The Silvered Serpents

by Roshani Chokshi

  THE NOSE KNOWS NOT THE SCENT OF SECRETS BUT HOLDS THE SHAPE.

  It meant nothing to her, but when she looked at Enrique, his eyes seemed alight. Hypnos stood on his right, patting his own nose and then sniffing his hand.

  “I’ve drawn zero conclusions,” announced Hypnos.

  “Then keep an eye on the time and guard the door,” said Enrique, walking toward the statues. “The butler said we have twenty minutes. Zofia?”

  Zofia rehooked her pendant.

  “No Tezcat presence detected,” she said. “If there is one here, it must have several security layers.”

  Enrique paced the room slowly. Zofia rummaged through the rest of her jacket pockets, pulling out more flammable Chardonnet silk, a box of matches, a small set of chiseling tools, and a Forged ice pen that drew water from the air and froze it. Zofia analyzed the room, but none of the tools she brought were helpful.

  “I thought … I thought there’d be a sign or something to the treasure,” said Hypnos, blowing into his cupped palms for warmth.

  “Like an ‘X marks the spot’?” asked Enrique.

  “That would’ve been helpful, yes,” said Hypnos. “Someone should inform this treasure that I find it unbecomingly teasing. I thought it was supposed to be hiding in one of the goddesses? But then the riddle is talking about noses?”

  “Zofia, any luck with the tools?”

  “Luck is useless,” she said.

  “Fine, any success?”

  “No.”

  “Mythologically speaking, we’re talking about something that is thought to guard or hide things,” he said. “There are ten goddesses here, maybe one of them has a story about hiding something?”

  “How can you tell which goddess each is?” asked Hypnos.

  “Iconography,” said Enrique. He stared at the ten statues, all of whom looked the same to Zofia except for whatever object they might be carrying. And then, Enrique snapped his fingers. “I get it now … these are the nine muses from Greek mythology, goddesses of the arts. See that lyre?” He pointed at one of the blank-faced statues clutching a golden harp. “That’s for Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. Beside her is Erato, the muse of love poetry with her cithara instrument, and then Thalia, the muse of comedy, with her theatre masks.”

  Zofia watched, rapt. To her, these statues were feats of Forging technology. They were marble and affinity. But that was all their shapes told her. When she listened to Enrique, though, it was like a new light turning on in her mind, and she wanted to hear more. Enrique paused in front of a statue with outspread wings.

  “Strange,” said Enrique. “There’s a tenth statue … This one doesn’t fit. But why muses? It might be a nod to the Order’s lore of the Lost Muses who guard The Divine Lyrics?”

  “The Order didn’t construct this art, though,” pointed out Zofia.

  “True,” said Enrique, nodding. “And then there’s this tenth statue, which doesn’t fit at all. It’s strange, honestly, look at the shape of—”

  “This isn’t the time to ponder!” said Hypnos, gesturing at the floor. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes left by my count.”

  By now, the white tinge had spread across nearly half of the room and had begun to creep up the legs of half the goddess statues.

  “I don’t think this one is a goddess,” said Enrique. “No distinguishing iconographic aspects. There’s some gold leaf on the wings, but that doesn’t tell us much. And the face is devoid of expression.”

  Zofia didn’t move, but there was something familiar about the statue … something that made her think of her sister.

  “I want to see too,” grumbled Hypnos, walking over to the statue. He eyed it, then scowled. “If I looked like that, I wouldn’t demand worship either. None of that outfit says ‘pay me obeisance, mortals.’”

  “It’s not a muse … it’s a seraph, an angel,” said Enrique.

  He took a step closer, then ran his hands along its face, across the shoulders, and down the body of the statue.

  Hypnos whistled. “Rather forward of you…”

  “I’m trying to see if there’s any depressed spots,” said Enrique, “some sort of release mechanism to get at whatever might be hiding inside here.”

  By now, the white tinge had gotten to the statue of the angel. It started at its feet, slowly pulling the marble back into the walls. Zofia’s breath plumed in front of her. The longer she stared at it, the more an old story and game that she and Hela used to play came to mind. She remembered her sister whispering, Can you keep a secret, Zosia?

