The Gilded Wolves

by Roshani Chokshi

  “I do hope to see you at the Winter Conclave in Russia!” called the matriarch over the din.

  The person behind Zofia kicked at her ankles, and she tripped forward just as the servant took her—rather forcefully—by the elbow. A gift favor was placed in her hand. The matriarch turned to the next person in line.

  It happened so fast.

  The doors opening, then closing. The boat rising up to meet her and gliding over the silent, Forged water. There was no one else in the boat with her.

  Pity what happened to them.

  She felt as though someone had grabbed her thoughts in a fist and squeezed. What happened to Enrique and Tristan?

  From the dock, Zofia walked past the verit stone structure and handed in her invitation. The guards bid her a good evening. She waited for a moment before Séverin’s marked transport drove up to where she stood.

  “Straight for two kilometers, stop at the second row of sycamores,” she said to the driver.

  Whatever had happened to Enrique and Tristan, she would find out soon enough.

  Night blurred outside the carriage window as the driver took strange twists and turns about the property, driving them through secure roads with no other transports in sight. Zofia thought about the matriarch’s last words and about the others until the carriage slowed to a stop.

  “Clear on all sides,” said the driver. “Go now.”

  Zofia stepped out of the carriage. According to the stolen House Kore blueprints, there was an old Tezcat door situated between two unmarked trees that would grant her access directly to the estate gardens.

  As with any Tezcat door, Zofia assumed she’d be looking for an object that looked like a mirror. But when she walked to the trees, there was nothing there. Just two sycamores side by side, and all around, the ever-hungry dark. Zofia turned around. The road stretched out on either side. Beyond it loomed a shadowed meadow. She was entirely alone with no path in sight. Maybe it was too dark, she thought. Zofia reached for a particular pendant on her necklace. Phosphorous was one of the only materials that could reveal a Tezcat. She snapped the phosphorous pendant between her fingers, and it emitted a pale, blue light. Zofia looked up, blinded by the sudden radiance.

  A shadowy figure was standing inches from her.

  A scream caught in her throat. She stumbled backward, reaching for the pendants at her necklace, when she noticed the shadowy figure before her did the same. Zofia went still. Slowly, her eyes adjusted. The light in her hand was not alone. It was twinned by the light in front of her, held in the hands of the shadowy figure.

  Zofia was looking at her reflection.

  She was looking at herself.

  Fascinating, thought Zofia. The technology of how to make a Tezcat door that did not look like a mirror had been lost when the Fallen House had, well, fallen. But now she was looking at proof of what they had been capable of making … not just pieces which could camouflage doors, but actual portals that pinched together the distance between one place and another.

  Zofia reached forward, her fingertips trembling. At her touch, the Tezcat door yielded, bending and absorbing her hand. On the other side, she could feel the same air, the brush of ivy on her skin. Zofia dropped the phosphorous pendant on the ground, crushing it beneath her heel.

  On the other side, Zofia found herself in the gardens. Without any guests, the gardens looked eerie. The music of the instruments sounded haunted and lopsided. Broken glasses littered the ground. Gold peeled off the tree bark. Just beyond the trees, Zofia could make out the abandoned greenhouse. A noxious smell rose over the place, and her heart shuddered. Zofia double-checked for any guards, but Séverin’s predictions held true: They’d been stationed to the garden perimeters in the event of inhaling any toxic fumes.

  And then, a hand on her shoulder.

  Zofia jumped.

  “Shh, it’s just me.”

  Laila.

  Zofia turned to face her and then frowned. “What happened to your costume?”

  She was wearing half a blouse and a skirt that sat too low on her hips. It looked far more comfortable than what the other women were wearing.

  Laila laughed. “This is my costume.”

  “Oh.”

  But then, the corners of Laila’s lips turned downward. “I heard something when I was hiding. I think Enrique and Tristan might’ve gotten hurt.”

  Laila’s lower lip trembled. She started walking toward the greenhouse, and Zofia followed.

