The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(95)

“Séverin—”

“Later,” he said. He reached out, squeezing Tristan’s hand, and then he pulled back.

Roux-Joubert howled off to the distance, but Séverin shoved aside the sound.

Laila fumbled with the rope.

“You’re welcome,” he said when the ropes slid off his wrists.

Laila hoisted him up to his feet. “What?”

“You’re welcome,” he said, shoving a grin onto his face. He could already feel it. A tense pull in the air. He had to break it now if they were going to put the Babel Fragment back to rest, to get on with the rest of their lives. “For giving you a reason to kiss me.”

Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t have a chance to speak.

“Thank God for Zofia,” breathed Tristan, helping him up.

The ground lurched again … the Babel Fragment had broken through the surface of the earth. It was as wide as the stage, but he didn’t know how deep. Instinct told him the moment it was fully resurfaced they were out of options.

“The Horus Eye,” said Tristan weakly. “The Horus Eye will put the Babel Fragment to rest. That’s what he said. We have to put it somewhere in the ground … there’s a pattern, I—”

The rest of his words descended into stammering.

“I’ll get the Eye,” said Laila, nodding fast.

The Horus Eye was still on the wooden worktable where they had found Tristan. Laila sprinted over the falling bones. The earth around them continued to rattle as the Babel Fragment pushed itself up and out of the ground. All he had to do was figure out where to put the Horus Eye in the ground.

A scream rent through the air. Séverin turned, shoving Tristan behind him …

Roux-Joubert had found a new source of power.

The man with the blade-brim hat was dead. Blood spurted from the man’s opened throat. Roux-Joubert crooned as he plunged his fingers through the gash. Ink from the Night Bites still splattered across his face, but it faded faster and faster … a dim golden glow wound up Roux-Joubert’s hands.

“Not enough, not nearly enough,” he rasped. “But it will have to do.”

Roux-Joubert stumbled forward, pressing his hands to the Tezcat. The smell of something singed and melting filled the air. There was a moment of utter incandescence … light shining through the cracks. On the other side, the man in the mask put forward a single finger …

The Tezcat door began to peel and break.





30





ZOFIA


Five minutes after midnight

Zofia peered over the edge. The Tezcat had snapped in half. Smoke rose and curled out, escaping through the ragged door that now left the entire Forging exhibition exposed to the catacombs. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It went against the calculus. Follow the rules. Follow the rules and everyone would get out safe. Follow the rules and the Fallen House would be caught.

But that wasn’t what had happened. In the scene below, she saw a dead man. Beside him, the blade-brimmed hat, blood pooling around his slashed throat. Roux-Joubert stood there with his hands pressed to the Tezcat, a molten substance dribbling down his arms as he raised them high. The obsidian peeled off like petals. It wasn’t supposed to be possible, thought Zofia, staring. But then … the Fallen House should never have survived. As the gaping cracks in the Tezcat grew wider, the ground surged even more. Chandeliers of bone rattled above them. Zofia felt something tangled in her hair. She shook her head, and the teeth of forgotten skulls scattered across her lap.

“They’re after the Horus Eye!” said Hypnos excitedly. “Laila is on her way to it right now!”

True enough, Laila was still crossing the ground, making her way to the unprotected Horus Eye where it lay on the wooden worktable.

But it wouldn’t be enough.

Now they knew the Horus Eye had to be placed in a particular area in order to activate the somno of the West’s Babel Fragment.

The question was where.

From where they crouched, Zofia could see a pattern rising through the ground. It was the dead center of a logarithmic spiral, identical to the one that adorned the floor of House Kore. But there was no way Laila would be able to tell.

“We have to show them,” said Zofia. “They can’t find the center otherwise.”

“We can’t go down there!” said Hypnos. “Séverin told us not to.”

Zofia’s hesitation lasted no longer than a blink. Some internal calculus shifted and weighed. Instructions used to be safe. They drew lines in her life, told her to stay within them and safety would follow. But safety hadn’t. Safety hadn’t followed in the classroom of the école des Beaux-Arts. It hadn’t come when Roux-Joubert cornered her in the ballroom of House Kore. And safety hadn’t arrived now … here, in this nightmare realm of hovering bones, of blood seeping into the dirt, shining knives and peeling stones. Of her friends in trouble. Of a force rising through the ground and tainting the air.

Instruction had no place here.

“I don’t care what anyone told us to do,” said Zofia.

Enrique’s face split into a wide grin. In one hand, he drew out the walking stick that concealed a light bomb. In the other, he took out a length of rope.

“Let’s go.”