  “Hypnos? Zofia? Any ideas?” called Enrique.

  “The nose knows not the scent of secrets, but holds the shape,” Zofia repeated, touching her mouth. Zofia started to cross the room to them. “Hela and I used to play a game from a story our mother told us about angels and children … Before you are born, you know all the secrets of the world. But an angel locked them up by pressing his thumb right above your lips. That’s why everyone has a dent right above their mouth.”

  Hypnos frowned. “That’s a pretty tale—”

  But Enrique grinned. “It fits … it’s demonstrating the concept of anamnesis!”

  Zofia blinked at him.

  “Is that a disease?” asked Hypnos.

  “It’s this idea of a cosmic loss of innocence. The thumb print of a seraph right below your nose fits with the riddle because the nose would not know the scent of secrets, but holds the shape. It’s the philtrum! Or the Cupid’s bow! That dip right above one’s mouth—below one’s nose. In fact, in Filipino mythology, there are diwatas who—”

  “Stop lecturing us and get on with it, Enrique!” said Hypnos.

  “Sorry, sorry!”

  The white tinge had crept up the seraph’s waist now, and the hands had begun to lose their shape. Quickly, Enrique reached up. He pressed his thumb to the angel’s upper lip. A sound like rushing water emanated from inside the seraph statue. Immediately, it split down the center, the two halves swinging open like a hidden door. Inside the hollow angel stood a slender onyx pedestal, and on that sat a small, shining metal box no bigger than the span of Zofia’s hand. Slender cracks networked across its surface, as if it had been fused together long ago.

  “We found it,” said Hypnos, awed.

  Enrique reached in, pulling on the box … It didn’t budge.

  “Wait,” said Zofia. She held up a pendulum light, shining it on the metal. Small finger indents appeared where Enrique had tried to pull away the box. When she touched it, her Forging affinity for solid matter prickled through her fingertips. “That box is made of Forged tin, reinforced with steel.”

  “Is that bad?” asked Enrique.

  Zofia nodded, grimacing. “It means my incendiary devices won’t work on it. It’s flame-retardant.” She looked at the interior of the hollow angel and frowned. “And the inside of this statue is a sound barrier…” She touched the layers of sponge, cloth, and cork. Why would a device need to be silent?

  A small chime sounded on Hypnos’s watch. He looked up at them.

  “Five minutes.”

  Zofia felt her throat tightening. The room felt too small, too bright, too much like the laboratory in her old university where they’d locked her inside and—

  “Phoenix,” said Enrique softly. “Stay with me. What do we have? You always have something.”

  Chardonnet silk was useless here. Beyond her regular tools and matches, all that was left was a controlled incendiary device, which wouldn’t help, and the ice pen in case they needed to freeze the hinges off doors.

  “An ice pen,” said Zofia.

  “In an already freezing room?” wailed Hypnos. “So, fire is useless … ice is useless … for that matter, I am useless.”

  “We can’t even pry it off the stand, so how will we crack it—” started Zofia, but suddenly Enrique paused, something lighting up behind his eyes.

  “Crack,” he repeated.

  “Aaaand there goes his sanity,” said Hypnos.

&nb
sp; “Zofia, hand me that ice pen. It draws water out of the air, yes?” asked Enrique.

  Zofia nodded and handed it over, watching as Enrique began to trace every single one of the cracks in the tin box. “Did you know—”

  “Here we go,” muttered Hypnos.

  “—In 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal made his way through the Alps with his huge army and forty elephants intent on destroying the heart of the Roman Empire,” said Enrique. He poured out the water the pen had collected from the air. The liquid disappeared into the cracks of tin. “Back then, the standard for removing rock obstacles was fairly torturous. Rocks were heated by bonfires, then doused with cold water…”

  He touched the ice pen to the box, and a glittering and crackling sound echoed in the silent chamber. Ice spidered out from the fissures. A snapping sound rattled from deep within the box.

  “… which would make them crack apart,” said Enrique, grinning.

  The box split open, the edges of the metal gleaming damply.

