The Silvered Serpents

by Roshani Chokshi

  “How did you enjoy the doctor’s gift?” said Eva, advancing toward her. “In his mercy, he wanted to give you both one last night of pleasure. He figured that either you’d be too stubborn to go to Séverin, and I would have to do the honors of giving him one last night with you. Alternatively, I would have incited you to the point you would go to him on your own.”

  Eva eyed her up and down.

  “It seems I was successful. Well done, me.”

  Eva pulled out a dagger. Laila glanced over her shoulder. She was too far from the door. She put up her hands, her thoughts clamoring together. The doctor? He was here?

  “Listen, Eva. I understand the Fallen House may have promised you freedom, but we can help you—”

  Eva’s eyes widened. “How did you…”

  She trailed off, her gaze snapping to her dropped necklace. At that, Eva looked beyond Laila’s shoulder.

  “You were right,” she said.

  But she was not speaking to Laila.

  Behind her, someone started to clap. Before Laila could turn, the person grabbed hold of her, pulling her against their chest. Eva lunged forward, grabbing her by the throat. Her ring talon dug into her neck.

  “Be still.”

  Laila’s limbs went numb. She couldn’t even speak. All she felt was a roiling sense of nausea.

  “You must be wondering what the Fallen House wants with you,” said Eva.

  “It’s the same thing your darling Séverin craves, my sweet muse, my divine instrument,” said a familiar voice.

  Laila felt her arms yanked forward, her hands brought up to her face.

  “Nothing but your touch.”

  31

  SÉVERIN

  Séverin awoke to a cold bed and a panic that felt like a thunderstorm had taken root in his skull. Laila was gone. Of course she was gone. If he could, he would’ve cursed that blood Forging drink for unlocking him so thoroughly. He must have terrified her. He touched the empty space beside him. Every exquisite detail of last night burned through him. Including everything he’d said. Shame burned his cheeks … but then why did he remember Laila smiling at him, her laughter against his skin? Laila was many things, but not cruel. Pity wouldn’t have driven her to his bed. So then why had she left it so soon?

  Séverin threw back the sheets, groping on the table beside him for Tristan’s knife hidden under one of his notebooks. The heft of the wooden hilt in his hand calmed him. He unsheathed it, staring at the blade and the thin, translucent vein in the metal where Goliath’s paralyzing venom ran thick. Perhaps more than the failure to protect Tristan was how he’d failed to know him fully. How could Tristan inflict hurt and give love in the same breath? How was he supposed to live knowing that all of this had been for nothing? The Divine Lyrics had never been there. He’d failed Tristan. He’d failed all of them, left them unprotected … and left himself unprotected too. What he’d done with Laila … he felt like a creature yanked from its shell, all exposed flesh and raw nerves.

  Silence pressed all around, and … wait. Silence?

  Dread grabbed hold of his thoughts. Séverin threw on his clothes, pocketed a couple of Zofia’s concealed weapons and Tristan’s knife, and then opened the door. A sickly sweet smell immediately hit his nose. Like blood and spiced wine. He crossed the stair landing. On one of the steps, he spotted a familiar necklace … Eva’s ballerina pendant.

  Thinking of her brought a bitter taste to the back of his throat. She’d tricked him, and that mind Forging draught had turned him reckless, blurring the differences to show him who he wanted in his arms. Not who he had.

  Far below came a strange scraping sound, like dry leaves on a road. Goose bumps pebbled his skin. The silence was all wrong. It wasn’t the intoxicated, full-bodied silence of a crowd passed out, but something more sinister. More absent.

  Séverin kept to the side of the stairs. Immediately, a rounded shape met his eye. He stepped closer and his stomach dropped.

  A person was sprawled out on the steps.

  With a normal Order function, he would have assumed they were just passed out from drink … but this person’s eyes kept moving, roving back and forth wildly, his mouth frozen in an oval of panic. Paralyzed.

