The Silvered Serpents

by Roshani Chokshi

  He knew that even if they found The Divine Lyrics, it would not be enough to protect the others … They’d wear targets on their backs for the rest of their lives, and that was unacceptable. And so, Séverin had nurtured a new dream. He dreamt of that night in the catacombs, when Roux-Joubert had smeared golden blood over his mouth; the sensation of his spine elongating, making room for sudden wings. He dreamt of the pressure in his forehead, the horns that bloomed and arced, lacquered tips brushing the tops of his ears.

  We could be gods.

  That was what The Divine Lyrics promised. If he had the book, he could be a god. A god did not know human pain or loss or guilt. A god could resurrect. He could share the book’s powers with the others, turn them invincible … protect them forever. And when they left him—as he knew they’d always planned to—he wouldn’t feel a thing.

  For he would not be human.

  “Are you going to stab me with that?” demanded the man, pushing back violently from the table. “How old are you, Monsieur? In your twenties? Don’t you think think that is too young to have such blood on your hands?”

  “I’ve never known blood to discriminate between ages,” said Séverin, tilting the blade. “But I won’t stab you. What’s the point when I’ve already poisoned you?”

  The man’s eyes flew to the tea. Sweat beaded on his brow. “You’re lying. If you poisoned the tea, then you’d be poisoned too.”

  “Most assuredly,” said Séverin. “But the poison wasn’t the tea. It was your cup’s porcelain coating. Now.” From his pocket, he withdrew a clear vial and placed it on the table. “The antidote is right here. Is there really nothing you wish to tell me?”

  * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER, Séverin poured sealing wax onto several envelopes—one to be sent out immediately, the others to be sent out in two days. A small part of him hesitated, but he steeled himself. He was doing this for them. For his friends. The more he cared about their feelings, the harder his task became. And so he endeavored to feel nothing at all.

  2

  LAILA

  Laila stared at the letter her maid had just delivered. When she took the envelope, she thought it would be a note from Zofia that she’d returned from her visit to Poland. Or Enrique, letting her know how his meeting with the Ilustrados had gone. Or Hypnos, wondering when they could dine together. But instead, it was from the last person … and held the last words … she ever expected:

  I know how to find The Divine Lyrics.

  Meeting at 12 o’clock.

  —SÉVERIN

  The sound of rustling sheets in her bedroom startled her.

  “Come back to bed,” said a groggy voice.

  Cold December light streamed through the bay windows of her suite in the Palais des Rêves, the cabaret where she performed as the dancer L’Énigme. With the light trickled in the memories of last night. She had brought someone to her suite, which was not unusual lately. Last night was a diplomat’s son who had bought her champagne and strawberries after her performance. She had liked him on the spot. His body was not sleek, but broad; his eyes not deep violet, but pale as a young wine; his hair not plum-black, but golden.

  She liked who he wasn’t.

  Because of that, she could tell him the secret that ate her alive every day. The secret that had made her own father call her an abomination. The secret she couldn’t bear to tell her closest friends.

  “I’m dying,” she’d whispered when she drew him down to her.

  “You’re dying?” The diplomat’s son had grinned. “That eager, are we?”

  Every time she uttered those words to a lover, the truth felt smaller, as if she might someday wrangle it down to a manageable size and hold it in the palm of her hand rather than let it swallow her up entirely. The jaadugar had said her body—built rather than born—would not last past her twentieth birthday. She would not last, which left her with little over a month of life. Her only hope of survival was The Divine Lyrics, a book that held the secret to the power of Forging, the art of controlling mind or matter depending on one’s affinity. With it, her own Forged body might find a way to hold itself together for longer. But months had passed, and the trail to find it had gone cold despite everyone’s efforts. There was no option but to savor the time she had left … and so she had.

  Now, a sharp pang bloomed in her chest. She placed the letter on her vanity. Her fingers trembled from reading it. Truly reading it. The object’s memories flooded her head: Séverin pouring black sealing wax onto the paper, his violet eyes aglow.

  Laila looked over her shoulder to the boy in her bed.

