The Gilded Wolves

by Roshani Chokshi

  “What about Laila?” asked Hypnos.

  The paper slipped from his hands.

  “What about Laila?” he asked, not looking up from his desk.

  He hadn’t seen her since that night in his study. He pushed away the memory.

  If everything went to plan, they would find her precious book. She would leave Paris, and he would be free of his guilt.

  “Are you no longer working together?”

  “We are.”

  Enrique had become, albeit grudgingly and with much attitude, a conduit between the two of them. Laila might not speak to Séverin anymore, but he still had what she wanted: access to artifacts and the intelligence collected by the Order. And she still had what he wanted: insight into the objects that held precious secrets. Séverin would pack a box full of this or that collector’s or curator’s personal effects and have it sent to her, and a progress report on finding the Fallen House. Laila would return the box with notes about the person attached, along with anything she’d picked up from the Palais. It was a method that suited both of them.

  “Have you asked her to join us at the Winter Conclave?”

  Séverin nodded.

  “And has she responded?”

  He sighed. “No.”

  That was another problem. He couldn’t figure out what she wanted, what would make her join.

  “Ah, lover spats,” sighed Hypnos.

  “Laila is not my lover.”

  “Your loss, mon cher.” Hypnos shrugged and looked up at the clock above the office doorway. “Your birthday party is in full swing downstairs. You do know that, don’t you?”

  “Mm.”

  “Are you going to make an appearance?”

  “This late in the evening, I doubt it will be remembered,” he said.

  Hypnos rolled his eyes, bowed, and swept out of the office. Séverin forced down a yawn. He wanted to stay in his study, but there was nothing left to do. Happy birthday, indeed. Last year, Tristan had the bright idea of baking a living entremet pie and filling it with four and twenty blackbirds as an homage to the nursery rhyme that Séverin had found funny when he was eight. Zofia built the cage-pie with a Forging mechanism to open when Séverin blew out the candles. Enrique found a first edition nursery rhyme book containing “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” Laila had made the jam. But once the candles had been blown and the cage sprang open, none of the birds wanted to leave as they vastly preferred Laila’s pie. And then Tristan had wanted to keep them. And Enrique was furious because there were bird droppings all over the library books. The pie was inedible after that, but Laila baked him a cupcake and left it on his desk the next day with a small candle.

  Séverin almost laughed, but it died halfway past his lips.

  There would never be another birthday like that.

  Right before Séverin left his office, he grabbed an ouroboros mask from his desk. The brass snake mask formed an intricate figure-eight pattern that hid his eyes, so he could watch the revelries from the top of the bannister. L’Eden was in the grips of a masquerade ball. Acrobats spun down from the rafters, grinning masks plastered eerily onto their faces. Everyone had come out for the event. Zofia wore a mask with a pointed beak, her cloudlike hair fluffed around her like ruffled feathers. Enrique stood beside her, a grinning monkey mask on his face, complete with a tail. Hypnos had eschewed a mask in favor of a sweeping, phoenix train Forged into the semblance of twisting flames.

  At the doors, a line of twelve women wearing peacock feathers poured into the lobby. They were utterly dazzling.

  But they were not her.

  Behind him, he heard his factotum call out: “Please welcome the stars of the Palais des Rêves, who are performing a very special dance in honor of Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie’s birthday!”

  The crowd cheered. Séverin turned on his heel. His suite was just off to the western alcove, disguised behind a Tezcat door of a long, oval mirror encircled by an ouroboros. The snake was Forged so that it continually slithered, continually chasing after its own tail. It was only by catching it by the throat as if one were to throttle it that the snake would still. It was also how one could access his suites.

  Séverin’s room was rather spartan, which he preferred. There was a large bed with an ebony headboard. A sheer, golden canopy Forged so that anyone who touched it between the hours of two in the morning and four in the morning—prime murder hours, he was told—would be snarled in the threads.

  Séverin rubbed the back of his neck, dropped the snake mask on the floor, kicked off his shoes, and yanked his shirt out of his pants. When he breathed deep, he wondered whether he was beginning to lose his mind. Impossibly, he thought he could smell Laila. Sugar in the air. A faint aroma of rosewater. She was haunting him. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. What was wrong with him? He trudged forward a couple steps, ready to collapse into his bed when he stopped short.

  His bed was already occupied.

  “Hello, Majnun.”

  Perched on the edge of his bed and wearing a gown that looked cut from the night sky was Laila. She shifted under his stare, and faint stars zoomed across the ends of her dress. Blearily, Séverin wondered whether it was really her. Or whether she was some phantasm scraped together from all his longing. But then the corner of her mouth lifted in a knowing smile, and he was jolted back to this moment.

  They hadn’t spoken in weeks, and yet the way to talk to her—the push-pull of jokes—floated back to him, as easy as breathing. She no longer looked wide-eyed and bruised, the way she had when they had last spoken in the study. If anything, she looked like an icon. Terrible and beautiful. Untouchable.