  “Everyone in the servants’ hall was talking about what happened at the gardens. There were two men covered in bandages. And … and one of them was wearing Enrique’s costume.”

  Zofia’s breath knotted inside her. But there was nothing she could do or say. Either they were inside the greenhouse and safe.

  Or not.

  She tore the outer sheath of her dress, then ripped it in half. One for Laila, one for her. They wrapped it like a veil around their heads as they got closer to the greenhouse. Even with the veil, the fumes still stung her eyes.

  The doors were open. Laila looked at her, hope written all over her face.

  But Zofia was not certain. An open door didn’t mean Enrique and Tristan had done that to welcome them. The matriarch might have ordered the doors opened to allow the greenhouse fumes to dissipate. Zofia clenched her hands. Focus. She started counting what she saw around her. Two doors. Fourteen bars of iron. One moon. Seven linden trees. Four gargoyles hanging off the greenhouse roof, their cheeks pulled in menacing smiles. Six statues beneath six darkening oaks, stone eyes unblinking.

  Three steps until the door.

  Then two.

  Laila went in first, knife out. Inside, the windows were silhouetted with light.

  Everything here was burnt down to the ground. They shuffled slowly over the floor of the greenhouse, watching for some slip or dent, some indication of a door when someone coughed in the shadows. Laila darted forward, throwing someone from the shadows onto the floor of the greenhouse. It was a police officer with a scarf tied around his head. Laila snarled, raising her knife.

  “You…” she said. “You must have been one of the men that hurt them. I’m not sorry for what I’ll do next.”

  The police officer waved his arms, his speech panicked and muffled. Zofia felt the thrum of vengeance, the ache of it raw in her heart. They’d hurt Tristan and Enrique. Her … her friends.

  Then the guard tore open a small gap on his towel. “—waitdontkillme!”

  The man braced his elbows on his knees, his face red. He looked up at them, a faint grin on his face.

  Enrique.

  “Though I’m delighted you’d avenge me, there’s really no need.”

  18

  ENRIQUE

  Enrique whistled, and Tristan stepped out of the shadows. Tristan looked at Zofia, who was dressed up in silk and velvet, then Laila, who was dressed in … less. Tristan blushed furiously, and Enrique threw the towel at his face.

  “You’re such an infant.”

  Tristan scowled, but the expression faded, replaced once more with that pinched look of terror. He’d looked like that ever since the violet candy had released him from the grips of poison. Not that Enrique blamed him. Any brush with death would have left him shaking. Tristan was never at ease outside of L’Eden, and this acquisition in particular had him spooked. While they’d been waiting to return to the greenhouse, Tristan had fidgeted nonstop, nearly destroying an entire rose bush because he kept tearing out the petals.

  “I thought you were dead!” said Laila, running to them and crushing them in a hug.

  Zofia did not move, but she tugged at the edges of her dress. Enrique saw her glance at him, then back down at the ground, her eyes shining. She didn’t have to run to them. He knew.

  “That violet candy saved us,” said Enrique. “Tristan got poisoned somehow. I think the mask was faulty and let in some of the fumes.”

  Zofia looked up. “It wasn’t.”

  “I know they’re your inventions, b
ut there could always be a mistake,” he said. “I hate to be the one to inform you of this, Zofia, but you are human.”

  “Then why do you call me ‘phoenix?’”

  Enrique couldn’t argue with that.

  Beside him, Tristan’s shoulders slumped.

  “So what happened?” asked Laila.

  “I think the guards must’ve gotten a whiff of the fumes, and so they bolted to raise the alarm,” said Enrique. “Two guards ended up unconscious and blistered, so we switched out our clothes and have been hiding until an hour ago.”

  Laila touched his face. “I’m glad you’re both safe. Now let’s get to the vault. It’s nearly midnight. Did you find the door?”

  “Yes,” said Enrique. “Except we couldn’t come in until the fumes had gone down enough that we could walk inside with only the towels. I wasn’t going to take a chance with the masks after Tristan got hurt.”

