The Gilded Wolves

by Roshani Chokshi

  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 Séverin’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.

  Séverin 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?”

  Séverin 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.”

  Séverin 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?”

  Séverin 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 Séverin’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 Séverin. “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, Séverin.”

  “I try.”

  Enrique stared at the clock longingly. He always got that look whenever there was an object he desperately wanted to analyze. Séverin 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 Château 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 Séverin forever beneath their notice. It made Séverin 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.”

  Séverin 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. Séverin 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, Séverin 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. Séverin 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 Séverin’s gaze and flashed a conspiratorial grin. She was reading Hypnos’s objects. Séverin 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.

  “I come bearing gifts!” he announced.

  Enrique didn’t look up from his book. “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”

  The five of them fixed him with blank stares.

  “What?” asked Zofia.

  “It’s from the Aeneid,” said Enrique. “‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’”

  “I’m not Greek.”

  “Same principle.”

  But when Enrique said it, a smile twitched at his lips.

  “Are those our invitations?” asked Laila, looking at the hand
ful of golden cards in his hand.

  Hypnos fanned them out on the coffee table. “One for each of you. Except Tristan, who has to be there anyway to landscape the gardens. For your invitations, I’ve arranged that you will arrive Friday in time for the midnight feast. You will depart Saturday at midnight, as Sunday is reserved strictly for Order members.”

  “Perfect,” said Séverin. “In and out.”

  “First invitation goes to our aging Oriental flower expert all the way from China, Monsieur Chang,” said Hypnos.

  He held out the gold card to Enrique.

  Enrique didn’t take it, but rather stared at the card like it was a disease. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m Hypnos.”

  “Well, I’m not Chinese. I’m Filipino and Spanish.” Enrique took the card. “That’s terribly offensive.”

  Hypnos shrugged. “Terribly convenient too; the matriarch of House Kore is obsessed with all things Chinese. Next, a card for the nautch dancer who is joining the titillating entertainment troupe.”

  Séverin shook his head. Laila might perform on the Palais stage as L’Énigme, but he knew that for her, dance—the classical way in which she had been trained in India—was considered sacred. Laila took the invitation imperiously, disgust rippling across her features.

  “However, the dancers are not technically arriving until the day after the festival starts, so you’ll first have to pose as a House Nyx servant.”

  Laila nodded tightly. “Makes sense—”

  “No! It doesn’t! Why does she have to pretend to be an Order servant?” demanded Tristan, rising to his feet. “She’s not part of the Order! None of us are!”

  “Tristan, my love,” said Laila with dangerous calm. “If you get in the way of a woman’s battle, you’ll get in the way of her sword.”

  Tristan sat back down, his face flushed.

  “Oh, so sweet!” said Hypnos. “You don’t want her tainted by association with me, I assume. Fair enough. However, it would be unwise for you to smuggle all the tools you might require in one travel excursion. Far better, I believe, to separate the burden. What’s the saying? Don’t put all the baskets on your head?”

  Enrique rolled his eyes. “It’s ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’”

  “I hate eggs. I like my version better,” said Hypnos. He pulled out the next golden card. “The next invitation goes to our government official, Claude Faucher. And, don’t worry, every guest is required to wear a mask, and as far as I know, I am the only member of the Order who cares to know what you look like.”

  Séverin took his invitation, pushing down twinges of relief, guilt, and, though he hated it, outrage. All this time and all that he’d done, and the Order had never once looked his way. His guilt was sharper, though. His mother’s Algerian bloodline showed only subtly in his features, but otherwise he could hide in plain sight as a Frenchman. Others could not.

  “And finally, an invitation for the Russian Baroness Sophia Ossokina.”

  Zofia looked around the room even though Hypnos held the card out to her. “Me?”

  “Oui.”

  “I’m to be a Russian baroness?”

  Zofia might be wandering in a cloud when it came to politics, but under Tzar Alezander, Russia had no love for Jews, and she had no love for Russia.

  “You’ll be grand,” said Hypnos, tossing the invitation into her lap.

  With nothing left in his hands, Hypnos glanced down at them, unsure of what to do next. He clasped them behind his back. It looked painfully childish. In the light, his emerald-studded shoes looked less grand and more gaudy. Everything about him had been so carefully put together. But it didn’t matter how well one’s clothes fit if the skin didn’t.

  Not one of them looked at Hypnos. Or thanked him. Séverin understood that. He saw how each invitation flew in the face of each person’s self-image. But he also understood how Hypnos had seen the scenario, how he had worked to ensure that each person could access the Château de la Lune without incident.

  “When you are who they expect you to be, they never look too closely. If you’re furious, let it be fuel,” Séverin said, looking each of them in the eye. “Just don’t forget that enough power and influence makes anyone impossible to look away from. And then they can’t help but see you.”

  He didn’t meet Hypnos’s gaze, but he saw the lines of his shoulders relax.

  “Now, as for the Château,” he said, bringing up the blueprints by mnemo hologram. The others leaned forward eagerly.