  And here he was. Disheveled and tired and not willing to show it.

  “And what brings the celebrity of the Palais des Rêves back to my bed?” he asked.

  She laughed, and even though he was clothed he might as well have been standing naked.

  “A proposition,” she said lightly.

  He raised his eyebrow. “One that has to do with my bed?”

  “As if you’d know what to do with me in your bed,” she said, glancing at her nails.

  He most certainly did know—

  “My proposition has to do with the Winter Conclave in Russia.”

  “You’ll come with us?”

  “On my own terms.”

  “What do you want?”

  Laila tipped forward. The light clung to her skin. “I want special access. I don’t want to hide in a cake. Or pose as a maid.”

  And just like that, he understood.

  “You want me to make you my mistress.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Hypnos declined, which left you as the only logical option. With the fête in three weeks’ time, I can hardly expend the effort into ingratiating myself with someone else.”

  He tried not to think about how she had gone to another man first. He tried, and he failed.

  She reached for his hand, and he noticed that she wore jewelry now. Heavy, uncut rocks on her index fingers and thin, beaten strands of gold around her wrists. She had never worn jewelry in the hotel. They had always gotten in the way of her baking.

  When she touched him, he stiffened.

  “What do you say, Majnun? It will only be in name, I assure you,” she said. Her voice was low, suffused with an almost professional quality of seduction that knocked the wind from his lungs even as every corner of his mind fought to withstand her. “You need me. You know it. If I am not there, then all your plans to find The Divine Lyrics disappear.”

  Now her fingers traced the line of his neck, the underside of his jaw. He couldn’t breathe.

  “Fine,” he bit out.

  “Promise?” she whispered. “I need to hear you say it.”

  He swallowed. “I promise I will declare you my mistress and take you to the winter fête,” he said.

  “Promise that whatever you discover you will share with me?” she pressed.

  She had undone his first button. Her hands were on his chest. />
  “Fine, yes, I promise,” he said hoarsely.

  Laila leaned in, her face inches away from his, damson-dark lips parting softly.

  “Good,” she said.

  Something was burning his skin. He hissed, looking down at his wrist to see that her stack of bangles had not been bangles at all, but coils of iron wire, Forged from the same material as an oath tattoo and now seared into his skin by his own promise. The burning lasted for less than a blink before the metal disappeared beneath his skin.

  “I have learned not to trust what you say,” said Laila. “So I took my own precaution.”

  “How—”

  “I learned from the best,” she said, patting his cheek.

  He caught her wrist in his hand.

  “You should be more careful with the promises you extract,” he said, his voice low. “Do you know what contract you have just entered?”

  “I know exactly what I’m doing,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

  “Do you?” he asked. “Because you have just agreed to spend every night in my bed for the next three weeks. I will hold you to that.”

  “I know that, Majnun,” she said, softer this time. “Just like I know how that will hold no temptation for you. You might even have to kiss me on occasion, simply to prove that I am to you who you say I am. But that means nothing. Remember?”

  She slid down from the bed and made her way to the door.

  “Happy birthday, Majnun,” she said, as the door closed. “Sleep well.”

  He did not sleep at all that night.

  40

  HYPNOS

  Hypnos walked briskly down the halls of Erebus.

  It was freezing outside, and the fires had been banked for the night, which meant that it was bound to be a chilly reception for the matriarch of House Kore. Her fur stole was wound tightly around her body. If she hadn’t bothered to take it off, then that meant it would only be a short visit.

  “Why did you come here at this hour?” he asked tiredly.

  If she was offended with his lack of decorum, she did not show it.

  “The Winter Conclave is nearly upon us.”

  “Hilariously, Madame, I do own a calendar.”

  She licked her lips, her eyes darting to the door.

  “Your friend, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie … are you quite certain he will not ask for us to administer the two Rings test?”

  Hypnos frowned. Who could say for certain what occurred in Séverin’s head. Perhaps he would ask again. He had refused out of grief, but perhaps with enough time, he would think that his own inheritance might be worth it.

  “I can’t say for certain.”

  The matriarch closed her eyes. “Make sure he doesn’t ask. At least, not until he’s helped the Order find the Fallen House.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She hesitated, and then began haltingly: “We administered the two Rings test on him when the former patriarch of House Vanth was killed in that fire.”

  “I already knew that, and everyone knows those results were falsified—”

  “They weren’t.”

  Hypnos paused. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that he’s not the blood heir of House Vanth, and he must never know.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I was eating breakfast and haphazardly listening to NPR when I first heard about the human zoo that displayed Filipinos. The Philippine village was one of the largest—and most visited—exhibits during the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, where visitors were particularly interested in seeing the “primitive” tribe of the Igorots forced to butcher and eat dogs.

