“But it would have to be something repeating,” said Zofia, talking fast now. “Something that has ancient roots too. A sequence of some kind—”
Enrique followed the spiral. Even the tremor in the ground seemed to move to a particular rhythm. Rhythm that might have been found in nature, or poetry. They were closing in on the levers now. He could see the jutting pedesetal.
Up ahead, Laila was crouched on a slab of stone, her body angled toward the pedestal with the thirteen levers.
“Don’t jump!” called Zofia.
Just then, the rocks lurched.
Laila teetered. Her rock tipped, canting sharply to one side. She rolled down the slab, just narrowly catching onto the edges. Her feet dangled over the icy river. A livid tremor ran through the atrium, as more light splashed onto the cave walls. The fireball picked up speed, and with it … momentum. From where Enrique stood, the fireball verged on leaving the tunnel behind and pummeling straight through the atrium.
“I’m fine!” called Laila, heaving herself onto the slab.
But her rock had been dragged into the churn of the spiral … and if they couldn’t stop the fireball in time, it would roll into the atrium, and Laila would be caught directly in its path.
“The riddles are a pattern; the pattern is a key,” murmured Enrique aloud. Every breath he sucked into his lungs felt stolen. The room grew hotter, and sweat ran down his back. “Thirteen levers. A riddle. A key. Moving floor.”
Slowly, an image shifted together in his head. There was only one historical sequence he could think of that fit the pattern.
“The Fibonacci sequence,” he said, his head pounding.
Enrique only remembered the sequence because he had tried to impress a lovely Italian girl in his linguistics class. Her fiancé had not been amused, but he hadn’t forgotten the numbers …
“Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one—” said Zofia rapidly. “Each number is formed by adding the two previous numbers. It fits the logarithm riddle.”
The pedestal swam into view, thirteen ancient levers and just enough space for two people to stand.
“It’s getting closer!” shouted Laila.
Enrique’s head shot up. The fireball moved closer and closer, and directly in its path: Laila.
She had hoisted herself just far enough onto the piece of rock so she wouldn’t fall, but she was stuck.
“We’ve got the code!” said Enrique. “Hold on!”
When the pedestal with the levers came closer, Enrique nodded at Zofia.
“On my count, we leap,” he said. “One, two, three—”
He jumped. For a moment, everything was weightless. The ground fell away, and a mouth of darkness opened beneath him. He strained, reaching forward, his breath gathered in a tight knot until his fingers hit the rocky ledge. Zofia stumbled beside him. Wrenching himself upright, he grabbed her by the arm. Zofia clung to him as the ground pulled back from their feet, plunging into the icy river below.
“Is this a bad time to mention I only know the Fibonacci sequence up until the number twenty-one?”
“I’ve got the pattern,” said Zofia. “I don’t need anything else. Start on the far left.”
On each of the thirteen levers was a row for three numbers. He felt around the top of the lever for the small toggles, letting him push the numbers into view. For the first:
0 0 0
Then on the second:
0 0 1
0 0 1
0 0 2
On and on—three, five, eight, thirteen—until he hit the eighth lever, spinning the toggles atop it until the numbers read: 021.
In the distance, Laila screamed. The ball of fire behind her roared livid as the dawn. She turned her face from the heat.
“Wait!” called Zofia.
Tears streamed down her face as her pale hands darted down the levers.
“Thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred forty-four,” she said. “Two hundred thirty-three!”
Immediately, the ground lurched to a stop. Zofia stumbled, nearly falling over the edge until Enrique caught her. The ball of fire halted. Slowly, it moved backward, heat leeching from the room. Laila had scrambled to another rock once it got close enough. Around them, the floor stitched back together. Grinding sounds of rock and steel whined until the floor was, once more, whole.
Zofia’s heartbeat thumped wildly against his chest. He could feel her skin, feverish and damp, through his linen tunic. The moment stillness returned to the atrium, she sprang from him, running to check on Laila. Enrique slid onto the floor, rubbing his temples.
When he looked up, both girls were staring down at him.
