The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(75)

ZOFIA


Zofia could not concentrate. Every time she blinked, she heard Roux-Joubert’s words echoed back to her: “I do love an idiot girl.”

Idiot.

It was just a word. It had no weight, no atomic number, no chemical structure with which it could bind to and thus make it real. But it hurt. Zofia squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the black table in her laboratory so hard her knuckles turned white. She felt the word like a slap to the face. In Glowno, she had once asked a theoretical question about physics. Her teacher told her, “You’d have better luck setting your desk on fire and seeing if the answer appears in the smoke.”

And so Zofia did.

She was ten years old.

When she came to the école des Beaux-Arts, it was much the same. She was too curious, too Jewish, too strange. To the point where no one had pushed back at the idea of locking her in the school laboratory.

But not once had anyone been hurt by how she thought. Or rather, how she didn’t think.

But Tristan? Slumped over in a chair, knives floating at his throat … she had done that to him. Tears stung Zofia’s eyes. She could work her way through mathematical riddles as if it were walking down a street. But a conversation was a labyrinth. And in her effort to navigate it, she had led Roux-Joubert right to their hiding spot in the greenhouse.

Something was wrong with her.

“Zofia?”

She looked up, blinking rapidly. Séverin was standing in the doorway. A silver cloth dangled from his hand.

“May I come in?”

She nodded. This was it. He was going to tell her to leave. That she wasn’t welcome here anymore after what she did. But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he slid the silver cloth across the black table. Zofia recognized it as the piece that he’d stolen from the library of House Kore. She touched it gently. It felt like cold silk, and it had the strangest heft to it, as if it were pushing back against her hand.

“We have two more days before we have to meet Roux-Joubert in the Forging exhibition with Hypnos’s Ring.”

“You’re giving him the Ring?” she asked.

“I’m showing it to him.”

Zofia frowned. “What’s the difference—”

“Let me worry about that,” said Séverin. “I’ve got the others working on figuring out where the Fallen House headquarters are. But I can promise you that we won’t let them take the Ring. And we won’t let them take Tristan.”

Zofia’s shoulders fell. Everyone else was working on something. Except her.

“But I saved an important job for you,” he said softly.

Zofia stilled. “You did?”

“You’re the only phoenix I’ve got,” he said with a small smile. “Roux-Joubert couldn’t see that. Which is rather advantageous, wouldn’t you agree? He may not know now. But he will soon.”

Zofia’s hand curled into a fist. She felt as if fire had shot through her belly. He will. This must be what vengeance felt like. It made her … hungry.

“What do you need me to do?”

Séverin pointed to the silver cloth. “Can you figure out how this works? I think it could be useful.”

“Yes,” said Zofia breathlessly. “I can.”

The moment she reached for the silver cloth, the rest of the world disappeared. Someone could have set her laboratory on fire, and she wouldn’t have noticed. The moment she gave herself to her work, she gave all of herself. A new cadence seemed to buzz through her blood: She was no idiot; she would bring Tristan home; she would make this right.

It was nearly nighttime when Zofia looked up from her work to hear another knock at her door. Laila walked in carrying a platter of food, a steaming mug of tea, and a single round cookie.

“You haven’t eaten all day.”

Zofia’s stomach grumbled loudly at the sight of food. She patted it absentmindedly. She hadn’t noticed.

Laila placed the platter onto her worktable. “Eat.”

Zofia felt itchy just looking at the worktable now. The corner of the platter hung off the edge. It wasn’t even. And now it looked messy.

“I will take away the platter and put it somewhere else when I see you take five bites. And don’t scowl at me.”

Zofia dutifully shoved five bites of food in her mouth.

Laila pointed with her chin to the teacup. “Drink.”

Zofia drank the tea.

Only then did Laila remove the platter, place it off to the side of a different counter, and position it just so, with none of the corners hanging off the edges and arranged perpendicular to the wall.

“Any progress?”

Zofia eyed the silver cloth on the table. She was beginning to think that for what Séverin had asked of her, she might not be able to do this entirely inside L’Eden.

“It works like a Tezcat door,” said Zofia. “The actual filaments of it are made of obsidian.”

Laila tilted her head to one side. “Is that why it looks like a mirror?”

Zofia nodded. “But it does more than that.” Zofia rummaged through her toolbox and pulled out a sharp knife.

“Um, Zofia—”

Zofia plunged the knife into the cloth. The cloth didn’t tear. Instead, it bent, as if absorbing the impact of the blade.