  “I’m afraid you have to leave.”

  * * *

  A FEW HOURS LATER, Laila walked onto the frigid streets of Montmartre. Christmas had passed, but winter was not yet robbed of its holiday magic. Colorful lights winked behind frosted panes. Warm steam drifted from the bakeries, carrying the aroma of pain d’épices, deep golden spice bread glossed over with amber honey. The world leaned hungrily over the cusp of a new year, and every moment, Laila wondered how much of it she would live to see.

  In the morning light, her scarlet gown with its beaded neckline of onyx and carmine looked garish. Blood-soaked, even. It felt like necessary armor for what awaited her in Hotel L’Eden.

  Laila had not seen Séverin since he’d entered her room without permission and read a letter not meant for him. How different would her life be if he’d never found it? If she’d never written it?

  At the time, she had not known how to reconcile how she felt about Tristan. She mourned the violence of his death as much as she mourned the hidden darkness in his life. His secret felt too huge to bear alone, and so she had written to her lost friend, informing him of what she’d found and how she still loved him. It was something she did from time to time—address those who couldn’t answer, and hope that it granted her some peace.

  She’d only left her suite for a few minutes, and when she returned, her heart jolted at the sight of Séverin. But then her gaze had fallen to the letter in his clenched hand, the bloodless white of his knuckles, his eyes black as a hellscape, unearthly and huge in their shock.

  “How long did you think you could hide this from me?”

  “Séverin—”

  “I let this happen to him,” he’d murmured.

  “No, you didn’t,” she’d said, stepping toward him. “How could you have known? He kept it from all of us—”

  But he recoiled from her, his hands shaking.

  “Majnun,” she’d said, her voice breaking on the name she hadn’t uttered in months. “Don’t let this ghost haunt you. He is at rest, free of his demons. You can do the same and still live.”

  Laila grabbed his wrist, where her fingers brushed against the oath bracelet. She’d extracted his promise on the night of his birthday. That night, she’d wanted him to take her on as his mistress so she could track his progress in finding The Divine Lyrics. But there was another reason too. She wanted him to want something more than numbness … and she thought, for a moment, that it could be her. She hadn’t forgotten the cruel words he’d uttered, but she could forgive cruelty stemming from guilt as long as he could forgive himself.

  “Choose life,” she’d begged.

  Choose me.

  He looked at her. Through her. Laila could not bear to watch him retreat into himself, and so she’d grabbed his face, turning it toward her.

  “You cannot protect everyone from everything,” she said. “You’re only human, Séverin.”

  Something had kindled in his eyes at that. Hope flickered inside her, only for it to dim as he pulled back. Without a word, he left her room. The last she’d heard, he had thrown himself back into the search for The Divine Lyrics, as if by finding it, he might avenge Tristan and absolve himself of the guilt that he had lived while his brother had died.

  Laila pulled her coat tighter around her. Her garnet ring caught the light. She had asked Zofia to make it for her not long ago. The stone looked violent a
nd wet, as if it were not a jewel at all, but a bird’s ripped-out heart set in gold. In its face read the number 21. Twenty-one days to live.

  Today was the first time she let herself doubt that number.

  Until now, she’d made peace with small dreams … more afternoons with Zofia, Hypnos, and Enrique. Perhaps one last winter evening where fresh snow sugared the streets of Paris and her breath plumed gently before her. Sometimes, she imagined it looked like death, as if she were watching her own soul unspool from her lungs. She could tell herself that yes, death was cold, but at least it didn’t hurt.

  Séverin’s letter changed everything.

  The Order had hired them to find the Fallen House’s treasures, but to do that required finding the Sleeping Palace … and it had thwarted all attempts at discovery. Once Séverin’s steady stream of reports dried up, the Order said they would find the Fallen House’s treasure on their own. There would be no Winter Conclave for her or the others, and the only relief was that she would no longer have to play Séverin’s mistress.

  Now, it seemed, she would.