  That piece shocked me. I couldn’t believe I’d just heard the words “human zoo.”

  It was that piece of history that guided me into the world of The Gilded Wolves, specifically the events of the Exposition Universelle of 1889, a world’s fair held in Paris, whose major attraction was a human zoo—then called a “Negro Village”—which was visited by twenty-eight million people. As a Filipina and Indian woman, colonialism runs in my veins. I couldn’t reconcile the horrors of that era with the glamour of it, which, up until then, was what stood out in my imagination of the 19th century: courtesans and the Moulin Rouge, glittering parties and champagne.

  I wanted to understand how an era called La Belle Époque, literally The Beautiful Era, could possess that name with that stain. I wanted to explore beauty and horror through the eyes of the people on the sidelines. And, ultimately, I wanted to go on an adventure.

  Research itself was an adventure. I learned that Filipino national hero Jose Rizal truly had been in Paris in 1889. I learned far too much about the history of ice manufacturing, which never ended up in the book. I learned that while Belle Époque Paris enjoyed artistic and scientific leaps, it also perpetuated the deep anti-Semitism spreading through Europe, particularly in the Russian empire.

  While I took many liberties with time and truth, it never felt right to untangle the beauty from the horror of the 19th century.

  When we revise the horror and sanitize the grotesque, we risk erasing the paths that led us here.

  History is a myth shaped by the tongues of conquerors. What appears good may eventually sour and curdle in our collective minds. What appears bad may later bloom and brighten. I wanted to write this trilogy not to instruct or to condemn, but to question …

  Question what is gold and what glitters.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For the longest time, I did not think I could write this book. The scope felt unimaginable. The puzzles were snarls of nonsense. The characters hissed at me when I got too close. But I found my way into this world and I kept my head above water thanks to the following people. To my family at Wednesday Books, I am so grateful for your support. Thank you to Eileen, who made me a romance reader and saw this tale from its origins as a half-baked lump of words and a Pinterest board. To Brittani, Karen, and DJ—thank you for igniting the fuel! To Thao, you’re my dream champion of an agent. I wouldn’t want to be in the trenches with anyone else. Thank you, also, to my family at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency for all that you do and especially to Andrea, who has brought these stories overseas. To Sarah Simpson-Weiss, assistant extraordinaire, how did I ever exist without you? To Noa, I’m so grateful for all your guidance and humor and invaluable feedback.

  To my amazing friends … thank you to Lyra Selene, my rockstar critique partner who read this story a thousand times. To Ryan: a thousand heartfelt meeps! To Renee and JJ, illuminated and glam oracles. To Eric, who let me borrow his name. Russell and Josh, who have patiently witnessed me in all manner of disheveled deadline-ness. Marta, Zan, and Amber, who kept me sane and grounded and laughing. To Katie, who helped me with the maths. To Niv, Victoria, and Bismah: I couldn’t have written a tale about friendship without you.

  To my incredible family: Mom, Dad, Ba and Dadda, Lalani, my aunts and uncles, and future in-laws. Your support brought me here and keeps me going. A special thanks to my Alpesh Kaka and Alpa Kaki, in whose home I first read the treasure hunt thrillers that inspired this story. Shiv, Renuka, Aarav (I will never forget seeing you for the first time), Sohum, Kiran and Alisa, Shraya—I do not say this often enough, but I love you. A special thanks to my cousin, Pujan, whose brilliant insight into the art world made me rethink how I observe pieces of history. To Pog and Cookie, the beta readers who will tell me first: what fresh hell is this. I am deeply proud to be your sister.

  To Panda and Teddy, who can neither read nor write, but seem to grow fluffier to soak up my writing despair. Thanks.

  To Aman. I wouldn’t want to be on this journey with anyone else. You bring magic to my world.

  And last, to my readers, thank you so much. You guys fill my heart.

  Also by Roshani Chokshi

  The Star-Touched Queen

  A Crown of Wishes

  Star-Touched Stories

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Roshani Chokshi is the New York Times bestselling
author of The Star-Touched Queen, A Crown of Wishes, Aru Shah and the End of Time, and The Gilded Wolves. You can visit her online at www.roshanichokshi.com, or sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part I

  1. Séverin

  2. Laila

  3. Enrique

  4. Zofia

  5. Séverin

  Part II

  6. Enrique

  7. Séverin

  8. Laila

  9. Zofia

  10. Laila

  11. Enrique

  12. Séverin

  Part III

  13. Zofia

  14. Séverin

  15. Enrique

  16. Laila

  17. Zofia

  18. Enrique

  19. Séverin

  Part IV

  20. Laila

  21. Zofia

  22. Enrique

  23. Séverin

  Part V

  24. Zofia

  25. Laila

  26. Séverin

  27. Enrique

  28. Laila

  29. Séverin

  30. Zofia

  31. Enrique