The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(72)

“I’m confused. Do you want me to?”

“Of course not, mon cher! I just want to make sure I understand what’s going on here.”

Laila frowned. Why did Hypnos seem so delighted? She knew he wasn’t happy about Tristan being captured. His whole face had crumpled with sorrow when he heard the news. She’d even read his jacket to be absolutely certain, but the objects didn’t lie. Hypnos had nothing to do with Tristan’s imprisonment.

“What’s going on here is that I need you to play bait,” said Séverin, enunciating his words carefully.

Pure, unfettered relief spread across Hypnos’s face.

“What’s going on here”—said Hypnos, his voice rising as a bizarre grin spread across his face, —“is that you care for me. We’re all friends. We’re friends going to save another friend! This is … this is amazing.”

Laila wanted to hug him.

“I never said that,” said Séverin, alarmed.

“Actions have a better voice than words.”

Enrique, who had been assembling the last bits of a projection, looked up and shook his head.

“It’s actions speak louder than words.”

“Whatever. I like my version better. Now. Let’s discuss this friend bait business.”

“Bait business,” Séverin corrected under his breath. He reached for his tins of cloves. “Before we plan anything, we need to know who it is we’re dealing with. And you need to start telling the truth.”

Hypnos blinked. “… Truth?”

Séverin’s tin of cloves shut with a decided snap.

“Roux-Joubert not only admitted to stealing the matriarch of House Kore’s Ring, but also said that he already knows where the West’s Babel Fragment is hidden, so then what’s the point of the Horus Eye? What else might it do if not to see a Babel Fragment?”

“How do we know he’s not lying?” asked Enrique.

Laila knew he wasn’t. Roux-Joubert had thrown his handkerchief into the dirt when he left. Lies always left a slimy film to her readings, as she measured up what the object had seen and what the person had said whilst holding it. But there was none of that to the handkerchief.

“Instinct,” said Séverin glibly, but his eyes cut to hers for confirmation. “Besides, I know Hypnos is lying. Even in the library when the Horus Eye came up, his gaze shifted. So, tell us the truth, friend.”

Hypnos sighed. “Fine. I wasn’t particularly forthcoming, but that’s not my fault … It was a secret my father told me not long before he died. He never told me what, exactly, the Horus Eye did, but he said that should House Kore’s Ring ever be taken, I must find the Horus Eye and keep it safe. He said the Eye had an effect on the Fragment.”

“As in … it reveals a Fragment’s location?”

“I’m not sure.”

“He never said what kind of effect?”

Hypnos swallowed hard. “He never had the chance.”

“Then why did you want the compass in the auction?” asked Enrique.

“My father had been after it,” said Hypnos tightly. “He said he didn’t want even rumors of the Eye’s ability getting in the wrong hands.”

“Did House Kore know what the Horus Eye could do?”

“Not quite,” Hypnos admitted. “My father told me House Kore was under the impression that looking through the Horus Eye would reveal all somnos in weaponry, and that’s why they were destroyed during Napoleon’s campaign.”

“What about the Order? Do they know?” asked Enrique.

“No,” said Hypnos, a touch smugly. “The secret was only with the French faction and as far as I understood, only House Nyx.”

“What does Roux-Joubert want with the Horus Eye then, if he knows where the West’s Fragment lies?” asked Laila. “Not to mention that he has House Kore’s Babel Ring and now wants yours too.”

Hypnos worried his lower lip between his teeth and then looked up at them. He held up his hand, and his Babel Ring, a simple crescent moon with a pale blue sheen, briefly flared with light.

“My Ring does not just guard the location of the Babel Fragment … it is said to have another capacity, though I confess I’m not sure how it works…”

“What?”

“It, well, it supposedly awakens the West’s Babel Fragment itself.”

“Awakens?” repeated Laila slowly. “What, so a Babel Fragment is something slumbering beneath the ground? I thought it was a rock.”

“That’s what most people think, but the truth is no one knows what it looks like.” Hypnos shrugged. “It’s also why every hundred years, the knowledge of the Fragment’s location changes, moving to another group of Houses within the West. The Order uses a special mind-affinity tool where those who know the knowledge forget it instantly after one hundred years. They even use it upon themselves. It’s not supposed to be beheld.”

All of them fell silent, and then Enrique spoke. “But you don’t know if awakening the West’s Fragment requires, say, both Babel Rings or just one?’

Hypnos shook his head. “The Order has never specified. Sometimes the stories say it’s three Rings. Sometimes it takes just one. Who can say? The Babel Fragments haven’t been disturbed in thousands of years. No one would dare.”