Laila grinned widely. “My hero.”
She kissed him on the cheek, and Enrique beamed. He wasn’t quite like the heroes he’d dreamed of becoming. He hadn’t saved a country from oppression or rescued anyone on his white horse … but he still felt rather impressive. He turned to Zofia, about to congratulate her, when she crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m not going to kiss you like Laila did.”
Black ash streaked Zofia’s arms and the tops of her cheekbones. It made her eyes look like blue fire, her hair a wisp of candlelight. The farthest thing from his mind was her mouth on his, but when she said it, he couldn’t help but look at her lips. They were red as candy. Abruptly, Enrique pinched the bridge of his nose. He must have hit his head because the strangest thoughts kept darting through it.
“I was only going to say that we make a good team, phoenix.”
A corner of her mouth quirked up. “I know.”
And that was true. Her math, his history. They were, he thought, a bit like an equation where the sum was greater than its parts.
Ahead of them, the tunnel had been plunged into semidarkness. Still, he caught the glint of an amber door, the true entrance to House Kore’s library. It was a bit of a walk, but adrenaline raced through him, staving off any twinge of sore muscles and aching bones.
“What was the code for the pedestal?” asked Laila.
Zofia cleared her throat. “Zero, one, one, two—”
“It was the Fibonacci sequence,” cut in Enrique.
If Zofia got started on numbers, they’d be here all day.
“Praise Fibonacci,” said Laila, pressing her palms together.
“Well, Fibonacci can have some credit, but not all. He was brilliant, of course. But did you know—”
Zofia groaned. Enrique ignored her.
“—the Fibonacci sequence itself appears as early as the sixth century in Sanskrit treatises by the Hindu scholar Pingala. Isn’t that fascinating?”
Laila made a face. “So who do we thank?”
“Me, naturally.”
The tunnel drew to a close, and the three of them stood before the amber entrance to the library. By now, the adrenaline coursing through his veins had faded. Exhaustion crept into the edges of him.
Enrique braced himself for what lay on the other side of the door. The Horus Eye. As Zofia reached for the doorknob, Enrique wondered if it was possible for time itself to pause and expand, as if it were a vast pupil dilating to let in the light. Because he felt as if he could sense each second passing against his skin. As if every dream of his hung low and ripe as fruit for the plucking. If Marcelo Ponce and the rest of the Ilustrados group could see him now, then maybe they’d see him as more than a clever mestizo boy, but a hero in the making. Like Dr. Rizal. Like someone who illuminated the dark.
The door swung open.
Warm air gusted over them, and his skin shivered. Once in the dark, and now on the threshold of light, his eyes adjusted.
Across the room, a second door swung open, and two shadows stretched across the floor.
19
SÉVERIN
Séverin’s fifth father was a man he called Pride.
Pride had married into the Order of Babel. His late wife had been the second-born daughter of a patriarch. Though born wealthy, an investment in
far-off salt mines had left them penniless, forcing them to sell their possessions. Bitterness grew like a crust over Pride’s home. Pride showed them the collection catalogues of the Order, whispering which items had once belonged to him and his wife. He showed Séverin and Tristan how to take back what belonged to you. How to make a harness that let one slip down roofs and into windows, how to pay off the right guards, how to step with a light foot.
He never used the word “steal.”
“Take what the world owes you by any means necessary,” Pride had said. “The world has a shit memory. It will never pay its debts unless you force its hand.”
* * *
SÉVERIN THOUGHT OF Pride now as he met Hypnos at the entrance to the subterranean library. Hypnos slipped the copied key into the amber door. The door swung open, revealing a long trail of steps that descended into the dark. Séverin took a moment to bow his head, the closest he would come to prayer. He whispered the words Pride spoke every time he went to repossess an object: “I’ve come to collect my dues.”