  Tristan swept aside the plant detritus, revealing a flat, metal door.

  “Everyone ready?” asked Enrique. “Minus Tristan, of course.”

  Tristan was usually fine with playing lookout when it came to acquisitions, but as he opened the flat door, his hands trembled.

  “Be careful,” said Tristan.

  “Just think about what we’ll do when we finish,” said Laila lightly. “Hot cocoa?”

  “Oooh … and cake,” added Enrique.

  Even Zofia smiled.

  “Can Goliath join too?” asked Tristan.

  The three of them groaned.

  As the door opened, a lightless staircase spiraled out below, yawning into the darkness.

  “Honestly,” muttered Enrique as he hoisted himself down. “Why can’t Goliath be on a leash? He’s nearly the size of a cat.”

  “I can hear you,” scolded Tristan.

  “Good. Start thinking about tarantula leashes.”

  The staircase twisted off to the side and seemed to stretch out for nearly a kilometer. After a while Enrique looked up to see how far they’d gone and whether they could still see Tristan. It was too dark. And it didn’t help that the staircase was wet. As he walked, his shoes slipped out from underneath him.

  Laila shivered. “It’s freezing here!”

  Enrique agreed through chattering teeth.

  They were approaching the bottom of the staircase. Enrique had expected the staircase to lead down to the grand library, but this place looked more like a gigantic atrium. Wet cave walls glistened in a rough, oval shape. Roots dangled above them. When he breathed, a slick, mineral scent coated his throat. At the center of the atrium, a round pedestal protruded like a boulder. Three metal sticks poked out of it. They reminded him of levers, though he couldn’t imagine why they would be there. He couldn’t even tell if that’s what they were. There was no light, save for the small flare Zofia held out, which barely cast more than a puddle of light around them.

  “Where’s the library?” asked Laila.

  Zofia waved the flare. It spread across the cave walls, then disappeared.

  “A tunnel,” breathed Enrique. “Maybe it’s down there?”

  He was still looking down the tunnel when he took his foot off the staircase and touched the ground. Hardly a second had passed before he felt it … a tremor in the earth. Enrique took a step back, until both feet were firmly planted on the last step.

  “Do you feel that?” he asked, his voice suddenly high.

  “Do you see that?” retorted Zofia.

  She pointed up ahead. In the tunnel, a torch flared. The light of its fire caught on the outlines of an amber door.

  “That must be the entrance to the library,” breathed Laila. A huge grin broke out on her face, and she leapt down the last two steps.

  “Wait, Laila—”

  There was something strange about the floor. As if it had read their presence. But he couldn’t stop Laila in time. She landed with both feet on the ground. That same tremor returned, shaking the stairs this time. Enrique tripped, his arms flailing as he landed on the hard earth. Zofia fell beside him, her flare rolling across the ground.

  Light—far too grand to belong to Zofia’s pendant flare—streamed across the floor.

  Slowly, Enrique lifted his gaze. The tunnel was gradually brightening. Where there had been one torch, now there were hundreds. And they weren’t alone. That tremor belonged to something … a great stone ball rolling through the tunnel. With each rotation, it caught fire from the torches, blazing hot and illuminating the stone atrium. Enrique scanned the rest of the atrium. A grooved, spiral path wrapped around the room, winding to the center.

  Enrique pushed himself off the ground. “On second thought, I’m completely fine with the dark and cold.”

  Laila grabbed his and Zofia’s wrists, tugging them to the other side of the atrium.

  “If we just move out of its trajectory, then it can crash into the wall, and we run to the tunnel and get to the door,” she said. “It’s not as if the floor is going to—”

  The floor snapped.

  Enrique’s shoe snagged on a crack in the ground that had not been there a moment ago. The crack spidered across the stone floor, as if it were nothing more than a pane of ice. Enrique fell hard. He scuttled backward, only for his hand to slip.

