The Gilded Wolves

by Roshani Chokshi

  Tristan launched himself at the man. Séverin tumbled, his temple knocking against a sizable boulder. Laila rushed to him, undoing the knots, swaying even as she tried to free him. The very ground beneath them was treacherous. Tristan rushed over to them, his eyes wide.

  “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.”

  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.

  Laila collapsed in the dirt beside him, her face haggard. In her hands was the Horus Eye. Before them, the ground had almost nearly cleared when a handful of Forged knives launched into the air, a blade poised at each of their throats.

  “I think this has gone on long enough, don’t you?” asked the doctor mildly.

  Enrique could not see his eyes, but he could feel the man’s gaze on him and Hypnos.

  “Your friends will die. And then you will die. But you can avoid this … This can be a new world. For all of us. I see your heart, young Patriarch. I see how you struggle … how you do not know which world you belong to, how you feel as though the color of your skin will determine the color of your future. It does not have to be that way. Join us.” The doctor paused, and Enrique imagined that behind his pale mask, he was smiling. “Save yourself … save your friends. She won’t put down the Horus Eye until she knows that she’s lost. All you have to do is give me your Ring.”

  Enrique watched as Hypnos struggled to stand. He looked behind him, gaze resting on Tristan, Séverin, Laila, Zofia, and finally … Enrique. Hypnos’s shoulders dropped, his mouth flattening to a taut line. He paled, but then managed a nod. He reached into his jacket, wincing with effort as he drew out his true Ring.

  “Ah, I see the young patriarch has seen reason,” said the doctor.

  Séverin’s face shuttered, but he held still. Shock rippled across Zofia’s face. How could he? They’d been friends, hadn’t they? Hadn’t they spent hours in the stargazing room? Had he imagined everything?

  Enrique dropped his gaze to the dirt floor, the smoothed surface where the perfect mold of a Horus Eye was now partially exposed. The knife pointed at his throat dragged up his skin, as if sensing what he wished to do. Laila met his gaze over the blade, her dark eyes wild.

  Hypnos kept his back to them as he stepped forward.

  “I shall give it to you,” said Hypnos.

  Laila screamed, “What are you doing?”

  Hypnos neither turned nor answered. He was nothing more than a rigid shadow. Roux-Joubert wept at the doctor’s feet.

  “It’s happening … I shall be a god,” he whispered.

  Slowly, the knives dropped from their throats. Enrique breathed deep, something in his chest finally loosening. When he looked up, he saw a small smile flicker on Laila’s face as she looked at Hypnos. Enrique frowned, then his eyes darted to Hypnos. He was still standing, still speaking with the doctor.

  “I want assurances that nothing will happen to them.”

  “Very well,” said the doctor. “Now give me your Ring.”

  Behind his back, Hypnos held out three fingers.

  Three.

  He curled the ring finger down …

  “Wait,” said the doctor.

  Two.

  A beat of silence passed.

  “This isn’t the true Ring,” said the doctor, his voice rising. “You would betray your own like this, Patriarch? For these people?”

  “I rather like them,” said Hypnos.

  He looked over his shoulder then, the barest of smiles lifting his mouth.

  “But then—” Roux-Joubert said.

  Enrique scrambled at the dirt, clearing the space.

  “Now, Laila!”

  She pitched forward, slamming the Horus Eye into the mold. Bright light flashed all around them. The blue light of the rising Fragment started to fade. Little by little, whatever energy had seeped into the catacombs now folded in on itself, like something slipping into ice only for the ice to re-form and wipe away any proof.

  The doctor growled, but the moment the Horus Eye touched the ground, he recoiled. As if he couldn’t touch it.

  And then, standing at the top of the terraced steps came a low, hair-raising growl: The Sphinx had arrived.

  “My Lord,” called Roux-Joubert from the floor. “Please.”

  The doctor drew back his foot.

  “You led us into a trap.”

  “I c-can’t live like this much longer.”

  “Then perhaps you shall not live long at all,” said the doctor. He raised one hand, and the uninjured members of the Fallen House fled through the Tezcat, disappearing into the night. Now, the Babel Fragment had fallen back to rest … two frail lights emerged from the ground. One was the Ring of the Fallen House. The other, the Ring of House Kore. The doctor tried to grab both, but then hissed out as if in pain. He dropped the Ring of House Kore to the ground, then shoved the other onto his hand before fleeing through the Tezcat.

  Now, the room was nearly empty. The four of them were still huddled together. A handful of unconscious members of the Fallen House dotted the floor. Blood seeped from the sprawled-out body of Roux-Joubert’s accomplice, his blade-brim hat flung out beside him. Roux-Joubert coughed, covering his mouth with stained hands. All around them, the bones of the catacombs crumpled to the ground, zipping back into the niches they had lived in for centuries …

  Enrique swayed where he stood, feeling the rush of a thousand people coming around him. The din and shouts of members of the Houses. The mirror seamed up. But beyond the handful of uncons
cious members, there was nothing left of the Fallen House.

  Beside him, he heard Laila let out a cry. Only then did he turn and see Hypnos sprawled out, the cold lights of the catacombs playing across his skin.

  32

  SÉVERIN

  Séverin didn’t move until he felt Tristan’s hand clapping his shoulder.

  “We’re alive.”

  The same could not be said for everyone, though. The Fallen House may have disappeared once more through the Tezcat, but they had left people behind. Soon, they would be uncloaked, their identities known and their location recorded. Séverin looked up to the line of Sphinxes prowling down the terraces … their eyes recording all they saw around them. Soon, the whole Order would know who had betrayed them.

  Across from him, Hypnos stirred, groaning.

  “I’m dead,” he moaned.

  Laila was the first one to rush to him, propping up his head on her lap.

  “Well now, this is just proof. An angel stares upon my lifeless form,” said Hypnos, flinging his arm over his forehead.

  Séverin forced down the smile pushing at his lips. He hadn’t imagined how it would feel the moment he thought Hypnos had betrayed them. Like a knife twisting in his gut.

  “He’s not so bad,” said Tristan begrudgingly. “Please don’t tell him I said that.”

  “I won’t, so long as you forgive me for not listening to you earlier.”

  Tristan heaved a sigh. “That depends on one thing.”

  “And that is?”

  “Did someone feed Goliath?”

  Séverin laughed, and the force of it—raw, unfettered—scraped his very lungs.

  “You only narrowly escaped death, and your first question is about a spider?” demanded Enrique. “What about us? We just risked life and limb to save your ungrateful self!”