Before him, the whole of the subterranean library sprawled. The room was the size of an amphitheater, and though the floor and ceiling was packed earth, a luminous underwater shine danced across the top. A small moat surrounded the library. It looked to be a built-in coolant system to regulate the temperature of the treasure room. Forged lanterns and thuribles floated down the neat aisles that sprang out of the ground. Objects loomed into sight: caryatids and drinking horns, broken crowns and canopic jars, mirrors that floated in midair, and an azure jug that poured a continuous stream of wine.
“Oh no, shiny things,” moaned Hypnos, clapping his hands to his heart. “My weakness.”
Though the library could bring kings to their knees, it wasn’t the sight Séverin craved. He walked down the aisle, toward the back end of the wall where an amber door identical to the one they had walked through now swung open. Three figures stepped into the room. Enrique, with a stunned expression on his face. Zofia, bewildered and clutching her necklace. And then Laila … streaked with what looked like ash. Laila in that same dancing costume he hadn’t been able to shake from his thoughts ever since she’d thrown him the key.
Hypnos waved hello, and then he leaned down to whisper in Séverin’s ear, “You’re staring.”
Séverin looked abruptly away. He reached into his jacket for the silver tin of cloves and popped one into his mouth.
“Any trouble?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Zofia, matter-of-fact. “There was a fireball and the ground broke, and we thought Tristan and Enrique were dead.”
“What?”
“Tristan is fine,” soothed Laila. “He’s upstairs now, standing guard.”
“Did you say fur ball?” asked Hypnos. “Like a puppy? How endearing.”
“She said fireball.”
“Oh. That is decidedly less endearing.”
Séverin clapped his hands together, and everyone fell silent.
“The convoy for the next guard shift comes in an hour. We’ve got five empty seats on that convoy to get us out of here, so let’s get moving. We know the Horus Eye is in the west quadrant and eighth hall, but there could always be unexpected surprises. Zofia?”
Zofia tore the second layer of her dress. At her touch, it broke into five strips that fell to the ground. She wrapped one strip around her hands, and it molded instantly to their shape, turning into a pair of translucent gloves.
“Forged rubber,” she said, raising her palms. “That way no object can detect a human touch.”
Laila shuddered. “Yes, let’s not get stuck to anything just by touching it.”
“And let’s not leave prints either,” added Enrique.
“Or blood,” said Séverin, glaring at Hypnos. He wasn’t going to get trapped into that letter scheme again. “Enrique?”
Enrique pointed at the shelves. “Collections are tricky things. Sometimes there’re even decoys of objects. The Horus Eye should be about palm-sized, with a glass or crystal piece in the pupil to see through, although age might have clouded it so it looks stained.”
Hypnos looked around at the group, as if he were just seeing them for the first time.
“You know, in this lighting, you lot are rather fearsome.”
“All lighting,” corrected Enrique.
The moment everyone had slipped on their gloves, Séverin led the way to the eighth hall.
“Once we have the Horus Eye, we’ll walk out—”
“That’s it?” asked Enrique, his voice rising. “But it’s House-marked—”
“Shhhh, beautiful,” said Hypnos. He held out his hand, where his Ring—a bright crescent moon—gleamed. “This Ring is welded to my skin. If it’s taken off and not delivered to a blood heir within a fortnight, the House mark fades. And I know for certain the matriarch had no time to pass it on to her abominable nephew.”
“So…” Enrique looked around the room. “Technically … we could take anything right now?”
“Focus,” warned Séverin.
Around them, the library stretched for nearly a kilometer underground. As the world’s largest purveyor of ancient Egyptian artifacts, House Kore’s shelves overflowed with Forged treasures plundered from pharaohs’ tombs and scrolls encased in glass and sand that had been lifted from the foundations of crumbling temples. But though the owners and artisans of the objects had long since passed, the power within them still crackled. Glass beetles with lightning storms flashing across their carapace scuttled into the shelves. Once or twice, a telescope’s eye turned toward him, and Séverin saw not the dirt floor and treasures mirrored behind him, but a skull hovering over his head, a ripped rose on either side of him. Shaken, he kept walking.
