The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(32)

“What?” asked Enrique.

He followed her gaze to the tops of the tents, and his mouth twisted into a grimace. “Part of Europe’s ‘civilizing mission,’” he said quietly.

Zofia knew the definition of “civilize,” but she didn’t understand why it was being used. In school, “civilize” meant bringing people to a stage of development deemed advanced. But Zofia had seen the illustrations in the traveling books—the grand temples, the complex inventions, techniques and leaps in medicine that had been discovered and implemented long before they ever reached European shores.

“That word does not fit.”

Enrique’s mouth was downturned. His eyes wide and jaw set. A pattern of sorrow mixed with something else.

“I know.”

Now Zofia knew what else his expression said. He understood.

A sound in the alley made them both jump.

“A Sphinx,” he hissed under his breath. “Don’t move.”

Zofia stayed still as the lamplight twisted into a familiar reptilian shape. Tasked with tracking down stolen House-marked items, the Sphinx operated for and answered to the Order. As the Sphinx stalked past their hiding spot, Enrique and Zofia sank farther into the shadows. Behind him limped a thief, his arm bent at a wrong angle, his wrist broken and bleeding into the Sphinx’s jaws.

Zofia averted her eyes. The moment a Sphinx targeted someone, the Forgery in their crocodile masks took over. They moved inhumanly fast, and their jaws snapped through skin and bone on whatever they caught first.

The man was lucky the Sphinx had only gone for his wrist.

When the Sphinx and the thief had passed, a clanging sound at the Exhibition on Colonial Superstitions caught her attention. The security guard had finished his shift, and the door to the exhibition swung open. Once the night security guard finished locking up, he pressed his palm to a pane of glass. It glowed a brief shade of blue, then faded. The man looked around him. In the distance, beggars huddled into corners for the night. Skinny cats dissolved into shadows.

Enrique adjusted his outfit of a threadbare shirt and coat. “Remember what Séverin said. The theft has to look like an accident.”

“No explosives,” she said, bored.

“No explosives.”

Zofia did not mention that she brought her fire tape, incinerator, and matches. Just in case.

Enrique pulled a mask over his head. The guard started walking toward the street. Lantern light glinted off the edge of his top hat. Enrique ambled toward him, swinging an empty bottle of wine he’d found near the trash heap.

“You there!” Enrique hollered. “Have you got any coin on you?”

The guard recoiled. Zofia moved farther into the lean-to, which meant losing sight of Enrique. But she still heard him. The scuffle. The guard shouting. Coins hitting the ground. Enrique’s drunken apology reverberating off the buildings.

Now it was her turn.

Zofia crept through the trash. Like Enrique, she was dressed as a beggar. Albeit, a slightly better kept one. Acting like someone else was easy, a relief, even. She had a script. She followed the script. The end.

“Sir!” she called.

The guard walked faster.

“Sir, you dropped this!”

She ran forward to catch up to him right before he left. As she ran, she was careful to keep her gel-covered hands from touching anything more than she had to. The man turned, glancing down at her open palm full of silver coins.

“Merci,” he said, uneasily taking the coins.

Zofia held still. She pulled her cheeks into a grin that looked like hopefulness. She bent her knees to appear shorter. More childlike. If this didn’t go as she planned, there was one other way. Her necklace was hidden under a high collar, and she felt its dangerous pendants like chips of ice against her skin.

“For your trouble,” he said gruffly, dropping one silver on the ground.

Zofia grabbed his open hand, leveraging it so that she trapped it in a flat grip with both hands.

“Thank you, sir,” she said in falsetto. “Oh, thank you so much.”

The man quickly yanked away his hand. Then he ran off into the night. Zofia watched after him, then she looked at her hands. The gel was Streak of Sia, a Forge material first developed in ancient Egypt that retained the shape of prints. Specifically, handprints. Normally the gel was bright blue and frigid to the touch, but Zofia had altered the formula, turning the gel colorless and warm as human skin. It was said the Fallen House could do more with the Streak of Sia. That they could Forge the gel not just to remember handprints, but to leave prints on a person that would allow them to be tracked. But such technology, if it had ever existed, had died with the Fallen House.

At the entrance of the Forging exhibition, Enrique stepped out of the shadows. His beggar costume had been shucked off for a plain, dark suit and top hat.

“Got it?”

She held up her hand. Enrique kept an eye out as she pressed her hand to the windowpane. It glowed a dull blue. Match. On the heavy doors, the iron locks unbraided, falling into a noisy pile.

The inside of the Forging exhibition was far larger than the outside suggested. The gallery stretched into a long row of darkness, lit up by occasional points of light in front of glass display cases. Though the outside looked like steel and glass, the interior allowed no natural light. Instead, large murals covered the windows. All along the back wall stretched panels of brocade fabric. They were so silky and bright, they looked almost wet.