  Séverin bent down, turning the man’s chin ever so slightly. A slight puncture wound marked his skin. This had to be an act of blood Forging. The paralyzed person—a white man in his late fifties—stared hard into Séverin’s eyes, silently pleading for help, but Séverin had no skill in blood Forging. And frankly, this man was not his concern. He cared about where Laila had gone; whether Zofia and Enrique were safe … and Hypnos.

  As Séverin moved down the staircase and entered the atrium, he saw dozens of Order members slumped over, lining the frozen walls in neat rows. Scattered around them, the living animal-like treasure chests of the Order appeared as inanimate as rock, frozen just like their respective matriarchs and patriarchs. Hypnos was not among them.

  The more Séverin looked at the paralyzed members of the Order, the more the details struck him. For one, they were too organized. Every single person had been arranged so that not one had their face toward the ground. It could have appeared merciful, a pose that allowed them to breathe … but Séverin had long practiced reading rooms full of treasure. This was personal. Whoever had done this to them had arranged them so they could see one another, so their own horror would be reflected back infinitely.

  Someone wanted to make sure that everyone knew who had put them in their place. He needed to find out exactly who that person was, what they’d done with the others … and why they had chosen to spare him. The location of his suite was no secret. Clearly, he was meant to see this. He just didn’t know why.

  The atrium now held a gruesome beauty to it. Silver confetti still spangled the air. The champagne chandeliers drifted aimlessly, frost creeping over their stems. Down the hall leading to the ice grotto, Séverin spied a heat net composed of slender, crisscrossing patterns in glowing red that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It blocked Forged objects, but not humans. If the others were taken, they could’ve been dragged through the net easily.

  To his right, he heard the creaking sound of a door. Séverin took quick stock of his position in the wide atrium. The sound was coming from the library, the place where he had last seen Enrique.

  A low growl emanated from the podium. Séverin snapped his head to the stage where the Midnight Auction was supposed to have taken place, but judging from the confetti and untouched champagne, they had never made it that far before the attack.

  From between the rows of paralyzed Order members slithered out crystalline snakes. A transparent jaguar prowled out from behind a grand piano. Several birds of prey broke off from the moonstone chandelier, their crystal wings chiming loudly. All around him, the crouched silhouettes of animals started to stir. Ice animals, the same ones that had been hauled out of the menagerie, their internal mechanisms changed to turn them into docile, sentient tables.

  The ice jaguar’s tail switched, its jaws lengthening.

  They weren’t docile anymore.

  Another banging sound came from the library door. As if someone was trying to get out. Séverin weighed the chances of death by the ice animals or death by whoever hid in the library … and then he took off down the hall.

  Behind him, the heavy paws of the ice animals crunched against the glass floor. Séverin skidded to a stop near the front of the library entrance. Chairs barricaded the doors, and a table bearing vases of frozen lilies blocked him. Séverin pushed them aside, then lifted the chain holding the doors in place. When he jammed the handle, it was stuck fast … but from the other side.

  “Who’s there?” came a voice from within.

  Enrique. Séverin could have fallen to the floor in relief.

  “It’s me, Séverin,” he said. “You need to open up, there’s—”

  “Séverin,” spat Enrique. “Where are the others? What did you do with them?”

  “Why would I do anyt
hing with them?”

  “You’re clearly intent on destroying anything around you, so where are they?”

  Behind Séverin came a low growl and the sharp scritch of ice on ice. He risked a glance over this shoulder and saw an ice bear snuffling the ground. Séverin held still. The animals were drawn to heat and movement … it wouldn’t move unless he did.

  “Enrique—” said Séverin.

  “You didn’t think I’d find out about the letters you sent to the Ilustrados?” demanded Enrique. “How you cancelled the meeting and destroyed my dreams?”

  Séverin froze, but only for an instant. Yes, he sent out a letter to every member of the Ilustrados. Yes, he had enclosed a check with each letter, so they would not attend. He didn’t care if it looked like sabotage. He didn’t even care if Enrique hated him for it. All he had done was try to protect him.

  Enrique cracked open the door and stepped outside. “So unless you can explain why I should trust—”

  The door swinging open caught the bear’s attention. It roared, pounding the floor as it charged toward them. Séverin snatched the vase of frozen lilies, smashing it over the bear’s head. A quarter of its face cracked off, splintering to the ground. Enrique screamed, and Séverin pulled him away from the wall right when the animal charged again.

