The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(96)

The two of them got ready, but Hypnos hesitated.

“If I go with you, I’ll die.”

“It’s a high likelihood, but not a certainty,” pointed out Zofia.

“Not helping,” said Enrique.

The two of them looked at Hypnos. His pale eyes were unfocused. His mouth set, and then he clenched his hands.

“I’m coming with you.”

Zofia bounded down the steps of the terraces, her feet slipping on the gravel. She reached into her sleeves, pulling out a thin Forged rod of pure silver. Forging required a will, and hers crackled inside her. Ignite. Ropes of lightning zipped and twisted down the metal.

Laila was the first to look up and notice her. In her hands was the precious Horus Eye.

“Zofia!” she cried.

Warmth jolted through Zofia, but she didn’t stop. She walked past her, to a flat disc of earth. It was unlit and, as she knelt to brush the surface, painted. She looked up to where Séverin and the others stared at her.

“This,” she said, holding out the rod for light. “This is where you’ve got to place the Horus Eye to activate the Fragment’s somno.”

Too much dirt covered the depression where the Eye should sit. Séverin ran over, Tristan close on his heels. The six of them dug, tossing the dirt. Grit flew into Zofia’s eyes, into her mouth. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t stop when Roux-Joubert started laughing loudly and the Tezcat door, now fully melted, became an entrance point for the rest of the Fallen House.

“Faster, faster—” called Séverin.

“Useless. Manicured. Nails,” panted Hypnos.

But then a blast of light made them break apart. Zofia was shot backward.

“Zofia!” screamed Enrique.

She pushed herself up, blood pounding in her ears. Zofia grabbed for the lightning rod tucked back into her sleeves, but then she looked up …

They were surrounded.

A man wearing a pale helmet, like that of an insect, stared at them, his head cocked to one side. Cloaked figures surrounded them, their hands up, metal honeybees embedded in their palms. The blast forced all of them back. There, buried in the dirt was the Horus Eye. Hypnos tried to dig, but a member of the Fallen House grabbed his wrist.

Roux-Joubert knelt on the floor beside the man in the mask, rocking back and forth.

“Please, Doctor. Please, you promised me, and I have given all that I can…” he said, revealing his torn arms.

Zofia shuddered. Roux-Joubert did not bleed like a normal man. A sticky, yellow liquid had crusted into an ochre shade. It splashed down the front of his tunic, staining his pants.

“I have brought you the Babel Ring,” Roux-Joubert whispered. “Is it not time for my apotheosis?”

The man Zofia could only assume was the doctor raised one gloved hand.

“You brought us the Babel Ring … with additions,” he said. His voice was flat. Stripped of affect or accent. “I admire tenacity, young ones. I truly do. But you do not understand that in which you meddle. It is your choice, however. Free will was a gift from Him and a gift I intend to maintain for the new age. Will your blood mark the threshold of this new age? Or will it help forge it into existence?”

Zofia felt Séverin’s gaze on her as it swept through the group. However, it was neither she nor Séverin who answered the doctor, but Tristan. Tristan grabbed the blade-brimmed hat that lay not far from him, then flung it out at the crowd. The doctor dodged it, and Tristan let out a growl. And then the doctor clasped his palms together, as if in prayer, and said, “I have my answer then.”

The Fallen House drew out their knives.





31





ENRIQUE


Enrique had always imagined what it would feel like to be a hero.

This was not how he imagined it.

He thought that, at least, he would have a flaming sword. Instead of a stick. That emitted light. But as he whirled onto the members of the Fallen House surrounding them, at least he could rely on one thing: Heroes always made do.

He swung the light baton against the members nearest him. For now, there were nearly twenty people, but the gash in the Tezcat door remained open, and though it was empty now, there was no way of knowing whether it would stay that way. Chaos broke around him. Séverin wrestled away one of the cloaked members, shoving them backward. He swiped something from his shoe, a thin thread of silver that Laila caught. Together, they circled five of the hooded figures. Tristan spat out a billow of black ink and whooped happily.

“Now, Zofia!” screamed Séverin.

Zofia lunged forward with the lightning rod. The silver light turned her hair and skin incandescent. She thrust out the rod, and a current of electricity coursed down the silver thread, crackling and snapping. Cloaked figures screamed, then slumped over, unconscious.

But not everyone fought. The doctor. Roux-Joubert sat on the floor beside him, blank-eyed and dazed, lips blue and mumbling as he rocked back and forth and held his mangled arm to his chest.

Every chance they got, they dug into the ground, trying to free up the exact space where the Horus Eye might fit … but the Fallen House was relentless.

“They should be here soon,” said Hypnos, wild-eyed, glancing constantly up at the rafters.

He’d left half of his House-marked possessions up there, a ripe scent the Sphinxes had to follow. But the Order hadn’t arrived. No help was coming.