  Enrique reached into the box, pulling out the delicate Tezcat spectacles. They were the size of ordinary glasses … albeit more elaborate. The gunmetal-gray frames formed an ivy-and-flower pattern of wrought iron that could be wrapped around the head like a diadem. A pair of square lens frames jutted out, but only one of them held a piece of prismatic glass.

  Hypnos clapped slowly, grinning. “Well done! Although, I do find it strange that this time the engineer used a story and the storyteller used engineering.”

  “I’m a historian,” said Enrique, tucking the Tezcat spectacles into his jacket. “Not a storyteller.”

  “History, storytelling,” said Hypnos, waving his hand and smiling at Zofia. “Quelle est la différence?”

  Another chime sounded. Soundlessly, the angel statue was swallowed into the wall, leaving them in a pristine marble room. Zofia turned around, but the walls were smooth, no sign whatsoever of the muse statues that had once been here.

  “Time’s up,” said Hypnos. “And it’s rude to be late to weddings.”

  “You’re going to have to get back into that cabinet—”

  “—Ugh.”

  “It’s either that or—”

  Just then, the door to the chamber opened. The butler walked inside, carrying a tray of refreshments.

  “I thought you might like—” He stopped abruptly when he saw Hypnos and the broken traveling cabinet.

  “I told you to watch the door!” said Enrique.

  “I forgot!”

  “Who the hell is this?” demanded the butler. “Guards!”

  “Run!” shouted Enrique.

  Zofia, Enrique, and Hypnos bolted out of the Chamber of Goddesses. Behind her, Zofia heard the clatter of a tray crashing onto the ground, and the butler hollering. They flew through the exquisite manor. For a fleeting moment, Zofia felt a rush of adrenaline, the kind of energy that made her feel as if anything were possible.

  Enrique glanced at her, his cheeks flushed, one corner of his mouth curved slyly even as he ran. Zofia recognized that expression from Laila each time she used to sneak her an extra cookie. It was conspiratorial, like being let into a secret. It made her feel grateful … and confused, because she wasn’t sure what secret he was offering.

  At the end of the hall, the wide front door glowed bright in warning. Hypnos reached it first, pulling the handle. On the other side of the door, Zofia could hear wedding bells clanging loudly, and the clip-clop of horse hooves and carriage wheels shattering the ice-crusted streets.

  Behind Zofia came the sound of heavy scratching and thudding. Enrique looked over her shoulder, his face paling.

  “Damn,” hissed Hypnos, tugging at the handle.

  “Dogs!” said Enrique.

  “Not quite the blasphemy I’d use to articulate the situation, but—”

  “No,” said Enrique. “Dogs! Move faster!”

  Zofia looked behind her, her mind processing the sight before fear caught up: four massive white dogs bounded toward them.

  “Got it!” yelled Hypnos.

  The door flung wide open. Dimly, she felt Hypnos’s hand wrapping around her wrist. He tugged hard, pulling her into the icy night of St. Petersburg as the door slammed shut behind them, and frigid air hit her like a punch.

  Up ahead, wedding bells chimed from a slew of troikas storming the street of Angliskaya Naberezhnava. A team of three dappled draft horses pulled each of the fifteen white carriages. Forged firecrackers whizzed into the air, exploding into silhouetted images of the bride and groom, roaring bears and soaring swans that dissolved into the night.

  “There!” said Enrique.

  One of the carriages sported a black stripe down the middle. It turned the corner toward them just as the front door swung open once more. Enrique cursed loudly from the end of the sidewalk. He waved wildly at the carriage with the black stripe, but the carriage never slowed. Growls erupted behind Zofia.

  “We won’t make it in time!” said Hypnos, his face shining with sweat.

  With a twist of her wrist, Zofia tore one of the fire pendants from her necklace, throwing it at the dogs. At the same time she pushed her will into the metal object: Ignite.

  She heard the crackling rip of flames catching one upon one another, followed by indignant yelping and the sound of paws skittering backward. A column of flame shot up from the sidewalk, forcing back the guard animals.

  The carriage with the black stripe skidded to a halt at the end of the manor entrance. The other troikas wound past it just as the door opened from the inside … Hypnos and Enrique clambered into the dark of the carriage. Zofia grasped the rails, then felt Laila’s warm hands pull her onto the seat.

