The Gilded Wolves

by Roshani Chokshi

  As she walked, two parts of herself merged together. She had done this walk, worn these clothes. The man who had brought her to France as a performer had thrown away the original costume sewn by her mother. Laila was supposed to wear a customized salwar kameez, not this ridiculous thing that left her midriff and chest on display. Her hair was supposed to be strung with flowers, with a preserved jasmine from her mother’s first performance. Not unbound, and brushing her waist. She looked at her hands, her chest pinching. Her hands felt naked without henna.

  A low murmur of approval chased through the crowd when she walked on the stage. When she performed at the Palais, her favorite moment was stepping onto the stage before the lights rose: the adrenaline fizzing in her veins, the darkness of the theater that made her feel as if she’d only just burst into existence. But here, she felt like something held beneath glass. Trapped. Between her breasts, the key to the library felt like a chip of ice. She scanned the crowd. Before each seat was a basket of rose petals to be thrown upon the performer at the conclusion of their entertainment.

  The music keyed up.

  Even before the light fell on her, she felt Séverin before she saw him. A space of cold in a warm room. The lights cast his eyes into shadow. All she could see were his long legs stretched in front of him, his chin on his palm like a bored emperor. She knew that pose. Memory stole her breath. She thought back to that evening … on her birthday … when she’d felt buzzed with a daring she almost never indulged. She’d cornered him in his study, more intoxicated by the way he’d looked at her than she had been from any champagne. Séverin hadn’t gotten her a birthday present, and so she demanded a kiss that turned into something more …

  Laila could feel the moment he became aware of her on the stage. The sudden stiffness of his body.

  He’d never seen her dance before … and instantly something changed within her. It was how she felt before she always performed, as if her blood now glittered.

  She needed him to look closely. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t get the key on time. But she wanted him to look closely too.

  Perhaps it was just her fate to be haunted by a night never acknowledged. But that didn’t mean she had to suffer alone. Maybe it was cruel of her, but her mother’s voice rang in her ears anyway: Don’t capture their hearts. Steal their imagination. It’s far more useful.

  And so she did. She sank into the beginning pose, hip jutted, chin tilted to expose the long line of her throat. The music started. She tapped her heels against the floor. The movements so precise it was as if she’d sewn her shadow to the beat.

  Tha thai tum tha.

  Séverin might have looked like liquid elegance as he lounged in the crowd, but she knew him. Every muscle was strung taut. Rigid. Beneath that posture was something prowling and hungry. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel them tracking her. His mouth had gone from a controlled smile to a slack line.

  Laila felt a burst of satisfaction.

  I won’t be haunted alone.

  She dragged her hand across her chest. Séverin shifted in his seat. Laila hooked her pinky into the gap of the key. She stamped her foot, glancing at the floor as she concealed the key in a row of bangles. As she sank lower, she smiled to herself.

  There was another power in her. A power that sat low and thick in her blood and consciousness. A way to move through a world that tried to keep her to the sidelines.

  Steal their imagination.

  She hovered on her heels, knees bent in nritta while the pleated emerald of her skirt fanned out. The music grew faster. The rhythm turned urgent.

  She flicked her gaze toward the concealed glass key in her hand. Séverin’s head moved. Just barely. But she knew he understood. He reached into the basket. Around him, the others did the same.

  The music turned faster, building into a climax. Finally, Laila looked directly at him and nearly fumbled. Séverin looked undone. His gaze lit up her skin. She forced herself into the movement, flicking up her fingers … a signal.

  Séverin tossed the blossoms into the air. The other guests, seeing him do so, followed his movements. A shower of petals rained down, catching in her lashes like snow, brushing silkily against her lips. Laila extended her arm in a flourishing final arc of movement, tossing the key.

  It sailed through the air.

  Séverin caught it between his palms. A clap. Laila could picture his eyes perfectly, even though she couldn’t see them. His dusk-colored gaze darkening, fixed on her. Laila knew she should look at the other audience members, but she couldn’t look anywhere but at him, and she didn’t want him looking at anyone but her.