  “I’ll distract, you run inside, and then we slam the door,” said Séverin. “Understand?”

  Before Enrique had a chance to answer, Séverin grabbed the white lilies from the ground, waving them off to the side. The creature looked between Enrique and the flowers. Séverin’s hand lent the bouquet an illusion of heat. The bear leapt, springing for the flowers—

  Séverin tossed them in its face, then grabbed Enrique, pushing them both into the library. Too late, the creature registered the falsehood. It charged at the library, but Séverin got to the door first, slamming it hard enough that delicate shingles of ice crashed onto the marble. The bear snarled and snorted, scrabbling at the door of the library.

  “What the hell just happened?” gasped Enrique. “They’re not supposed to act like that.”

  “Someone must have returned them to their original settings,” said Séverin.

  He glanced behind Enrique. The tables full of treasure looked just as they had left them.

  “I still hate you,” said Enrique raggedly.

  “Not an uncommon sentiment today.”

  “You sent out notes to every member of the Ilustrados making sure they wouldn’t come to my meeting? Do you deny it?”

  “No,” said Séverin. “We need to find the others. You can berate me later.”

  “I might kill you later, forget berating—”

  “Shhh,” said Séverin. He pressed his ear to the door and peered through the keyhole.

  “Good. The ice creature left,” said Séverin. “Tell me what happened. Where are the others?”

  Enrique stared at him, still breathing hard, his face contorted in something between fury and worry. Finally, Enrique let out a sigh, and Séverin sensed that for now … he would put aside his hurt.

  “I was knocked out,” he said, rubbing his temples. “The last thing I remember is Ruslan saying he would deliver the lyre to the matriarch. There must have been something in our drink that was meant to knock us out, but Ruslan didn’t take his goblet. He could be dead. And Zofia…” Enrique swallowed hard. “Zofia had left to examine a part of the ice grotto, but she never came back. I have no clue where Laila was last night.”

  Séverin opened his mouth, closed it, then rethought his words. “She was accounted for up until a few hours ago.”

  “Where was she?”

  “In bed,” said Séverin curtly.

  “How do you know?” demanded Enrique.

  “Because I was there,” said Séverin, adding quickly, “What about Hypnos?”

  “I haven’t seen Hypnos since last evening and—wait a minute, what did you just say?”

  “I didn’t see him out there with the others,” said Séverin.

  “You were with Laila ‘in bed’?” asked Enrique. “Like … beside her or—hold on, what do you mean out there with the others? What others?”

  “The paralyzed members of the Order are lined up all around the atrium. Must have been a blood Forging artist,” said Séverin. Then he frowned, running through what Enrique had said. “Why would Ruslan need to deliver a lyre to the matriarch?”

  Enrique eyed him warily.

  It hit Séverin then: Enrique didn’t trust him. Enrique, who had once willingly walked into a volcano beside him and emerged on the other side craving marshmallow and bars of chocolate. This was the cost of what he had done, and to stare at it full in the face and have nothing to offer in return: no godhood, no protection, no recompense …

  It was its own kind of death.

  “Later,” said Enrique curtly.

  Séverin forced himself to nod and then turned to the door of the library.

  “The ice creatures are drawn to heat and movement. There’s a heat net blocking the grotto entrance, and they can’t cross it. We just have to get there before them.”

  “And how, exactly, do we avoid getting mauled?”

  He couldn’t care less what happened to him so long as the others were safe, but he’d be useless to them if he was too wounded to help. Séverin looked around the library, then walked to one of the tables laden with treasure. There were statue busts, woven tapestries that shimmered and sang at his touch … but that wasn’t what he was looking for. His gaze zeroed in on a handheld mirror the size of his palm.

  Enrique moved behind him.

  “That’s a fourth-century replica of Amaterasu’s mirror. It’s a relic all the way from Japan, so be very—”

  Séverin smashed it, eliciting a strangled choking sound from Enrique.