  Slowly, Laila became aware of a sound following her. The steady clip-clop of hooves. She stopped, turning slowly as an indigo carriage ornamented in chased silver stopped a mere five feet from her. A familiar symbol—a wide crescent moon like a sly grin—gleamed on the carriage door as it swung open.

  “I’m hurt you didn’t invite me on your adventure last night,” pouted a familiar voice.

  Hypnos leaned through the open door and blew her a kiss. Laila smiled, caught the kiss, and made her way to him.

  “The bed was too small,” she said.

  “I hope its owner wasn’t,” he said. From his jacket, he pulled out a letter with Séverin’s seal. “I imagine you were also summoned.”

  Laila answered by holding up her own letter. Hypnos grinned, then made room for her in the carriage.

  “Ride with me, ma chère. There’s no time to waste.”

  A pang dug into Laila’s chest.

  “How well I know it,” she said, and stepped into the carriage.

  3

  ENRIQUE

  For the fifth time in the past minute, Enrique Mercado-Lopez smoothed his hair and patted his immaculate shirtfront. Then, he cleared his throat. “Gentlemen of the Ilustrados, I thank you for joining me today for my presentation on ancient world powers. For this afternoon, I have assembled a selection of Forged artifacts from around the globe. I believe that as we advance the sovereignty of the Philippines, we should look for guidance in history. Our past can reshape our future!”

  He paused, blinking. Then he muttered, “Wait, our past … or the past?”

  He looked down at his notepad where he’d crossed and recrossed, underlined and blotted out nearly half of his original presentation that had taken weeks to prepare.

  “The past,” he said, making another note.

  He looked out over the reading room of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It was one of the most beautiful libraries he had ever seen, the ceilings vaulted like the rib cage of a slain monster out of myth, and full of stained glass windows, book-lined walls, and Forged reference books that perched on slender golden racks, preening and flapping their covers.

  It was also completely empty.

  Enrique glanced at the center of the room. In place of a chandelier rotated a great, glowing orb displaying the time: half past eleven.

  The Ilustrados were late. Too late. The meeting was to start at ten. Perhaps they had gotten the time wrong. Or had they lost the invitations? No, that couldn’t be it. He’d double-checked the addresses and confirmed their receipt. They wouldn’t ignore him like this … would they? Surely, he had proven his worth as a curator and historian. He’d written articles for La Solidaridad and eloquently—or so he thought—argued his case for the equality of colonized civilizations to its colonizers. Besides, he had the backing of Hypnos, a patriarch in the Order of Babel and Séverin Montagnet-Alarie, Paris’s most influential investor and owner of the grandest hotel in France.

  Enrique put down his notebook and stepped from his podium to the dining table arranged in the middle of the room and set for the nine members of the Ilustrados inner circle … soon to be ten. He hoped. The hot ginger salabat tea had begun to cool. Soon, he’d have to cover up the afritada and pancit on their heating platters. The bucket holding champagne was more water than ice.

  Enrique looked at the spread. Perhaps it would not have been so bad if non-Ilustrados members had come. He thought about Hypnos, and warmth pleasantly curled through his body. He’d wanted to invite him, but the other boy tended to balk at any sign of too much commitment and preferred their casual not-quite-friend and not-quite-lover territory. Gracing the end table was a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Laila, who he knew wouldn’t attend. Once, he’d woken her up before ten o’clock in the morning and was met with a wrathful growl, a red-eyed glare, and a vase flung at his head. When she eventually stumbled downstairs closer to noon, she had no recollection of the incident. Enrique had decided never to meet pre-noon Laila again. Then there was Zofia. Zofia would’ve attended and sat straight-backed in her chair, her blue-as-candle-hearts eyes alive with curiosity. But she was returning from a family visit in Poland.

  In a moment of desperation, he’d considered inviting Séverin, but that felt callous. Half the reason he had arranged this presentation was because he couldn’t stay as Séverin’s historian and curator forever. Besides, Séverin wasn’t … the same. Enrique didn’t blame him, but there were only so many times he could accept a shut door in his face. He told himself he wasn’t leaving Séverin, but choosing life.