  Hypnos’s jaw dropped. “How’d you get those?”

  “I have my sources,” said Laila, smiling.

  “Part of her useful legion of lovesick men,” said Séverin quickly. He didn’t want to linger on the pining men in Laila’s arsenal. “Now, the mansion itself is nothing we haven’t seen in the past. Two salons, grand banquet hall, kitchen, dining room, chapel, crypt, and boot room. The matriarch of House Kore commissioned particular Forged staircases that lead to the servants’ quarters, which will be challenging.”

  The Château itself was situated on nearly fifty hectares of land, and surrounded by a collection of smaller buildings. Squares of purple marked the gardens: the winter and spring orchard. A star marked the observatory. A leaf marked the greenhouse—a sprawling building—and a handful of blue circles marked the estate fountains. A red X marked the library. Their target for where the Horus Eye was held.

  “These are the core features of the estate,” said Séverin. “Tristan, the only one of us who has actually been to House Kore’s country estate, noted that aspects such as the tent arrangements and entertainment pavilions change by the season. These”—he pointed at the alternating black and red dashes haloing the buildings—“mark the positions of the hired guards. A total of one hundred men and women with rifles. Every eight hours, the House is paying for the guards to be switched out. Twenty incoming. Twenty outgoing. Presumably so that no one stays long enough to commit any unsavory acts.”

  Enrique whistled. “One hundred guards? I don’t mind leaving parties with holes in my memory. My body, however, is a little different. I’m not trying to end up in the catacombs.”

  “You’re assuming the rifles will be loaded,” said Séverin.

  “They won’t be?”

  “Only half, according to our man in the police force. Guess what two places they’re guarding the most?”

  “Library and greenhouse,” guessed Zofia.

  “Correct.”

  Those were, after all, the two features that House Kore celebrated most. The entrance to its otherworldly gardens and its extensive collections.

  “But we already knew that,” said Enrique.

  “Also correct,” said Séverin. “But the half of the police force assigned to the library are carrying blanks in their rifles.”

  Enrique lifted an eyebrow. “And the half at the greenhouse?”

  “Fully loaded.”

  “According to the catalogue coin, the Horus Eye is in the library, though,” said Laila. “Why guard the greenhouse?”

  “A mystery that only access to the greenhouse can solve. Tristan?”

  Tristan had been oddly silent until now. When he looked at Séverin, his eyes were rimmed red. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I can handle that,” he said. “With the help of my good friend, the ancient and honorable botanist, Mr. Ching.”

  Enrique groaned. “Ugh. It’s Chang. Wait, why am I even correcting this?”

  “What about the rifles?” asked Hypnos.

  Zofia waved her hand. “My designs are superior.”

  “Also, how are we getting out?” asked Enrique.

  “I can help with that,” said Hypnos. “I can invoke Order rule to ensure the matriarch must place something in her most well-protected vaults. She won’t be able to tell what it is, and it can be anything you need. Getaway clothes, et cetera.”

  “Fine. But what about weapons?” asked Enrique. “We can’t just stroll in armed to th
e teeth.”

  “True,” said Zofia, frowning.

  “I don’t know how you’ll get around that,” sighed Hypnos. “First, the matriarch of House Kore has to throw the party to keep up appearances, but she isn’t taking any chances on security after the theft of her Ring. Second, the entrances will all have verit stone, so weapons will be useless. Third, the Sphinxes will be present.”

  At this, Laila grinned.

  She winked. “Trust in cake.”

  Séverin nodded, knowing exactly what Laila had been working on to bypass House Kore’s security.

  But Hypnos looked horrified. “Have a care for my figure, ma chère.”

  It was a silly throwaway comment that had nothing to do with Laila’s plans. And maybe because of that, it stole a laugh out of Séverin. Behind Hypnos, Tristan looked stricken.

  Séverin’s flash of humor crumpled.

  He’d promised Tristan the Order would not touch them.

  Now look at them … Hypnos reaching for a cookie from the plate of treats Laila had made. Hypnos grinning with his two asymmetrical dimples, a smile that Séverin remembered since their childhood. Hypnos sitting among them … making them laugh even as Séverin wore that oath tattoo like a dagger pressed to the heart.

  Hypnos took a bite of cookie and nodded approvingly at Laila. “Good plan! Now we can all—”

  Cold washed over Séverin. “There is no ‘we.’”

  The four members of his team exchanged glances of confusion.

  He would have to be clearer. “Hypnos,” he said. “You’re employing our services for shared gain. You’re not one of us.”

  Slowly, Hypnos put down the rest of the cookie. His gaze shuttered. When he stood, he didn’t look at them, choosing instead to brush invisible crumbs from his fine suit.

  “Seeing as we’re in a business arrangement, I am privy to information about your progress and will continue to inquire about it,” he said tightly. “I will see you in three days’ time at the Château de la Lune. Oh, and Séverin—you have never been on the inside of an Order festivity, have you?”