The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(61)

“Ah!” The matriarch clapped her hands. “You have a fine eye, Baroness. My late husband imbued everything in our home with meaning. Though it is a shame I could not keep the grounds beyond the greenhouse open … that is truly a sight.”

Zofia felt the barest stab of guilt. It was her fault, after all, that the greenhouse couldn’t be accessed.

“A shame,” Zofia agreed.

“More so for my landscape artist and his colleague, though,” whispered the matriarch. “Pity what happened to them.”

The ebony doors opened. Damp fog rolled in through the entrance, sitting low on the hematite river. Zofia knew she was supposed to move, but she couldn’t. One of the matriarch’s servants leaned in to whisper something in her ear. Zofia felt all the air stolen from her lungs.

She gulped down a breath, the stays of her corset straining. “What?”

The next person in the greeting line tapped their foot. The din of the music played louder. A servant appeared at her elbow.

“What did you say about the landscape artist and his colleague?”

Applause thundered through the hall, drowning out her words. Fire-breathing acrobats had just appeared, leaping down from the ceiling like bolts of lightning. Sulfur stung the air.

“I do hope to see you at the Winter Conclave in Russia!” called the matriarch over the din.

The person behind Zofia kicked at her ankles, and she tripped forward just as the servant took her—rather forcefully—by the elbow. A gift favor was placed in her hand. The matriarch turned to the next person in line.

It happened so fast.

The doors opening, then closing. The boat rising up to meet her and gliding over the silent, Forged water. There was no one else in the boat with her.

Pity what happened to them.

She felt as though someone had grabbed her thoughts in a fist and squeezed. What happened to Enrique and Tristan?

From the dock, Zofia walked past the verit stone structure and handed in her invitation. The guards bid her a good evening. She waited for a moment before Séverin’s marked transport drove up to where she stood.

“Straight for two kilometers, stop at the second row of sycamores,” she said to the driver.

Whatever had happened to Enrique and Tristan, she would find out soon enough.

Night blurred outside the carriage window as the driver took strange twists and turns about the property, driving them through secure roads with no other transports in sight. Zofia thought about the matriarch’s last words and about the others until the carriage slowed to a stop.

“Clear on all sides,” said the driver. “Go now.”

Zofia stepped out of the carriage. According to the stolen House Kore blueprints, there was an old Tezcat door situated between two unmarked trees that would grant her access directly to the estate gardens.

As with any Tezcat door, Zofia assumed she’d be looking for an object that looked like a mirror. But when she walked to the trees, there was nothing there. Just two sycamores side by side, and all around, the ever-hungry dark. Zofia turned around. The road stretched out on either side. Beyond it loomed a shadowed meadow. She was entirely alone with no path in sight. Maybe it was too dark, she thought. Zofia reached for a particular pendant on her necklace. Phosphorous was one of the only materials that could reveal a Tezcat. She snapped the phosphorous pendant between her fingers, and it emitted a pale, blue light. Zofia looked up, blinded by the sudden radiance.

A shadowy figure was standing inches from her.

A scream caught in her throat. She stumbled backward, reaching for the pendants at her necklace, when she noticed the shadowy figure before her did the same. Zofia went still. Slowly, her eyes adjusted. The light in her hand was not alone. It was twinned by the light in front of her, held in the hands of the shadowy figure.

Zofia was looking at her reflection.

She was looking at herself.

Fascinating, thought Zofia. The technology of how to make a Tezcat door that did not look like a mirror had been lost when the Fallen House had, well, fallen. But now she was looking at proof of what they had been capable of making … not just pieces which could camouflage doors, but actual portals that pinched together the distance between one place and another.

Zofia reached forward, her fingertips trembling. At her touch, the Tezcat door yielded, bending and absorbing her hand. On the other side, she could feel the same air, the brush of ivy on her skin. Zofia dropped the phosphorous pendant on the ground, crushing it beneath her heel.

On the other side, Zofia found herself in the gardens. Without any guests, the gardens looked eerie. The music of the instruments sounded haunted and lopsided. Broken glasses littered the ground. Gold peeled off the tree bark. Just beyond the trees, Zofia could make out the abandoned greenhouse. A noxious smell rose over the place, and her heart shuddered. Zofia double-checked for any guards, but Séverin’s predictions held true: They’d been stationed to the garden perimeters in the event of inhaling any toxic fumes.

And then, a hand on her shoulder.

Zofia jumped.

“Shh, it’s just me.”

Laila.

Zofia turned to face her and then frowned. “What happened to your costume?”

She was wearing half a blouse and a skirt that sat too low on her hips. It looked far more comfortable than what the other women were wearing.

Laila laughed. “This is my costume.”