  As the room burst into applause, the man sitting behind Séverin caught her gaze. He wore a mustard-colored suit, his body entirely too still. Laila shuddered as she walked off the stage. He’d hunched over Séverin like a wraith … or a beast on the verge of attack.

  17

  ZOFIA

  Zofia checked the clock. Séverin was late. Already, there was less than an hour before she had to get ready for the ball, and if she didn’t have a cast molding of the key, there was no point. It was too bad the matriarch didn’t use a handprint to open her vaults … she could have used her refined Streak of Sia formula. Then again, she didn’t have any of the critical ingredients. They were all back in her laboratory at L’Eden.

  Zofia forced herself to sit in one of the corners of the room. It wouldn’t help to pace. Half of any acquisition was just the long, long stretches of waiting. But all that waiting only brought them closer to their goal.

  One more day.

  One more day, and then all of this would be behind them.

  By midnight, they would be in the vault. With the location of the Horus Eye secured, it was just a matter of taking the object off a shelf. It was a small thing, but with large consequences. Once the Eye was acquired, everything could change … she could pay off her debts and her sister could finally start medical school. When Séverin became a patriarch, he’d have the strings of the world in his hand, and he might even be able to reverse her expulsion from university.

  When her parents were still alive, they said that fear grew in places unlit by knowledge. Perhaps if she had more knowledge, then she would not know fear. She could become a scientist or a professor … someone who spent her life rooting out the dark unknown with the light of knowledge. She could be like her parents. Like her sister. She could walk down a street or through a crowd. She wouldn’t know that tight, breath-pulling sensation of drowning, all because someone had asked about her day and she didn’t know how to answer.

  Knowledge would make her brave.

  And more than anything, Zofia wanted to be brave.

  But she was learning how to fit. Or, at least, imitate it. On the other side of the room, her wardrobe faced her. A sable gown hung off the frame. Her outfit for the evening’s ball. It’d taken hours to figure out how to make herself ready without Laila, but she’d finally managed.

  Just then, Séverin walked inside and quickly shut the door behind him.

  Zofia stood. “You’re late.”

  Séverin did not look like himself. He looked out of breath. Wild-eyed. Frustrated. Laila was supposed to give him the key. Had something gone wrong? Panic struck Zofia.

  “Is Laila harmed?”

  At her name, spots of color appeared on Séverin’s face.

  “Your face is red.”

  Séverin cleared his throat. “I was walking fast. And no, Laila looks fine. I mean, she is fine. Never mind. I’m fine. Everything is—”

  “Fine?”

  “Yes,” said Séverin. He handed her the key. “She had to use a different method of delivery to get the key to me.”

  That was an easy explanation. Though it did not explain why Séverin looked so strange. Zofia took the key and went straight to the fireplace where a chunk of zinc had been melted. From her wardrobe, she pulled out a cast molding from the bottom cabinet of her drawer, prepping the molding.

  Séverin leaned
against the wall, dragging his hand down his face.

  “The piranha solution worked.”

  Zofia was not surprised the solution worked. She had made it, after all. And she was nothing if not exact.

  Séverin continued, “As far as I can tell, the greenhouse has been marked off limits. Officially, the story is spreading that one of the guards broke the windows, and the mixture of Forged smoke with the venomous plants led to the fumes.”

  By now, Tristan and Enrique should be hiding in the expansive gardens. By the ninth hour, their invitations would expire and they would exit the premises in full view of the House Kore security team, who would officially take them off the guest list. Then, Séverin’s hired transport would drop them off at one of the unsecured entrances on House Kore’s property, and they would meet at the greenhouse.

  Zofia pressed the key into the wax.

  “As you planned.”

  “Mm.” Séverin reached for the door handle, then paused. He looked as if he wanted to ask her something, then thought better of it. “Top of the hour. Then it all starts.”

