The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(64)

“Chin up!” called Zofia.

“This really isn’t the time for tired motivational phrases!”

“Enrique. There’s writing up there.”

Enrique looked up. On their way down the steps, he hadn’t noticed anything above them but roots dangling from the ceiling. With the light from the fireball, he could see more of it, and there was a pattern hacked into the roots … a precise arrangement of letters. The rock he stood on spun faster, and Enrique had to pivot on his heels, trying to suss out the words—

E? Mut? Surg?

He squinted.

He looked back at Zofia, thinking she might be able to help, but she was sitting cross-legged on the rock, as comfortable as if she were inside L’Eden’s stargazing room. Her gaze was unfocused as she looked around her, her fingers slowly tracing a spiral in the air. Ahead, Laila was getting close to the pedestal.

Enrique’s rock moved faster, spinning around the room as it drew ever closer to the pedestal. He craned his neck up, catching the letters as fast as he could, until he saw them fully.

EADEM MUTATA RESURGO



“What does it say?” called Zofia.

The language was Latin. And the phrase somewhat familiar, though he could not tell where he had heard it …

“It means … although changed, I arise the same.”

“Zofia! Enrique!” shouted Laila. She waved her hands, pointing at the pedestal. “There’s thirteen levers with numbers on them! They seem attached to some kind of … dial? I think? I … I can’t see it anymore, but you’re going to be coming up on it soon!”

Levers.

That was a somewhat heartening fact because it meant it could be controlled.

“If the levers have dials, what if that means there’s a numerical pattern here?” asked Zofia.

“Like a key,” said Enrique, nodding.

If they put the right numbers into the levers, the fireball should stop and the atrium would right itself.

“Although changed, I arise the same,” he whispered to himself before risking a glance at the ball of fire. It had doubled in size and now resembled a flaming carriage that would hit them within minutes.

Zofia dragged her finger through the dirt as she sketched something.

“Think, think,” muttered Enrique, stamping his feet.

He’d noticed the layout of House Kore’s gardens … the pieces of sacred geometry hanging from the trees, even the great spiral on the marble floor of its entrance room. But it didn’t help him with the pattern. Arising out of the same thing? But remaining the same? Did it mean something that built upon itself—

“A spiral,” said Zofia.

“What?”

“We’re moving in a spiral.”

He blinked. “Obviously, Zofia—”

“But we’re moving in a specific spiral,” she continued. “It matches the pattern of House Kore’s floor. And the spiral fits with the riddle! Although changed, I arise the same. It’s a logarithmic spiral. That means the angle between the tangent and the radius vector is going to be the same throughout all points of the spiral—”

His head was spinning, and not just because his square of floor seemed to be moving faster.

“But it would have to be something repeating,” said Zofia, talking fast now. “Something that has ancient roots too. A sequence of some kind—”

Enrique followed the spiral. Even the tremor in the ground seemed to move to a particular rhythm. Rhythm that might have been found in nature, or poetry. They were closing in on the levers now. He could see the jutting pedesetal.

Up ahead, Laila was crouched on a slab of stone, her body angled toward the pedestal with the thirteen levers.

“Don’t jump!” called Zofia.

Just then, the rocks lurched.

Laila teetered. Her rock tipped, canting sharply to one side. She rolled down the slab, just narrowly catching onto the edges. Her feet dangled over the icy river. A livid tremor ran through the atrium, as more light splashed onto the cave walls. The fireball picked up speed, and with it … momentum. From where Enrique stood, the fireball verged on leaving the tunnel behind and pummeling straight through the atrium.

“I’m fine!” called Laila, heaving herself onto the slab.

But her rock had been dragged into the churn of the spiral … and if they couldn’t stop the fireball in time, it would roll into the atrium, and Laila would be caught directly in its path.

“The riddles are a pattern; the pattern is a key,” murmured Enrique aloud. Every breath he sucked into his lungs felt stolen. The room grew hotter, and sweat ran down his back. “Thirteen levers. A riddle. A key. Moving floor.”

Slowly, an image shifted together in his head. There was only one historical sequence he could think of that fit the pattern.

“The Fibonacci sequence,” he said, his head pounding.

Enrique only remembered the sequence because he had tried to impress a lovely Italian girl in his linguistics class. Her fiancé had not been amused, but he hadn’t forgotten the numbers …

“Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one—” said Zofia rapidly. “Each number is formed by adding the two previous numbers. It fits the logarithm riddle.”

The pedestal swam into view, thirteen ancient levers and just enough space for two people to stand.