The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(87)

“And chew a clove,” said Zofia.

Enrique grinned. “Definitely that.”

“Now?” asked Hypnos.

“Not yet,” said Zofia. They had to get the timing perfectly right, otherwise Séverin and Laila might be exposed.

Around them, the clock struck eleven.

Zofia adjusted the lens, then said, “Start posing.”





25





LAILA


One hour before midnight

Laila’s foot slipped on the slick floor of the catacombs. Her pulse turned jagged in her ears. Slowly, she felt her way through the dark. Up ahead, she could just make out Séverin. A tall, imposing shape that cut through the thick shadows of the bone-warped halls.

Laila did not dare to touch the bones lining the walls around her. She had never tested her ability against a skull. In India, the dead were cremated. Legend went that those who weren’t properly buried became bhuts, or ghosts. Though she knew she couldn’t read anything living, she didn’t want to take her chances with the dead.

Above her, coin-shaped carvings in the ceilings cast green light onto the floor. Laila shuddered, thinking of the warning at the entrance to the catacombs.

Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort.

Stop! This is the empire of death.

She could barely stand to look at this place. Even the air offended her. It had the unstirred and cold texture of a sepulchre, and she could feel it frosting her throat with every inhale. As she turned a corner, she saw a child-sized skull and nearly vomited. Everything reeked of a cost to be paid, and Laila did not know what had been the cost of her existence. Is that what the jaadugar had used when he crafted her body?

“Here,” whispered Séverin.

Laila crept up beside him. The closer she got, the more she felt as though a hand had pressed down on her thoughts. When they had seen the Fallen House’s location revealed in the bone clock, it had imparted more than just an image, it had given knowledge. Laila shook her head. She didn’t like how it felt, like something parasitic sitting on her thoughts, tugging the very reins of her mind.

Now, beside Séverin, she thought there had to be a mistake. There was nothing but another shelf of bones, this one hammered into an archway with a row of grinning skulls teetering at its apex. A faint slit of light shone through the hollows of skull eyes. Laila held her breath as Séverin placed his hand to the wall of bone. His hand disappeared, sinking to his wrist.

“Another Tezcat,” he said. A ferocious grin split his face. “And it’s not even protected.”

The Fallen House had relied on the secrecy of their location and not much else. Not once when she and Séverin had walked down the halls and held out their Forging devices had they picked up even a hint of additional security.

“Ready?”

Laila nodded. Séverin’s main task was to find Tristan. As for her, all she had to do was read the room. Literally. Somewhere on the other side lay not only the Babel Ring of House Kore, but also the Horus Eye stolen from the subterranean library. After that, Hyp nos could relay the information to the Order, and Roux-Joubert and his accomplice would be stopped.

“I’ll go first,” said Séverin.

For a moment, Laila wanted to stop him. This place unnerved her. But maybe it was superstition. In the end, she watched him sink into that wall of bone, her heartbeat ringing loudly in her ears.

Laila waited a beat. Her hand brushed against the small satchel at her hip. She drew it aside, removing the small knife strapped to her thigh. She inhaled deep, her body recoiling at the sensation of damp air, and then walked straight through the wall.

On the other side lay the auditorium, identical to the one the bone clock had shown them. Dirt terraces carved into the wall, sloping downward into a wide stage. The stage itself reminded her of a snail’s shell. A strange whorl grooved deep into the earth. When they had first glimpsed it in the bone clock’s projection, Zofia had mused that it was another logarithmic spiral and then launched into an explanation that Laila completely tuned out. Séverin, though, thought it was something else. A mechanized pathway, not unlike a waterwheel activated by the churning of a liquid, or the fireball that traveled in a corkscrew pattern back in House Kore. But they had no clues about what it was supposed to lead to. Behind the stage, tattered scarlet curtains hung from the ceiling, utterly still. Faded, golden embroidery covered the scarlet drapes. The symbols of the four Houses of France. An ouroboros—a snake biting its own tail—edged the curtain. House Vanth. A crescent moon shaped like a pale and ghastly grin hovered in the center. House Nyx. Thorns and tightly furled buds crosshatched the space between the snake and the moon. House Kore. And within the snake, six points touching the scaled body, a giant hexagram. The Fallen House. Behind those curtains, guessed Laila, must be the entrance to the Exhibit on Colonial Superstitions. Laila tried not to think about Hypnos, Enrique, and Zofia. How close they were and how unreachable. She murmured a prayer as she scanned the rest of the view.

To the left of the stage was a shut door. Laila could just make out the sound of someone playing a violin and another person talking in low murmurs. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, but she didn’t panic. This was as they had planned. Naturally, Roux-Joubert and his associate would be there. In an hour, they’d step through the Tezcat, presumably to take Hypnos’s Babel Ring before returning to the catacombs. A flicker of movement to the right of the stage caught Laila’s attention. She reached for the dagger at her hip. At the same time, Séverin grabbed her hand, his grip like steel.