The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(59)

When her parents were still alive, they said that fear grew in places unlit by knowledge. Perhaps if she had more knowledge, then she would not know fear. She could become a scientist or a professor … someone who spent her life rooting out the dark unknown with the light of knowledge. She could be like her parents. Like her sister. She could walk down a street or through a crowd. She wouldn’t know that tight, breath-pulling sensation of drowning, all because someone had asked about her day and she didn’t know how to answer.

Knowledge would make her brave.

And more than anything, Zofia wanted to be brave.

But she was learning how to fit. Or, at least, imitate it. On the other side of the room, her wardrobe faced her. A sable gown hung off the frame. Her outfit for the evening’s ball. It’d taken hours to figure out how to make herself ready without Laila, but she’d finally managed.

Just then, Séverin walked inside and quickly shut the door behind him.

Zofia stood. “You’re late.”

Séverin did not look like himself. He looked out of breath. Wild-eyed. Frustrated. Laila was supposed to give him the key. Had something gone wrong? Panic struck Zofia.

“Is Laila harmed?”

At her name, spots of color appeared on Séverin’s face.

“Your face is red.”

Séverin cleared his throat. “I was walking fast. And no, Laila looks fine. I mean, she is fine. Never mind. I’m fine. Everything is—”

“Fine?”

“Yes,” said Séverin. He handed her the key. “She had to use a different method of delivery to get the key to me.”

That was an easy explanation. Though it did not explain why Séverin looked so strange. Zofia took the key and went straight to the fireplace where a chunk of zinc had been melted. From her wardrobe, she pulled out a cast molding from the bottom cabinet of her drawer, prepping the molding.

Séverin leaned against the wall, dragging his hand down his face.

“The piranha solution worked.”

Zofia was not surprised the solution worked. She had made it, after all. And she was nothing if not exact.

Séverin continued, “As far as I can tell, the greenhouse has been marked off limits. Officially, the story is spreading that one of the guards broke the windows, and the mixture of Forged smoke with the venomous plants led to the fumes.”

By now, Tristan and Enrique should be hiding in the expansive gardens. By the ninth hour, their invitations would expire and they would exit the premises in full view of the House Kore security team, who would officially take them off the guest list. Then, Séverin’s hired transport would drop them off at one of the unsecured entrances on House Kore’s property, and they would meet at the greenhouse.

Zofia pressed the key into the wax.

“As you planned.”

“Mm.” Séverin reached for the door handle, then paused. He looked as if he wanted to ask her something, then thought better of it. “Top of the hour. Then it all starts.”



* * *



ZOFIA CHANGED INTO her evening gown. In her velvet wristlet lay a box of matches and two keys: one real and one copy marked by a slight dent. A mask made of frost-colored swan feathers concealed the top half of her face, disappearing into her hair. A gauzy net of fragile, silver thread spangled her dress. All she had to do was tear the cloth, and she had a purifying air filter for herself and Laila to walk through the greenhouse fumes unharmed.

Downstairs, the hall had transformed. Mirrors lined the walls, turning the room into endless space. Down the halls stalked a translucent gryphon, its beaked head brushing the ceiling. Ladies and gentlemen tittered and laughed when one of the illusion-creature’s heads snapped at them. In a corner of the room, a glorious cake that could only have been made by Laila glistened, showing eight planets that tilted and swayed gently.

Zofia concentrated on the floor. A glint of a silver spiral caught her eye. She paused, mentally tracing the line … she recognized that pattern of spirals. She hadn’t noticed it until now, though. The black marble of the floor had concealed it until the chandelier light snagged on the floor’s silver veins. The pattern was almost nautilus-like. Precise. Mathematical. It reminded her of the golden spiral, a logarithmic spiral based on the golden ratio. Two quantities were said to be in the golden ratio if their ratio was equal to the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Her father had explained it to her in terms of a golden rectangle …





The numerical representation was called phi, approximately 1.618. Her father had showed her how one could find evidence of the golden ratio all throughout nature: in the spiral of a nautilus shell or the round hearts of sunflowers and pine cones … but she had never seen it in someone’s home. Zofia blinked, scanning the room as if she’d never seen it until now. Everywhere she looked she saw examples of the golden ratio. In the entrances. The shape of windows. The equation was all over. Numbers were never accidental. There was intention here. But to what purpose, Zofia could not fathom. She moved closer to one of the arches, but a man in a mustard-colored suit blocked her.

“I envy the man who would be the recipient of such an intense gaze. I simply had to know what it might feel like, and so I came to introduce myself.”

Zofia quickly ran through what she’d observed other women do. When a man they had not been introduced to spoke to them, they offered their hand. So Zofia did. The man took her hand, lifting it to his lips.