  Inches from his fingers was a plummeting drop. An icy river flowed beneath the ground, rushing dark and roaring. The floor plan must have been Forged to fit together like a puzzle piece, framed above a river so that any trespassers would either die by fire or by water. The only good thing that could be said about the fireball moving closer was that at least he could see what was around him.

  “We’re moving!” called Zofia.

  She was sprawled on a narrow slab of rock not too far from him. Laila stood on the other side, lightly balancing on a piece of the floor no bigger than a dining plate. Far in the tunnel, the fireball gained speed, following a corkscrew pattern that would soon catch up to them.

  Enrique glanced at the river. His position had changed. He watched as the room slowly turned. All of the shattered pieces, including the ones they perched on, drifted in a slow rotation around the pedestal in the center of the room.

  “All defensive Forged things legally have a somno!” he shouted over the din of the river and the fireball. “We just have to find it! That center pedestal must be the key. Laila, you’re getting to the pedestal first. Be ready to tell us what it says!”

  Laila nodded. She leapt again, gracefully springing from one slab of rock to another, closing the distance to the pedestal.

  Enrique cast about the room. This was not like the auction’s holding room. There was no onyx bear with its teeth caught around someone’s wrist. No stone body to skim his hands over and find the divots and markings of a release. He was too far away from the cave walls to see if they had any writing. And the rock slabs, as far as he could tell, were nothing but rock.

  “Chin up!” called Zofia.

  “This really isn’t the time for tired motivational phrases!”

  “Enrique. There’s writing up there.”

  Enrique looked up. On their way down the steps, he hadn’t noticed anything above them but roots dangling from the ceiling. With the light from the fireball, he could see more of it, and there was a pattern hacked into the roots … a precise arrangement of letters. The rock he stood on spun faster, and Enrique had to pivot on his heels, trying to suss out the words—

  E? Mut? Surg?

  He squinted.

  He looked back at Zofia, thinking she might be able to help, but she was sitting cross-legged on the rock, as comfortable as if she were inside L’Eden’s stargazing room. Her gaze was unfocused as she looked around her, her fingers slowly tracing a spiral in the air. Ahead, Laila was getting close to the pedestal.

  Enrique’s rock moved faster, spinning around the room as it drew ever closer to the pedestal. He craned his neck up, catching the letters as fast as he could, until he saw them fully.

  EADEM MUTATA RESURGO

  “What does it say
?” called Zofia.

  The language was Latin. And the phrase somewhat familiar, though he could not tell where he had heard it …

  “It means … although changed, I arise the same.”

  “Zofia! Enrique!” shouted Laila. She waved her hands, pointing at the pedestal. “There’s thirteen levers with numbers on them! They seem attached to some kind of … dial? I think? I … I can’t see it anymore, but you’re going to be coming up on it soon!”

  Levers.

  That was a somewhat heartening fact because it meant it could be controlled.

  “If the levers have dials, what if that means there’s a numerical pattern here?” asked Zofia.

  “Like a key,” said Enrique, nodding.

  If they put the right numbers into the levers, the fireball should stop and the atrium would right itself.

  “Although changed, I arise the same,” he whispered to himself before risking a glance at the ball of fire. It had doubled in size and now resembled a flaming carriage that would hit them within minutes.

  Zofia dragged her finger through the dirt as she sketched something.

  “Think, think,” muttered Enrique, stamping his feet.

  He’d noticed the layout of House Kore’s gardens … the pieces of sacred geometry hanging from the trees, even the great spiral on the marble floor of its entrance room. But it didn’t help him with the pattern. Arising out of the same thing? But remaining the same? Did it mean something that built upon itself—

  “A spiral,” said Zofia.

  “What?”

  “We’re moving in a spiral.”

  He blinked. “Obviously, Zofia—”

  “But we’re moving in a specific spiral,” she continued. “It matches the pattern of House Kore’s floor. And the spiral fits with the riddle! Although changed, I arise the same. It’s a logarithmic spiral. That means the angle between the tangent and the radius vector is going to be the same throughout all points of the spiral—”

  His head was spinning, and not just because his square of floor seemed to be moving faster.