  * * *

  ZOFIA CHANGED INTO her evening gown. In her velvet wristlet lay a box of matches and two keys: one real and one copy marked by a slight dent. A mask made of frost-colored swan feathers concealed the top half of her face, disappearing into her hair. A gauzy net of fragile, silver thread spangled her dress. All she had to do was tear the cloth, and she had a purifying air filter for herself and Laila to walk through the greenhouse fumes unharmed.

  Downstairs, the hall had transformed. Mirrors lined the walls, turning the room into endless space. Down the halls stalked a translucent gryphon, its beaked head brushing the ceiling. Ladies and gentlemen tittered and laughed when one of the illusion-creature’s heads snapped at them. In a corner of the room, a glorious cake that could only have been made by Laila glistened, showing eight planets that tilted and swayed gently.

  Zofia concentrated on the floor. A glint of a silver spiral caught her eye. She paused, mentally tracing the line … she recognized that pattern of spirals. She hadn’t noticed it until now, though. The black marble of the floor had concealed it until the chandelier light snagged on the floor’s silver veins. The pattern was almost nautilus-like. Precise. Mathematical. It reminded her of the golden spiral, a logarithmic spiral based on the golden ratio. Two quantities were said to be in the golden ratio if their ratio was equal to the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Her father had explained it to her in terms of a golden rectangle …

  The numerical representation was called phi, approximately 1.618. Her father had showed her how one could find evidence of the golden ratio all throughout nature: in the spiral of a nautilus shell or the round hearts of sunflowers and pine cones … but she had never seen it in someone’s home. Zofia blinked, scanning the room as if she’d never seen it until now. Everywhere she looked she saw examples of the golden ratio. In the entrances. The shape of windows. The equation was all over. Numbers were never accidental. There was intention here. But to what purpose, Zofia could not fathom. She moved closer to one of the arches, but a man in a mustard-colored suit blocked her.

  “I envy the man who would be the recipient of such an intense gaze. I simply had to know what it might feel like, and so I came to introduce myself.”

  Zofia quickly ran through what she’d observed other women do. When a man they had not been introduced to spoke to them, they offered their hand. So Zofia did. The man took her hand, lifting it to his lips.

  “I don’t know you.”

  He laughed. He wore a mask of small, dragonfly wings. Zofia had never seen a man so pale in her life. A sickly sheen covered his skin.

  “Roux-Joubert,” he said, releasing her hand. “May I have the first dance?”

  She’d hardly noticed the couples swirling around her. Once she’d fixated on the equation of the floor, nothing else seemed to matter.

  “I—”

  “Please,” said the man, though his voice did not sound coaxing. “I insist.”

  Zofia wanted to say no. But she did not know how fine ladies did such a thing. They would laugh or simper, say something behind a fan. Until now, most of the guests had let her be, knowing she only kept company with Monsieur Faucher, the high-ranking government official. Séverin had been her shelter. If she said no, they would notice she was acting strangely. Zofia felt a flash of panic, as if someone had just locked her into a room. Would the rest of the crowd notice? Would they circle them? Demand to know what was so wrong with her that she couldn’t stomach a single dance?

  “So many people are watching, Baroness,” said the man. A slight sneer curled his pale mouth. “You would not want to embarrass me, would you?”

  Zofia quickly shook her head no, and Roux-Joubert pulled her into the dance. The man’s hands were somehow freezing and damp with sweat. She tried to pull back, but the man, for all that he looked weak and ill, held tight.

  “Where is it that you’re from in Russia, Baroness?”

  “Poltava.”

  “Stunning place, I am sure.”

  Roux-Joubert spun her, and she took the moment to look around the room, hunting for any sign of Hypnos. He should have found her by now. The music picked up, a frantic cadence building in her ears, joining with the erratic pulse of her blood. The floor beneath Zofia felt like cut ice. She couldn’t dance well even when she wasn’t stressed, and her movements felt less like gliding and more like struggling for purchase. He spun her again, his hand tight on hers, until a warm voice cut through the orchestra’s straining—

  “Baroness.”

  Hypnos.

  He stood behind Roux-Joubert, one brown hand on the man’s mustard-colored suit.

