The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(70)
The others thought she was looking for the means to return home, her arms loaded with treasure. But Séverin knew what she sought. He knew that Paris was merely a stop along the way, and the thought folded his joy in half even as it steeled his resolve. If he let her, she could lay waste to his heart. What a foolish thought. She was Laila. The famous L’énigme. Who was to say she’d even have him again?
“What about Tristan?” mused Enrique. “What’s he going to do?”
Zofia lifted her spear. “Build an army of spiders.”
Everyone laughed, even Séverin, but his cheer had an edge to it now. At the top of the staircase, he pushed open the door.
“Tristan?” called Laila.
“We got attacked by a hippo!” shouted Enrique.
Séverin didn’t move. He swept his gaze across the greenhouse. Something was wrong. Heavy fumes and veils shadowed the ground, moving slowly across the acid-scorched dirt. A black sheen caught Séverin’s eye. Mist rolled out of the way. A faint ringing built up in his ears. The sound of fear howling in the mind.
“Tristan,” he said softly.
Now the mist disappeared entirely, revealing a small garden chair dragged in the middle of the room. Atop it, his head lolled to one side, sat Tristan. And on his head, a contraption that haunted Séverin’s every nightmare. A pale metal diadem, blue light snapping back and forth. A Phobus Helmet. The words of Wrath flared through his head.
Your imagination hurts you far worse than anything I could ever do.
Under enough pressure, the mind might even … crack.
Séverin tried to run to him, but Forged knives materialized in the air, a blade grazing his throat. A second later, the Horus Eye was torn from his hand.
“Thank you, dear boy,” said a weak voice.
Séverin slowly turned his head to the side. Roux-Joubert stood before him, thin and quivering. He dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief flecked with blood. A honeybee pin gleamed unmistakably on his lapel.
“Though really, I should be thanking your friend here,” he said. He tapped the side of his own temple. “His love and his fear and his own cracked mind made it easy to convince him that betraying you was saving you. Though he did have some help from the lovely baroness. It was her very hands that led me to you.”
Zofia slowly lifted her hands, horror clear on her face. Roux-Joubert must have slipped something on her … but how?
Roux-Joubert bowed. “Thank you, Mademoiselle, for being such a willing participant. I do love an idiot girl.”
From behind the garden chair, the Forged knives drifted toward Tristan’s neck.
“Stop!” shouted Séverin.
“You don’t wish to put him out of his misery?” asked Roux-Joubert mildly. “I must admit I was not always as, well, kind as I might have been. But if you wish him alive, then let us make a deal, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie. According to Tristan, you are in contact with Hypnos, the patriarch of House Nyx.”
Séverin said nothing.
“I take your silence as agreement,” he said, with a terrible smile. “In three days’ time, you will meet me and my associate inside the Exhibition on Colonial Superstitions at midnight. At that time, you will bring me the Babel Ring of House Nyx. I already have House Kore’s, but now I desire the matched set … Do we have an agreement?”
Tristan shook violently in the chair. His eyes were shut tight. One of the knives started to rotate, its point brushing the topmost button of his shirt—
“Yes,” said Séverin, breathless. “Yes, I agree.”
The knife halted.
Beside him, Laila trembled with rage. “You’ll never find the Babel Fragment—”
“Find it?” Roux-Joubert laughed. “Oh, my dear. I already know where it is.” He paused to cough into his blood-flecked handkerchief. “Three days, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie. Three days to give me the Ring. Or I will burn down your world and everything that you love with it.”
Roux-Joubert checked his watch.
“You made a very detailed schedule, Monsieur. Best to be on that guard convoy now. I wouldn’t want you to miss your ride home,” he said, waving the stolen Horus Eye in his hand. “Not when you have so much to do.”
“I—”
“—will find me?” guessed Roux-Joubert, laughing softly. “No, you won’t. We have been hiding for ages, and none have found us yet. When the time comes, we’ll make ourselves known. After all, this is the start of a revolution.”
PART IV
From the archival records of the Order of Babel The Origins of Empire Mistress Marie Ludwig Victor, House Frigg of the Order’s Prussian faction 1828, reign of Frederick Wilhelm IV
In olden times, there was some debate as to whether the Babel Fragments were separate and distinct artifacts, or whether they were once part of something greater … something that was then hewn apart and flung across the soils of different kingdoms.
It is my belief that if they fell from the heavens separately, they were never meant to be joined.
God always has His reasons.
20
LAILA
Laila stood in the Seven Sins Garden.
Tristan’s workshop deep within Envy looked as it always had. There was his old trowel, the wood gone dark and sculpted by the pressure of his fingers. An unfinished terrarium holding a single golden flower. The ruler Zofia had made him because he didn’t like uneven spaces between his plants. The packet of seeds from the Philippines, a gift from Enrique that Tristan was planning to plant in summer. A plate from the kitchens where a thin film of mold grew over a cookie. He must have stolen it when she wasn’t looking, gotten distracted, and forgotten all about it.