R O T A S⇒R+O+T+A+S=18+15+20+1+19=73
“That hardly looks helpful.”
Zofia frowned. “Separate the numbers. The first line is seventy-three. Seven plus three is ten. Move to the next line. Five and five is ten. Each of them becomes ten when treated as a separate integer. Or, perhaps it is not ten. Perhaps it is just one and zero. See?”
“It’s like the I Ching,” said Enrique, impressed. “The movement of zero to one is the power of divinity.Ex nihiloand all that. That would fit if there’s a piece of verit inside this square because the stone was believed to examine the soul, the way a deity might. But that doesn’t give us a hint to how to open the box itself. Plus, do the letters look like they’re…sliding?”
Zofia held up the metal square, tilting it back and forth. She pressed the letterSand moved her finger. It dragged a couple spaces to the right.
For the next hour, Enrique and Zofia copied out the letters on at least twenty different sheets of paper before cutting them up, and trying to arrange them as they went. Every now and then, his gaze darted to her face. As she worked, Zofia’s brows were pressed down, her mouth slanted in a grimace. In the past year or so that she’d worked for Séverin, Enrique had never spent much time with Zofia. She was always too quiet or too cutting. She rarely laughed and scowled more than she smiled. Watching her now, Enrique was beginning to think she wasn’t reallyscowling… maybe this was just the face she made when thinking… as if everything was an exercise in computation. And here, with the numbers and the riddle before them, it was like watching her come alive.
“Language of the divine, language of the divine,” muttered Enrique over and over to himself. “But how does itwantto be arranged? I seeAandOwhich could theoretically be said to represent thealphaandomegapower of God. Those are, coincidentally, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, said to suggest that God is first and last.”
“Then take out the twoAs and twoOs,” said Zofia. “Wouldn’t it make sense if it stood apart?”
Enrique did as she suggested. Maybe it was the light in the room or the fact that his eyes were strangely unfocused in exhaustion, but he thought of home as he muttered a quick prayer. He thought of kneeling with his mother, father, Lola, and brothers in the church pews, heads bowed as the priest recited the Lord’s Prayer in Latin:Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…
“Pater Noster,” breathed Enrique, his eyes flying open. “That’s it. ‘Our Father’ in Latin.”
His eyes skipped over the arrangement of letters, hands moving furiously as he moved the bits of paper into a cross:
“Zofia,” he said. “I think I know how to use it.”
He took the metal disc from her, then dragged the letters into thePATER NOSTERformation, with theAs andOs placed outside of the cross. The square split down the middle, and a ghostly light shimmered before them. Zofia reeled back as the top half of the brass square slid away, revealing four gravel-sized pieces of verit stone that could ransom a kingdom.
12
SÉVERIN
Séverin was ten years old when he was brought to his third father, Envy. Envy took them in after Wrath accidentally drank tea steeped with wolfsbane. It was not a peaceful death. Séverin knew, for he had watched.
Envy had a wife named Clotilde, and two children whose names Séverin no longer remembered. On the first day with Envy, Séverin fell in love. He loved the charming whitewashed house and the charming children who were the same age as Tristan and him. When the men in suits and hats had dropped them before the house, Clotilde had told them, charmingly, of course, “Call me Mama.” When she said that, his throat burned. He wanted to say that word so badly his teeth hurt.
Clotilde allowed them almost one perfect week. Milky tea and biscuits in the morning. Warm hugs in the afternoon. Pheasant shimmering in golden fat for dinner. Cocoa just before bed. Two feather-down beds down the hall from the other two children.
And then, before the week ended, Séverin had heard Clotilde and Envy fighting behind closed doors. Séverin had been on his way to her tearoom. In his hand were flowers that he and Tristan had spent all morning picking.
“I thought they were heirs!” Clotilde yelled. “You said this was our chance to earn back a place!”
“Not anymore,” said Envy, his voice heavy. “One has an immense fortune, though he won’t see a penny of it until he comes of age.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do? Feed and clothe them on that measly allowance from the Order? This week’s meal cost a king’s ransom! We can’t go on this way!”
Finally, Envy sighed. “No. No, we cannot.”
That was the end of milky tea and biscuits, of warm hugs in the afternoon, of shining pheasant, of cocoa in bed. That was the end of “Mama,” for now she preferred to be known as Madame Canot. Séverin and Tristan were relocated to the guesthouse. The other two children no longer sought them out. The only blessing was that Tristan and Séverin were given a tutor from the university. And as it was all he was given, Séverin abandoned himself to it.
After Madame Canot moved them to the guesthouse, Tristan cried for weeks. Séverin did not. He did not cry when Christmas dinner was only for Envy and his wife and children. He did not cry when Envy’s daughters received a silk-eared puppy for a present, while Tristan and Séverin received a scolding for keeping their narrow, chilly rooms unkempt. He did not cry at all.
But he watched.
He watched them fiercely.
SÉVERIN STARED ATthe bone clock.
He’d moved it from its original place on his bookshelf to his desk to help him concentrate. Behind him, late afternoon sun poured through the tall, bay windows of L’Eden.
It had been two weeks since they’d uncovered a few precious pieces of verit stone and the Horus Eye location from the catalogue coin. In three days, they would leave for House Kore’s Spring Festival celebration at Château de la Lune, House Kore’s country estate.On those sprawling grounds hid the Horus Eye, the rare artifact that could see the Babel Fragment.
