lobby.

  In different circumstances, that might be his favorite summons of all time, but Séverin’s note had been uncharacteristically brusque. Enrique checked the grand clock of the lobby. Five sharp. His appointment with Séverin wasn’t until half past five, which left just enough time for one cocktail.

  Encircling the lobby was a grand ouroboros, an infinity symbol represented by a snake biting its tail. A huge, Forged brass serpent twined in an endless circle, candlelight rippling off its metal body. Refreshments and bouquets were nestled in the golden scales of its back, and every day at noon and midnight, it finally snapped hold of its tail and shining confetti rained from the ceiling. Around him, heiresses wearing plumed capes and artists with ink-smudged fingers strolled toward the gardens or the dining room. In one corner, politicians schemed together, their heads bent, eyes obscured by the clouds of smoke from their pipes. As usual, Enrique tuned out the sounds. There were too many languages to keep track of, so it was easier to let the sounds wash over him. Here and there, he caught dialects sharpened by the desert sun, languid vowels worn smooth by the waves of coastal regions. All of it unfamiliar music until one phrase caught his ear: “Magandang gabi po.” Good evening. The language was his native Tagalog. Enrique swiveled toward the speaker and recognized him instantly: Marcelo Ponce. From across the room, Ponce caught his eye and waved a hand in welcome.