  “… careful,” finished Enrique weakly.

  Séverin picked through the shards, gathering a couple for himself, and then a couple for Enrique.

  “Follow me.”

  Séverin opened the library door slowly, and they walked down the hall to the atrium. Beside him, Enrique muttered something about the “tyranny of indifference.” Morning light changed in the room, silvering the interior of the Sleeping Palace. The ice creatures weren’t true animals; they couldn’t see. Yet their Forging function was identical to that of a Mnemo bug. It could track and record movement like any ordinary pair of eyes … and respond in kind.

  Séverin weighed the mirror shards in his hand.

  “Do you remember Nisyros Island?”

  Enrique groaned. Séverin knew that Enrique, in particular, held a special grudge against the island.

  “Remember the mechanical sharks?”

  “The ones you said wouldn’t attack?” shot back Enrique.

  In the past, Enrique had always mentioned this jokingly, but there was no humor left. Now, Enrique’s eyes dulled, as if whatever joy he’d found in the past had snapped beneath the weight of the present. Séverin wanted to shake his shoulders, to tell him that everything he’d done was for and not against him. But disuse had turned his tongue clumsy for truth telling, and the window for truths slammed shut at the distant growl of an ice animal.

  “Those sharks followed patterns of light,” explained Séverin.

  “Which would carry a very faint heat signature to the ice animals,” finished Enrique, nodding.

  “Exactly,” said Séverin. “Now. On the count of three, I’m going to shine the mirror shards onto the wall behind us. At that point you have to run.”

  Even without turning around, Séverin could feel Enrique chafe at the thought.

  “One…”

  Séverin moved forward. The silhouettes of animals crowded the stage, tensed for any sign of an intruder.

  “Two…”

  Enrique moved beside him, and Séverin remembered every other time they had stood like this. Like friends.

  “Three.”

  Séverin threw out the mirror shards. Patterns of light hit the floor.

>   “Go!” he shouted.

  Enrique ran forward. Light splayed like diamonds across the translucent floor. The creatures leapt and snarled at the patches of light. But not all the creatures were so distracted. To them, any combination of heat and movement was worth chasing. Out the corner of his eye, Séverin saw a huge crystal wolverine break off from the rest of the group. Its head jerked sharply in their direction before it growled, leaping after them, the ground falling away beneath its loping pace.

  Up ahead, the red Forged heat net grew closer. Enrique tried to match Séverin stride for stride, but he wasn’t fast enough. The wolverine gained on him, one sharp claw was all it would take—

  Séverin turned swiftly and barreled into the ice wolverine. It skidded to the right, scrabbling at the ice to get back on course.

  “Don’t stop running!” yelled Séverin.

  Séverin tore an incendiary device from his belt, throwing it into the wolverine’s gaping jaws. Seconds later, orange light burst across his vision. He threw up his arm as glass exploded in every direction. Growling and hissing filled his ears. All that the other creatures detected was heat and light, and they stalked it like a trail of blood left behind by wounded prey. Séverin couldn’t run. The creatures closed on him from every side. He willed himself still, arms frozen. In front of him, a vulture hopped forward, snapping its beak.

  Séverin slowly maneuvered the mirror shards down his sleeve and into his palms. If he could distract them, he could make a run for it. He nearly had the shard in his hand when he heard the scrape of glass on ice. Out the corner of his eye, he saw a leopard sink back on its haunches. His heart pounded. He spun around in the same instant the creature leapt into the air. Light flashed in his eyes, his feet skidding beneath him. Séverin threw up his hands, only for cold air to burst onto his face. The animals had scattered. Sharp patterns of light knifed across the floor, blinding him.

  “Run!” called Enrique.

  Séverin twisted around. Enrique stood at the entrance to the Forged heating net, and for a moment, time froze with his shock: Enrique hadn’t left him. Scrambling to his feet, Séverin took off at a run. Behind him, he could hear the ice animals giving way to chase. A claw caught the edge of his jacket, tearing it off him. The Forged net loomed closer, its warm red light searing into his vision. One step, then three—