The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(41)

A knock at his door jolted him from his thoughts. He straightened in his chair. “Come in.”

At first, all Séverin’s mind registered was raven hair. Something caught in his chest. A hundred memories just like this. Laila entering his study unannounced every single week, sugar sparkling in her hair. In her hand, a new dessert she simply couldn’t wait for someone to try.

“Um, hello?”

Enrique stood inside his office, carrying a piece of paper and looking very bewildered.

Séverin shook himself. He needed more sleep. He glanced at Enrique, noting the dark circles beneath his eyes, his usually impeccable black hair twisted into horns. Sleeplessness frayed at all of them.

“What’ve you got there?”

“Well, considering the way you were looking at me, I feel like I should be holding the secret to world domination. Sadly, I am not.” Then Enrique grinned widely. “Out of curiosity … who did you think I was?”

Séverin rolled his eyes. “No one.”

“Didn’t look like no one to me.”

“Enrique. What’ve you got for me?”

Enrique collapsed into the chair across from him and slid a piece of paper scrawled in sloppy notes across his desk. “You asked for a report on honeybee imagery, but there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here for me to tell you. Same as I told you before. They appear across a cultural spectrum of mythology, most often as portents of prophecy given the ancients’ understanding of their honey, or as psychopomps, creatures capable of spiriting the dead from one world to the next. In terms of how it relates to France, all I could find is that Napoleon Bonaparte used them as part of his emblem, perhaps trying to make himself seem more aligned with the ancient Franco kings, the Merovingians.”

Séverin reached for his tin of cloves. “That’s all?”

“That’s all,” said Enrique. “And it’s not like we can go back and take a look at the area of the Exposition where we were attacked either. It’s crawling with police officers. And while I’m not saying we don’t have someone on our tail, I am saying the man’s necklace and pendant was just a honeybee ornament. Maybe he had someone in his family who once worked for Bonaparte.”

“Maybe.”

Enrique eyed him. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Séverin waved his hand. “No, no. Thank you for this. Just keep digging up what you can find.”

Enrique nodded, then pushed back his chair. As he stood, his gaze fell to an object on Séverin’s desk. The bone clock that had allegedly belonged to the Fallen House.

“Is that new?” asked Enrique.

“Old.”

“The markings on it are … distinct. Though why someone would choose to twist perfectly good gold into the shape of human bones is rather macabre. And is that a pattern of a six-pointed star? It almost looks as if—”

“It is.”

Enrique’s eyes widened. “It’s a relic of the Fallen House? Why do you have it?”

“It serves as a reminder.”

Enrique shifted on his feet. “You don’t … I mean … You’re not planning to—”

“The last thing I want is to emulate the Fallen House,” said Séverin. “I’m only looking for the Horus Eye. I have no intention of trying to unite every Babel Fragment and build my way to the heavens or whatever it was the Fallen House intended to do with them.”

“I wonder why they did it,” said Enrique quietly, fixated on the bone clock.

“I believe they thought it was their sacred duty. Though, how they went about doing so led to some nasty murders, or so I’m told. Who knows. Who cares. The Fallen House fell. This bone clock is a reminder of that.”

“You have such cheerful taste, Séverin.”

“I try.”

Enrique stared at the clock longingly. He always got that look whenever there was an object he desperately wanted to analyze. Séverin sighed.

“After this acquisition, you may inspect it—”

“Mine! Huzzah! I win!” Enrique gave a little wriggle of joy, straightened his jacket, and then collected himself. “Meet you upstairs?”

“Yes. Get everyone ready. I want to run through the layout of Chateau de la Lune. Hypnos will be here too, with the invitations and new identities.”

Spots of color touched the top of Enrique’s cheeks.

“He’s been coming around a lot, hasn’t he?” Then, as if to explain it himself, he added, “I mean, I guess he has to.”

The patriarch of House Nyx had been over quite a lot, though always undercover. The Order wouldn’t take kindly to them socializing even though the second he came of age, they’d deemed Séverin forever beneath their notice. It made Séverin suspicious. As much as he wished that everyone found Hypnos’s company repulsive … they didn’t. Well, most didn’t. Tristan refused to speak to him. Someone had even played a prank on him by hiding his shoes, though no one confessed to it. Hypnos hadn’t been mad at all. Instead, he’d clapped excitedly. Ah! A prank! Is this what friends do?

It was not.

Though Hypnos refused to be swayed.

“I think L’Eden’s cuisine is the most deciding factor.”