The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(29)

“L’énigme! Did you hear that La Belle Otero burned peacock feathers on her stage last night?”

“L’énigme!” shouted one man. “Is it true that you and La Belle Otero are no longer speaking?”

Laila laughed, covering her mouth with a gloved hand. Her Forged snake rings slithered down her fingers. “La Belle Otero can do many fabulous things with her mouth. Speaking is not one of them.”

The crowd gasped. Some scolded her. Others laughed and repeated it. Laila paid them no mind. It was as she and Carolina wanted. Carolina, known by the public as La Belle Otero, had devised the insult herself. The star of the Folies Bergère was a stunning performer, but an even more brilliant strategist when it came to publicity. They had come up with the plan last month over tea. Laila made a mental note to send Carolina her favorite box of dried pineapples.

Inside the salon, Laila walked briskly over the parquet floors and past the tall mirrors. As she walked, she heard the soft murmur of rumors chasing her shadow: “Did you hear who she took as a lover?”

All her “lovers” were either made up or spoken of as favors for male friends who had no interest in taking women to bed. It was a rule she’d kept since she arrived in France.

Only once had she broken it.

With Séverin.

Just once she’d let an attraction turn to an indulgence. What was one time? That was the thought she held on to when she drew him to her. Lust was one thing, but what she’d felt that night was a pull … the kind that keeps stars from falling out of the night sky. It was vast. It was unlike what she’d imagined.

It was a mistake.

In the salon, Forged dresses floated down a crystal runway, the fabrics rippling and stretching as if an invisible human body moved them. Couturiers clambered up ladders, hoisting yards of stiff, jewel-toned crinoline or bolts of Forged silk that mimicked anything from a late autumn sky to a smoky twilight flecked with dimming stars.

Her couturier greeted her at the entrance.

“Is my evening gown ready?” she asked.

“Of course, Mademoiselle! You will love it!” he said. “I worked on it all night long.”

“And it will match my costume?”

“Yes, yes,” he assured her.

Though her Night and Stars costume wouldn’t change, she needed an evening gown for her entrance to the Palais des Rêves revolutionary party. The couturier ushered her to a dressing room. Inside, a Forged chandelier of champagne rotated above her. One flute broke off from its companions and drifted down to her hand. Laila held it, but did not drink.

“Voilà!” said the man.

He clapped his hands, and a gown glided into her dressing room. It was ivory satin, with puffed sleeves, a crescent neckline beaded with small pearls, and a black lattice overlay that looked like iron scrollwork. She touched it lightly. At once, the scrollwork twisted, and the black silk lattice seamlessly melded into a new pattern of inky florals.

“Exquisite,” she breathed.

“And perfectly themed for the Exposition Universelle,” he added. “I have modeled it after the tiered lattices of la Tour Eiffel. I will leave Mademoiselle to evaluate my handiwork. I do hope if Mademoiselle likes her garment, she might consider walking out of the store while wearing it?”

Laila already knew her answer was yes. But her diva persona ruled her for the evening.

She shrugged. “I shall inspect it for myself and decide.”

The couturier hid his grimace behind a well-practiced smile. “Of course.”

And with that, he left her and the dress. When she was sure he had gone, Laila set down her champagne flute on the small ivory table and began to undress. She wished there were not so many mirrors.

She hated looking at her body.

In the mirrors, her ruined back was reflected a thousand times over. Gingerly, Laila reached over her shoulder, tracing the scar, pushing herself to read her own body. Each time she tried, she came away with nothing. Each time, she breathed a sigh of relief. She could read only objects. Not people. Did that mean she was truly human? Or was her own body mute in the way she could read any object except one that had been Forged?

It was a question she had asked her mother every night in India. Before bed, her mother would rub sweet almond oil onto her back, massaging the scar tissue.

“It will fade,” she said.

“And then I’ll be real?” Laila would ask.

Her mother’s hands always stilled when she asked that question. “You are real, my girl, for you are loved.”

Her father’s hands had not always been so kind. He did not always know what to make of her. His crafted child.

Perhaps it was because she looked nothing like her parents. She had the dark eyes of a cygnet, an uncanny shade of animal black, and glossy hair like the wet pelt of a jungle cat. That had been what the jaadugar used after all. A chick stolen from a swan’s nest and an unlucky beast trapped in a ditch.

The rest of her had been lifted from a child’s grave.

In India, those with the Forging affinity were called magicians. Jaadugars. For a price, they could perform complicated Forging techniques. It was said the jaadugars of Pondicherry were especially skilled in obscure arts because they possessed an ancient book in a language no longer spoken. Supposedly, the book held the secrets of Forging the likes of which rivaled the powers of the gods themselves.