The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(86)

“Someone might recognize me. And if they do, then dressing with subtlety would only attract more attention—it’s that unusual. Besides, I’m wearing all my accoutrements of good luck.” Hypnos lifted the inside of his lapel, revealing massive brooches made of cut jewels. “A good deal of my inheritance if I’m being honest—”

“You look like an insect!”

Hypnos fluttered his hand to his chest. “How rude! Zofia, am I an insect?”

Zofia shook her head.

“Thank you—”

“You don’t have the characteristics necessary to be an insect,” she said. “You would need two pairs of wings, a body segmented into three parts, and six legs to be an insect.”

She had learned that from Tristan.

Enrique burst into laughter.

When the clock struck ten, the three of them piled into a carriage. The drive to the Exposition Universelle was short, and when they stepped out, the crowd had formed a thick press along the Champs-de-Mars. Lightbulbs flashed up and down the Eiffel Tower, and fireworks spangled the night sky. Zofia pushed through the crowd, feeling that edge of panic rising in her lungs. People hemmed her in on all sides. She couldn’t even see the road, and they had hardly taken five steps—

“Make way!” shouted Hypnos, prodding at people with his walking stick.

Enrique looked horrified. He shaded his face with his hand. And then, Hypnos sighed.

“Be that way.” He unscrewed the top of his walking stick. “Cover your mouth and nose, my dears.”

Zofia did not see anything, but she felt a fine mist against her skin. One by one, people’s noses wrinkled, and they took a step away from Hypnos, clearing a path down to the exhibition. When they had gotten through to the other side, Hypnos stoppered the stick and smiled.

“I hired a Forging artist with mind affinity to make a people repellent. Sadly, it doesn’t last longer than a minute, but it makes for a delightfully useful walking stick.”

Enrique looked envious. “Well, my walking stick emits a bright light.”

Zofia felt a flare of pride. She had designed that stick.

Hypnos lifted his chin. “Mine can…”

Zofia ignored them. She had no interest in listening to two boys compare their sticks.

Past the streets teeming with vendors hawking souvenirs and cafés boasting exotic offerings loomed the glass and metal archway of the Galerie des Machines, a testament to the inventions that would usher them into the new century. And right beside it, the Exhibition on Colonial Superstitions. Earlier, Hypnos had planted House Nyx guards at the exhibit, and when the guards saw them, they stepped aside and granted them entry. The place was empty at this time of night, with most of the tourists having abandoned the exhibits to see the fireworks shooting off the sides of the Eiffel Tower.

As before, neat rows of illuminated podiums striped the floor. On each of the podiums were written descriptions of the Forged object on display and the country of its origin. Zofia reached for the mnemo bug in her reticule.

The wall concealing the hidden Tezcat door towered above Zofia. At barely four feet eleven inches she was not unaccustomed to feeling small, but it was what stood on the other side of the Tezcat that shrank her. She had beheld the secrets hidden in the bone clock. The ossified auditorium covered in what looked like a gigantic logarithmic spiral. Bones pressed into the walls.

On most acquisitions, she was off to the side or hiding in their final meeting location and running interference as needed. Never at the forefront. Never the one controlling the aspects. Zofia swallowed hard against that lump of misgiving. Things changed. Tristan needed her. She would not fail him.

The silver cloth that had taken hours to Forge slid from her hands to the floor. Zofia gathered herself, looking at her sleeves and counting the neat, embroidered stitches until a pleasant hum ensnared her thoughts. At the two ends of the wall crouched Hypnos and Enrique.

Zofia pretended to look at one of the objects on the podium. And then, under her breath, she muttered a single word: “Go.”

Hypnos and Enrique reached for the opposite ends of the silver cloth, now adhered to the length of the entire stone wall. The cloth itself was invulnerable to matter, but it could still be torn from a wall, and so she’d lined the fabric with Forged adhesive. Even if someone were to come in after they left, they wouldn’t be able to take it down from this side of the wall.

As one, they clicked their heels together. The Forged stilts concealed in their shoes unclasped, shooting them straight into the air. The silver cloth stretched out from the ground, like a waterfall pouring upward until it covered the entire wall.

That done, Zofia reached for the mnemo bug. She rubbed the small button on the right wing. Every time her skin brushed against it, she felt a buzzing trill zip through her veins. Though the mechanics of the bug required an affinity for matter, its internal mechanism used affinity of the mind. The object was linked to how her brain processed an image, and with that image, it could then project the “mind’s eye” into hologram form.

“What shall I do, pretty?” asked Hypnos. “Sing? Dance?”

“Why do I have to be in the view of the mnemo bug?” asked Enrique. “Can’t I just be off to the side?”

“What would Séverin do?”

“Probably glower attractively and stare into space.”