  On the far side of the carriage sat Séverin. He didn’t glance at any of them as he rapped his knuckles twice on the roof. As they sped away, Zofia peered out the window. The column of fire had died down. The butler and a slew of guards had run outside … but their troika had already fallen into line with the rest of the wedding procession.

  Hypnos flung himself across the seat, his head resting in Laila’s lap, his legs sprawled over Enrique. Without quite knowing why, Zofia glanced at Enrique. She wanted to know what his expression looked like with Hypnos’s body against his. She had not forgotten Enrique and Hypnos’s kiss from months ago. The memory startled her. She didn’t know why that image drifted to her right then, but it did—the slowness of it, like a wick burning to some explosion she couldn’t comprehend. Couldn’t create. Thinking about it summoned a painful weight against her chest, but she didn’t know why.

  “Zofia nearly got eaten by dogs,” announced Hypnos. “I mean, she did basically figure out how to get to the spectacles, but I did some rescuing too! Honestly, phoenix, what would you do without us?”

  He grinned widely, but Zofia could not smile. She thought of Hela crumpling the letter she had tried writing to them when she was in Poland. Don’t make them worry, Zosia. They might start fretting over who would have to take care of you when I’m gone. Even if the money from her work had saved Hela’s life; even if the team would fail without her inventions, she did not like feeling as though the way she functioned somehow made her a burden. And yet, she knew sometimes she needed help when other people didn’t. That knowledge sat inside her like an ill-fitting puzzle piece.

  “I don’t know,” she said softly.

  10

  LAILA

  Laila stepped out of the wedding carriage and looked up at the yawning dark of the shopfront nestled on a sleepy corner of St. Petersburg. The snow fell like sugar—softly and sweetly, gently brushing the wooden eaves of the storefront. But while the city looked sugared with snow, the cold of Russia tasted of bitterness. It snuck behind coat collars, stained fingers blue, and scorched the inside of her nose simply because she dared to breathe.

  “Come along!” said Hypnos, practically skipping ahead of them. “And you—”

  He paused to look at the person who had stepped out of the carriage behind them. Laila bit back a shu
dder. She still hadn’t grown accustomed to the sight of a Sphinx, the guard members of the Order of Babel who wore grotesque crocodile masks and who always faintly reeked of blood.

  “You know how and where to meet us. Get the carriage ready.”

  The Sphinx did not speak. Perhaps they couldn’t, thought Laila with a pang of pity. Behind the Sphinx stood four other guards of House Nyx, men who still wore the uniform of Vasiliev’s men. Though they had the pendant with the missing Tezcat lens, the job in the Mariinsky Theatre disturbed her. She couldn’t stop thinking about Vasiliev’s last words before he slipped into unconsciousness. She’ll find you. Who was she? Séverin had no idea and dismissed it as the words of a man on the brink of nervous exhaustion. But Laila felt the echo of those words shadowing her thoughts.

  Inside the shop, strange objects lined the walls. Glossy gourd-shaped dolls no taller than the span of her hand covered shelves like a small army. Delicate blue ceramic pitchers and teacups, sterling silver samovars and boxes of imported tea and tobacco lay half unpacked from wooden crates packed with straw. Along one of the walls hung pelts of expensive furs—spotted lynx and velveteen sable, frost-colored mink and fox fur the rich orange and scarlet of a sunset ripped off the sky. And at the far end of the room, Laila could just make out a pair of glass doors against a wall. Frost spidered against the glass, but through the door on the left, Laila could just make out the silhouette of a city … and it wasn’t St. Petersburg.

  Hypnos followed her gaze, grinning.

  “One of the Order of Babel’s better secrets,” he said. “Those are ancient Tezcat portals that use technology from the Fallen House to cross huge distances. That door on the left leads straight to Moscow.”

  “And the one on the right?” asked Zofia.

  Hypnos frowned. “I never opened it after that one time I saw a puddle of blood seeping through from the other side.”

  “Excuse me, what?” demanded Enrique. “Also why do you have so many portals in Russia?”