The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(100)

34





ZOFIA


Zofia looked at the dresses covering her bed. It seemed as though someone had melted a rainbow atop her duvet—rich, nearly edible looking colors covered every inch of it. Laila was to blame.

Yesterday, Laila had left a trail of cookies leading from her laboratory to her bedroom. When she opened the door, she saw a wardrobe filled with gowns of pale lilac and dove gray, rich sable and gold-streaked chestnut.

“Voilà!” Laila had said, delivering a low bow.

“What?”

“Your new wardrobe! I stole your measurements a while ago and had these commissioned. You can even wear them underneath that butcher’s smock you call a uniform.”

Zofia had taken a couple steps forward, lightly stroking the silk. It was soft and cold beneath her hands. She liked silk far better than she liked other materials, which Laila had laughed at. Who would have thought the engineer would have the most expensive taste?

“Until when?” asked Zofia.

“What do you mean?”

She’d always had to return the gowns she wore for acquisitions. Zofia was used to this. Even in Glowno, she and Hela had only one fine gown to share between them.

“They’re yours,” said Laila. “For the keeping. And wearing. Which means you must actually wear them.”

Hers. Zofia let out a breath. The gowns were worth far more than her salary, and yet, with so many to choose from, she could even send one to Hela. The thought warmed Zofia’s face. What did she say to someone who had done something like this for her? “Thank you” was inadequate. She needed to parse apart the moments that had led her here. She glanced at the floor where a bitten cookie lay on a tray.

“You lured me here with a path of cookies.”

“Who said it was a path? It could have just been artfully strewn cookies. You made it a path by following it, and assuming it had any intention.”

“I—”

“I know.”

And that was all she needed to say.

Now, Zofia ran her hand across the dresses. She reached for a gown that Laila had described as “blue as the heavens.” Once she had clasped all the buttons, she evaluated her reflection. Her hair looked like a cloud of snow. Her eyes were blue. That was all she really noticed. Looking at her reflection for more than a minute at a time was excruciatingly boring. Zofia turned away to slip on the ivory gloves. She pinched her cheeks a couple times—the way she had seen Laila do—and then headed for the door, her heartbeat thundering in her chest.

She’d never done this before, and she wasn’t sure what to expect. All her life, she’d felt far too analyzed to willingly put herself in people’s line of sight. But maybe that could change. She had Laila and Enrique to thank for that. With them, she never felt as if every sentence was a labyrinth to navigate. Séverin was a little more difficult. He often said only half of what he meant to say, according to Laila. Hypnos, on the other hand, said all he meant to say, but Enrique had told her she was only to take half of it seriously, which made processing his sentences a bit of a chore. With them, she did not feel as if there was a part of her missing. It made her feel brave, to wander into this strange terrain as she did now where she was no different from anyone around her. That perhaps she was enough … that her company could be desired and sought out just like anyone else’s.

Ahead of her, the lights of the hotel’s hallway had dimmed. Down the grand staircase, she could hear the sounds of a violin and a pianoforte. The vaulted windows overhead revealed a clear night sky decorated with an immeasurable number of stars.

When she got to the end of the hall, Zofia stopped short. Enrique and Hypnos had not moved from their spot. Their eyes were locked on each other, heads bent low in conversation and then—just as suddenly—not in conversation.

Zofia could not move. Cold spread through her, swirling from the new, embroidered heels Laila had hid next to her work boots and climbing up her body and her new dress and her ivory gloves that had already rumpled and fallen past her elbows. She watched as Hypnos’s hand slipped around Enrique’s neck and he deepened the kiss. She was reminded of all that she could not detect. All that she could not do. She could storm into a room, but she could not command its attention through charm. She could face herself in the mirror, but she could not spark imaginations with her face.

Zofia stepped back. She should stay in the world she knew.

And not reach for one she did not.

Slowly, she turned on her heel, careful to tiptoe softly so that no one heard or saw her. In her room, she stripped off the blue dress and gloves. Then she put on her rubber gloves and donned her black smock.

She had work to do.





35





SéVERIN


Séverin hooked his walking stick around the carriage’s velvet curtains, scanning the damp streets. The Palais des Rêves stood in the distance, casting curves of amber light that feathered into the night like wings. If Laila were here, she would say the lights looked like a blessing of angel feathers. He grinned. If that were true, it was no blessing. It was a declaration. Only Paris would rip out seraph wings and string them onto its buildings as if to say one thing:

This was no place for angels.

He rapped the top of the hansom with his cane. “Arrêtez!”