  “I tried,” he said aloud for the hundredth time. “… I really tried.”

  He wondered how many times he’d have to say it, for guilt not to creep into his veins. Despite all his research, they’d found nothing that could lead them to the Sleeping Palace, the place full of the Fallen House’s treasure and the one object within that Séverin was determined to find: The Divine Lyrics. Taking back The Divine Lyrics would be the final blow to the Fallen House. Without it, their plans to rejoin the Babel Fragments would crumble. They needed The Divine Lyrics, and perhaps then, Séverin would feel as though Tristan had truly been avenged.

  But it was not to be.

  When the Order said they would take over the mission, Enrique had felt nothing but relief. Tristan’s death haunted him. He’d never forget that first breath he took after he knew Tristan was dead—jagged and harsh, as if he’d fought the world for the privilege to draw air into his lungs. That’s what life was. A privilege. He wouldn’t waste it chasing vengeance. He would do something vastly more meaningful, more important.

  After Tristan died, Laila had left L’Eden entirely. Séverin became as cold and unreachable as the stars. Zofia had stayed more or less the same, but she’d gone to Poland … which left Hypnos. Hypnos who understood his past enough, perhaps, to want to be part of his future.

  Behind him, a voice called out, “Hello?”

  Enrique leapt to attention, straightening his jacket and fixing a bright smile on his face. Maybe all his worry was for nothing. Maybe everyone really had been running late … but as the figure walked toward him, Enrique deflated. It wasn’t a member of the Ilustrados at all, but a courier holding out two envelopes.

  “Are you Monsieur Mercado-Lopez?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Enrique.

  “These are for you,” he said.

  One letter was addressed from Séverin. The other from the Ilustrados. Heart racing, he opened the latter, skimming it as a knot of hot shame coiled in his gut.

  … we feel as though this position is outside the realm of your skills, Kuya Enrique. Age gives us wisdom, and we have the wisdom to push against sovereignty, to know where to look. You are only recently a man of twenty. How do you know what you want? Perhaps when a time of peace comes, we will turn to you and your interests. But for now, support us from where you stand. Enjoy your youth. Write your inspirin
g articles on history. It is what you do best …

  Enrique felt oddly light. He pulled out one of the seats from the dining table and slumped into it. He’d spent half his savings renting the library’s reading room, arranging the food and drink, scheduling for the transportation of several artifacts on loan from the Louvre … and for what?

  The door slammed open. Enrique looked up, wondering what else the courier had to deliver, but it wasn’t the courier at all but Hypnos striding toward him. His pulse kicked up at the sight of the other boy, with his mouth made for grinning and frosted eyes the color of fairy pools.

  “Hello, mon cher,” he said, swooping to kiss his cheeks.

  Warmth shivered through Enrique. Perhaps not all his daydreams were foolish after all. For once, he wanted to be sought after, picked first. Wanted. And now here was Hypnos.

  “If you thought to attend the presentation to surprise me, I appreciate it … but you seem to be the only one.”

  Hypnos blinked. “Attend? Non. It’s before noon. I hardly exist before noon. I’m only here to fetch you.”

  Cold crept through Enrique, and he folded away his daydreams and shoved them in the dark.

  “Didn’t you get the letter?” asked Hypnos.

  “I got several letters,” said Enrique sullenly.

  Hypnos opened the one from Séverin and held it out to Enrique.

  * * *

  A FEW MOMENTS LATER, Enrique joined Laila in Hypnos’s carriage. Laila smiled warmly, and he immediately curled against her. Hypnos held his hand lightly and caressed his thumb against Enrique’s knuckles.

  “How did it go?” she asked. “Did you get my flowers?”

  He nodded, his stomach still tight with shame. The Ilustrados had told him plainly enough that what he had to say was not worth hearing. But this, finding the treasures of the Fallen House, returning The Divine Lyrics to the Order of Babel … this could change everything. Besides, one last acquisition felt right somehow. Like he was not only honoring Tristan’s legacy, but also laying rest to this chapter of his life as the historian of L’Eden … as a part of Séverin’s team.