  “May I?”

  Roux-Joubert’s mouth pressed into a tight line.

  “Of course,” he said, kissing Zofia’s hand once more. She shuddered against the icy touch. “I do hope to see you again … Baroness.”

  Hypnos swept her up in the dance. His body was warm and his brown hands dry and hot beneath hers.

  “You look like a marvel, ma chère,” he said.

  Other couples moved around them in dizzying spirals. Hypnos maneuvered them to the center of the room, far from the watchful gaze of the matriarch. Zofia moved closer, angling her reticule so he could slip out the original key. She felt his fingers against her wrist, then, just as quickly, they were gone. Hypnos smiled, then whispered in her ear, “I do mean it. You are stunning. Though I did not quite like the look of your friend.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Am I your friend?”

  Zofia was not sure what to say to that. Hypnos had threatened to imprison them … which did not seem like a thing a friend should do. But he was other things too. Funny. He treated her no differently than anyone else. Zofia looked at his face. She knew that pattern of features: widened eyes, arched eyebrow, forced grin. Hopefulness. Vulnerability, even.

  “What would friendship entail?”

  “Well, on Wednesdays, we sacrifice a cat to Satan.”

  Zofia nearly tripped.

  “I’m teasing, Zofia.”

  Her cheeks turned hot. “I don’t particularly like jokes.”

  Hypnos gave her a spin. “Well, in the future, I’ll be more aware of that. Friends?”

  The dance drew to an end. Near the entrance of the staircases, the clocks chimed the eleventh hour. Zofia weighed his words before dipping her chin. “Friends.”

  At the conclusion of the dance, bits of the crowd broke off. Many of the invitations to House Kore expired an hour after midnight, and some who wished to leave early began to make their way to the entrance. Zofia stood in the greeting line, scanning the crowd as she waited to say her goodbyes. Somewhere in the crowd, Séverin was plotting the route to the library. Hypnos was sneaking the key back into the office. Tristan, Enrique, and Laila would be waiting for her in the greenhouse. But her mind kept returning to the man who had asked her to dance. Roux-Joubert. His touch
reminded her of something … but what?

  “Did you enjoy your time with us, Baroness?”

  The matriarch stood in front of her, a slightly concerned expression on her face. Zofia startled, fumbling for the right words. She had practiced this exchange, but the floors and the man had thrown her off.

  “Yes,” she said stiltedly. “And … and I like your floor.”

  The matriarch blinked. “What?”

  Oh no. Zofia felt that familiar tightness again … that sensation of reaching for a step on a staircase that wasn’t there. She’d said the wrong thing. She wanted to take it back, but then she remembered Laila’s advice. To perform. To own whatever illusion one cast of themselves. So she straightened her back. As elegantly as she could, she gestured to the floor.

  “The logarithmic spiral based on the golden ratio,” she said. “One of nature’s favorite equations.”

  “Ah!” The matriarch clapped her hands. “You have a fine eye, Baroness. My late husband imbued everything in our home with meaning. Though it is a shame I could not keep the grounds beyond the greenhouse open … that is truly a sight.”

  Zofia felt the barest stab of guilt. It was her fault, after all, that the greenhouse couldn’t be accessed.

  “A shame,” Zofia agreed.

  “More so for my landscape artist and his colleague, though,” whispered the matriarch. “Pity what happened to them.”

  The ebony doors opened. Damp fog rolled in through the entrance, sitting low on the hematite river. Zofia knew she was supposed to move, but she couldn’t. One of the matriarch’s servants leaned in to whisper something in her ear. Zofia felt all the air stolen from her lungs.

  She gulped down a breath, the stays of her corset straining. “What?”

  The next person in the greeting line tapped their foot. The din of the music played louder. A servant appeared at her elbow.

  “What did you say about the landscape artist and his colleague?”

  Applause thundered through the hall, drowning out her words. Fire-breathing acrobats had just appeared, leaping down from the ceiling like bolts of lightning. Sulfur stung the air.