The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(71)

The tips of Laila’s fingers buzzed numb. Cold touched their edges blue. It was too much, her body protested. But Laila couldn’t stop. Roux-Joubert’s words about Tristan haunted her.

His love and his fear and his own cracked mind made it easy to convince him that betraying you was saving you …

Cracked mind. It was true that some were more susceptible to the effects of mind affinity Forging than others, but Tristan …

Tristan hated Hypnos.

Tristan washed blood from his palms every time he dug his nails into his skin.

Tristan ached.

Guilt grabbed her by the throat.

All of yesterday had passed in a blur. The convoy. The switch. The guards in Tristan and Enrique’s disguise placed onto an infirmary bus, their clothes exchanged, and none the wiser. Then came the carriage ride home. Empty-handed and raw.

In the carriage, Séverin looked each of them in the eye as he spoke:

“This acquisition is not done. We’re going to get the Horus Eye back, and we’re going to do it before those three days are up. And when we do, we’ll rescue Tristan from this mess,” he said. “Our number one priority is finding out who Roux-Joubert is and where he’s hiding. We can’t save Tristan if we don’t know who has him.”

Laila had come here to look for clues of Roux-Joubert’s location or identity. But she had ended up trying to answer the question of Tristan. She read everything in his workshop, but found nothing. Nothing but what she had known the whole time. His laughter. His shyness. His curiosity. His love. For all of them. Séverin, especially.

Behind her, Laila heard the soft crunch of branches. She turned around sharply. Séverin had changed out of the guard uniform and into a dark suit. His hair was mussed, dark waves falling across his forehead. With the dawn rising around them, he looked like a stubborn vestige of night, and her breath caught.

“Well?”

He leaned against the threshold. But he did not enter.

“Nothing,” she said.

Laila looked at him closely. His jaw was clenched tight. The sweep of his shoulders brittle. She could not see his eyes, but she imagined they burned in that moment.

Laila crossed over to where he stood. He didn’t move. Didn’t change his position at all. She didn’t even realize what she was doing until she’d done it. She touched him … folding his hands between hers. She held tight even when a tremor ran through his fingers. As if his soul had flinched.

“I found nothing at all. Do you understand me?”

Look at me, she willed. Look at me.

He did.

Séverin’s violet eyes burned cold. In his gaze, she saw her guilt mirrored. What had they missed that let Roux-Joubert capture—and hurt—Tristan? What had they done wrong? They let each other stand like this, mutually clasped. Maybe it was just because it was still dark out, and the memory of this moment would dissolve with the sunlight. Or maybe it was because in that vast silence of uncertainty, they could feel each other’s pulse against their fingertips, and that cadence meant they could be many things, but not alone.

A second passed. Then two. There was relief in this second, in holding and being held, but then he let go. He always let go first.

Laila shoved her hands into the pockets of her guard disguise, her face burning.

Séverin nodded in the direction of L’Eden. “Hypnos is on his way.”

“Are you … are you going to tell him Roux-Joubert wants his Ring in exchange for Tristan?”

Séverin’s gaze went flat. “Are you asking whether I’m going to sell him out?”

Yes.

“No, of course not!” she said hurriedly. “You aren’t, right?”

He raised his eyebrow. “Do I look like a wolf to you, Laila?”

“That depends on the lighting.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. A ghost of a grin.

“I’m not planning to walk into a trap,” he said. “I am, however, planning to set one.”



* * *



IN THE STARGAZING room, Hypnos sat utterly frozen in his chair.

He looked at each of them in turn. His hands were flat against the tops of his thighs. Pity twisted through her. Though Hypnos was the tallest out of all of them, he looked like a child. His shoulders caved. He had worn that same bemused expression ever since they told him what happened to the Horus Eye. But that hadn’t shocked him nearly as much as Séverin admitting that Roux-Joubert had proposed an exchange. Hypnos’s Babel Ring, for Tristan.

Hypnos laced his hands tight. “So. Am I to understand that you brought me here to inform me you’re going to turn over my Babel Ring to Roux-Joubert because you prefer to stab me in the front versus the back?”

Zofia tilted her to head to one side. “Does that make a difference?”

Laila winced. Hypnos looked horrified and then … hurt.

“Why are you telling me this?” he demanded.

Séverin leaned forward in his chair. “I’m telling you this to gauge whether or not you would be interested in being bait.”

Hypnos regarded them, his expression curiously blank. “You … you aren’t going to give me to him?”

“And end up with two Rings gone? No.”

Hypnos rose to his feet slowly. “But the easier option is to protect yourselves.”