As they neared the eighth aisle, a cold wind gusted into the hall. Zofia reached for her necklace. Laila stood back, fingers skimming down the wooden beams of the shelves. She turned to Séverin, her chin dipping ever so slightly in a silent signal: Safe to enter.
Séverin entered first. Then stopped. He heard the others rounding the corner, the shuffle of their feet abruptly stopping. Enrique stood at his shoulder and groaned.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The entire eighth aisle … were Horus Eyes. All of them were bronze and the size of one’s hand. All of them had a perfect glass pupil and were completely identical. Only the objects stuffed between their spaces on the shelves distinguished them. Odds and ends not worthy enough to be catalogued. Silver ankhs dangled from slender hooks, and broken canopic jars were shoved alongside bits of pottery strewn about the shelves.
Zofia stepped forward. “Not all of the Horus Eyes are Forged.”
“How do you know?” asked Enrique.
Zofia touched her palm, not looking at anyone directly. “They’re just not.”
“She’s right,” said Laila, taking her hand off the Horus Eye closest to her.
Hypnos eyed her shrewdly, and Laila gestured at the shelves. “It’s nearly impossible that so many would actually be here. In existence.”
“Fair,” said Enrique. “In which case, we’re looking for a special Horus Eye amongst the decoys. Presumably, looking through the correct Horus Eye will reveal a Babel Fragment, so it won’t show the floor beneath you. It will show something else.”
Hypnos groaned. “But there’s got to be hundreds of Eyes!”
“All the more reason to get started.” Séverin moved to the first shelf. “Shall we?”
There were fifty sections, ten for each of them. Séverin began reaching for the Horus Eyes. Every time he could see his shoes through the glass, he put an Eye back and reached for another. One after another after another, and each time he saw the ground reflected at him. Three sections. All of them decoys.
Séverin slid yet another decoy into its section when a slip of silver cloth fell. When he reached for it, his fingers skimmed across the surface, as if it were a pane of ice. He’d never seen anything like it. And frankly it was just so lustrous, like a mirror poured onto t
he ground. He pinched the edges of it, lifting it off the floor and stowing it away.
Across from him, Laila paused in running her hands along the Horus Eyes. Her gaze swept from his face to his jacket pocket and lingered there. He couldn’t seem to hide anything from her.
Séverin cleared his throat. “Enrique? Zofia? Anything?”
Enrique shook his head. Zofia didn’t answer. Séverin turned, about to move back to the shelf when he saw Laila struggling to pull a Horus Eye from its shelf. There was a large, black tome wedged next to it. The base of its spine seemed stuck to the wooden board.
“I can’t get to it!” said Laila. “The Horus Eye is stuck behind this book.”
Séverin couldn’t have explained why the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly raised. He didn’t like how that book was stuck to the shelf. It felt too intentional. Besides, there was something unnerving about the ink-stained pages and how the charred leather-bound cover looked far too smooth to be made of animal skin. Even the library felt entirely too still and silent in that moment. Before he could warn her, Laila pried the book off the shelf. The moment she wrenched it from its spot, it split down the middle. Indigo plumes spilling out from the opened pages.
“Get back!” yelled Séverin.
Laila dropped the book and darkness erupted from the pages. Amidst the dark, a snatch of white slipped from the page to the floor. It was a slender white feather.
Before, he thought the cavernous library had been still and silent. He was wrong. This was silence. All the sounds he had taken for granted—rustling fabric, whirring insect wings, running water—disappeared. Shadows seeped in from all sides of the library, rushing to give the book’s smoke new shape. A snout formed. Teeth glinted. Paws covered in blood-slick fur outstretched. Séverin could see Laila, her mouth shaped into a scream. He darted between the thing’s legs toward her just as a low snarl reverberated through the library. Slowly, the five of them looked up.
The shadow creature towered above them, the top of its head stretching far above the high shelves. The front of its body belonged to a lion, the hindquarters belonged to a hippo, and its head swung back and forth, crocodile jaws snapping. The creature slammed its paw against the floor.
The Gilded Wolves Page 20
