The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(27)

Séverin pinched the bridge of his nose.

Get the hell out of my head.

To one side of his desk lay the blueprints of House Kore’s palatial layout. To the other side lay Zofia’s mock-up of a Sphinx mask. But then he heard a name called out in the corridor: “L’énigme!”

Oh no, thought Séverin.

“Leave us,” said an imperious voice.

Us?

Séverin pushed back his chair, ready to cross the room and lock the door when Laila—not that anyone recognized her at the moment—entered. Séverin had never seen her as L’énigme. He never went to the cabaret. But he knew the rumors of her effect on the audience. Looking at her now, the rumors were a shadow to the reality. With her peacock headdress and mask, L’énigme looked more myth than girl. Jewel-toned plumes swept down her back. Pale silk clung to her legs, Forged to billow as if an unseen wind was her constant companion. Her blouse was little more than a corset of pearls.

Laila took a couple steps forward, pausing long enough to let the growing crowd outside the hall see her hand slide up his arm.

“I wanted to surprise you,” she said silkily. Then she turned to face the open door and the growing crowd of curious faces. “Are we to have an audience?”

Someone pulled the door shut.

The moment the door closed, Séverin stepped out of her reach. He glanced at the closed door. Behind it, gossip had probably infested the halls.

“What?”

He didn’t trust himself to speak more than that.

“You asked me to get you on the guest list. Voilà.”

Laila draped herself in one of the study chairs, then took off the headdress. At her touch, the Forged peacock plumes shrank into a green, silk choker with a resin pendant. Laila pulled her hair to one side as she fiddled with the clasp of her necklace.

“It keeps coming undone,” she said, frowning. “I think Enrique clasped it wrong. Help me?”

Every line of her body seemed relaxed. Their fight had passed. It wasn’t their first clash, and it wouldn’t be their last, and so neither of them bothered to apologize. Séverin moved behind her.

“Explain how that display gets me on the guest list?” he asked, taking the clasp in hand.

“All courtesans are allowed to invite a lover to stay in their private chambers during a performance,” she said. “Tonight, that man is you.” His fingers slipped, and Laila tensed.

“I haven’t forgotten the promise we made,” she said lightly.

A year and a half ago, he’d told her, “We can’t do this again.”

And she’d replied, “I know.”

He had a House to reclaim, a whole future to lift out of the dark. He’d had girls in his bed before, but nothing like that night. Nothing that made him, for a moment, forget who he was. Who he was supposed to be.

No fancy was worth his future.

Since then, neither of them had mentioned the promise they’d struck. Both of them pretended that it never happened, and they’d succeeded. They could work together. They could be friends. They could move on.

“This is just a planted rumor,” said Laila quickly. “I’ll be sure to appear with someone else the next night and thus free you of any association.”

He didn’t like how his thoughts snagged on the word “tonight.”

As he finished clasping her necklace, his thumb brushed against the nape of her neck. Laila shivered, leaning forward. The top of the long scar next to her spine peeked out over the collar.

“Your hands are frigid,” she said, scowling. “What kind of lover has cold hands?”

“One who makes up for temperature with talent.”

He meant it jokingly, but his voice came out too rough. Laila turned in her seat. Unthinkingly, his eyes went to her mouth. She’d gotten ready in a hurry. A faint dust of white caught the edge of her red lip. Sugar dust. Had she been baking when time got away from her? Or was it on purpose? An invitation for someone else to taste?

A burst of red light on his desk made them jump apart.

Laila startled, then winced. Her hand was stuck to the edge of the desk.

“I must have touched it by accident.”

Séverin’s desk was Forged to answer only to his handprint. If anyone else touched it while it was activated, they would be stuck. He walked over, pressing his palm to the jade table. The red glow subsided, and Laila snatched back her hand. Séverin didn’t know what to say. The air was so full of her there was barely enough to draw into his lungs.

“The words you’re looking for, Majnun, are ‘thank you,’” said Laila, rising out of the chair.

And then she headed to the door. Right before Laila reached for the handle, she touched her choker. Her Forged headdress unraveled, twining sinuously across her face and stealing whatever expression had flickered there. Once more, Séverin sat at his desk.

The words you’re looking for, Majnun, are “thank you.”

Laila was almost always right, a fact that he would not admit to her even on pain of death.

But today she was wrong.





8





LAILA


Laila was beginning to panic.

First, she had less than two hours before her performance at the Palais des Rêves. Second, she hadn’t picked up her new gown at the couturier, and there was bound to be a line for her favorite tailor. Third, she could not find her Forged choker anywhere, and she refused to leave without it. The necklace held her peacock headdress, and if she didn’t wear it, someone might recognize her.