The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(82)

Enrique didn’t know who spoke first, but the truth of the words brushed against his skin, raising the hairs along the back of his neck.

“The Fallen House is waiting for us in the catacombs.”





23





SéVERIN


Séverin’s sixth father was a man he called Greed. Greed was a pretty thief with a petty trust fund, and often resorted to stealing. Greed liked to keep Séverin as a lookout while he ran his “errands.” On one such occasion, Greed broke into the home of a rich widow. He cleared out the curio cabinet, which was full of precious porcelain pieces and elaborate glasswork, but then he saw that atop the cabinet was a clock made of jade. Séverin had been standing outside, watching the street. When he heard the steady clip of horse hooves, he whistled, but Greed shushed him. He reached for the clock, only for the ladder beneath him to crash. The heavy clock fell on his head and killed him instantly.

Greed taught him to beware of reaching too high.



* * *



SéVERIN PLACED A clove on his tongue, chewing slowly as he mulled over his information.

They knew where the Fallen House hid.

They knew what the Fallen House wanted: the Babel Fragment rejoined.

Everything else was just a matter of timing.

As the light from the bone clock dissolved, Hypnos sighed. “Technically, all House heads are supposed to report any Fallen House activity to the Order.”

“Technically?” repeated Séverin. “Technically, we don’t know if someone from the Order is acting through Roux-Joubert.”

“Which is why I said ‘technically,’” added Hypnos. “I have to report to the Order, but they never specified when I had to do that. I could supposedly do it after we find Roux-Joubert, when we’re sure that no one from House Kore was involved in stealing the Ring.”

“Sneaky.”

“I’m following someone’s example.”

“Do you really think someone from the Order would be behind this?” asked Enrique. “Wouldn’t they be betraying the whole point of the Order?”

“Never underestimate the human capacity for betrayal,” said Laila quietly.

Like the rest of them, she had avoided her usual seat on the velvet chaise lounge. Instead, she leaned against the bookcase, the train of her green silk dress tucked over her legs. Laila rubbed the back of her neck, her fingers disappearing behind her collar to trace her scar. She thought of it like a seam, as if it made her more ragdoll than human, but to Séverin it was just a scar. Scars sculpted people into who they were. They were scuffs left by sorrow’s fists, and to him, at least, proof of being thoroughly human. And then, unbidden, came the memory of touching that scar, how it felt cold as glass and just as smooth. He remembered how she tensed when he touched her there, and how he’d kissed the length of it, desperate to show her he knew what it meant and it didn’t matter. Not to him. Suddenly Laila looked up and their eyes met. The slightest color touched her cheeks, and he wondered if she was remembering too. She looked away from him abruptly.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

Séverin forced his gaze to the others. “We infiltrate the Fallen House’s meeting location in the catacombs. We take back both the House Kore Ring and the Horus Eye.”

“I doubt he’d leave the Ring lying around on the ground,” said Laila. “Wouldn’t he be wearing it?”

Hypnos wiggled his fingers. “He can’t. He might have managed to tear it off, but it’s still welded to us.”

Séverin nodded, then added, “Looking through the Horus Eye will give us the Fragment’s location, which, assuming there’s no sign of House Kore’s involvement in the theft, we’d then relay directly to the House Kore matriarch. That way, the Order can dispatch people to protect the site of the Fragment and immobilize Roux-Joubert and his accomplice.”

“How are we entering the catacombs?” asked Laila.

“Through the normal route on rue d’Enfers.”

“But they can just escape through the hidden Tezcat in the exhibit,” pointed out Hypnos.

From where she sat, Zofia drew out the silver cloth and dangled it before them.

“No, they can’t.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” asked Hypnos, horrified.

“This cloth is impenetrable,” said Zofia.

“It’s true,” said Laila. “She stabbed the poor thing.”

“Fascinating as that is, it’s still no bigger than a handkerchief,” pointed out Hypnos.

“I know,” said Zofia. “I can reproduce it.”

“A hundred handkerchiefs? I’m quaking.”

“You should,” said Zofia mildly.

“Zofia, if you can manipulate the size of the silver cloth, I wonder if you can play with one other thing.”

Séverin took out a mnemo bug from his pocket. It was small and lightweight and cold to the touch. And yet in its Forged body, it could hold the image of a mind’s eye and project it into the air.

“A mnemo bug?” groaned Enrique. “What’s that going to do? Record the moments before our inevitable death? Because I don’t actually want a souvenir of that.”