“The piranha solution worked.”
Zofia was not surprised the solution worked. She had made it, after all. And she was nothing if not exact.
Séverin continued, “As far as I can tell, the greenhouse has been marked off limits. Officially, the story is spreading that one of the guards broke the windows, and the mixture of Forged smoke with the venomous plants led to the fumes.”
By now, Tristan and Enrique should be hiding in the expansive gardens. By the ninth hour, their invitations would expire and they would exit the premises in full view of the House Kore security team, who would officially take them off the guest list. Then, Séverin’s hired transport would drop them off at one of the unsecured entrances on House Kore’s property, and they would meet at the greenhouse.
Zofia pressed the key into the wax.
“As you planned.”
“Mm.” Séverin reached for the door handle, then paused. He looked as if he wanted to ask her something, then thought better of it. “Top of the hour. Then it all starts.”
ZOFIA CHANGED INTOher evening gown. In her velvet wristlet lay a box of matches and two keys: one real and one copy marked by aslight dent. A mask made of frost-colored swan feathers concealed the top half of her face, disappearing into her hair. A gauzy net of fragile, silver thread spangled her dress. All she had to do was tear the cloth, and she had a purifying air filter for herself and Laila to walk through the greenhouse fumes unharmed.
Downstairs, the hall had transformed. Mirrors lined the walls, turning the room into endless space. Down the halls stalked a translucent gryphon, its beaked head brushing the ceiling. Ladies and gentlemen tittered and laughed when one of the illusion-creature’s heads snapped at them. In a corner of the room, a glorious cake that could only have been made by Laila glistened, showing eight planets that tilted and swayed gently.
Zofia concentrated on the floor. A glint of a silver spiral caught her eye. She paused, mentally tracing the line… she recognized that pattern of spirals. She hadn’t noticed it until now, though. The black marble of the floor had concealed it until the chandelier light snagged on the floor’s silver veins. The pattern was almost nautilus-like. Precise. Mathematical. It reminded her of the golden spiral, a logarithmic spiral based on the golden ratio. Two quantities were said to be in the golden ratio if their ratio was equal to the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Her father had explained it to her in terms of a golden rectangle…
The numerical representation was calledphi, approximately 1.618. Her father had showed her how one could find evidence of the golden ratio all throughout nature: in the spiral of a nautilus shell or the round hearts of sunflowers and pine cones… but she had never seen it in someone’s home. Zofia blinked, scanning the room as if she’d never seen it until now. Everywhere she looked she saw examples of the golden ratio. In the entrances. The shape of windows. The equation was all over. Numbers were never accidental. There was intention here. But to what purpose, Zofia could not fathom. She moved closer to one of the arches, but a man in a mustard-colored suit blocked her.
“I envy the man who would be the recipient of such an intense gaze. I simply had to know what it might feel like, and so I came to introduce myself.”
Zofia quickly ran through what she’d observed other women do. When a man they had not been introduced to spoke to them, they offered their hand. So Zofia did. The man took her hand, lifting it to his lips.
“I don’t know you.”
He laughed. He wore a mask of small, dragonfly wings. Zofia had never seen a man so pale in her life. A sickly sheen covered his skin.
“Roux-Joubert,” he said, releasing her hand. “May I have the first dance?”
She’d hardly noticed the couples swirling around her. Once she’d fixated on the equation of the floor, nothing else seemed to matter.
“I—”
“Please,” said the man, though his voice did not sound coaxing. “I insist.”
Zofia wanted to say no. But she did not know how fine ladies did such a thing. They would laugh or simper, say something behind a fan. Until now, most of the guests had let her be, knowing she only kept company with Monsieur Faucher, the high-ranking government official. Séverin had been her shelter. If she said no, they would notice she was acting strangely. Zofia felt a flash of panic, as if someone had just locked her into a room. Would the rest of the crowd notice? Would they circle them? Demand to know what was so wrong with her that she couldn’t stomach a single dance?
“So many people are watching, Baroness,” said the man. A slight sneer curled his pale mouth. “You would not want to embarrass me, would you?”
Zofia quickly shook her head no, and Roux-Joubert pulled her into the dance. The man’s hands were somehow freezing and damp with sweat. She tried to pull back, but the man, for all that he looked weak and ill, held tight.
“Where is it that you’re from in Russia, Baroness?”
“Poltava.”
“Stunning place, I am sure.”
Roux-Joubert spun her, and she took the moment to look around the room, hunting for any sign of Hypnos. He should have found her by now. The music picked up, a frantic cadence building in her ears, joining with the erratic pulse of her blood. The floor beneath Zofia felt like cut ice. She couldn’t dance well even when she wasn’t stressed, and her movements felt less like gliding and more like struggling for purchase. He spun her again, his hand tight on hers, until a warm voice cut through the orchestra’s straining—
“Baroness.”
Hypnos.
He stood behind Roux-Joubert, one brown hand on the man’s mustard-colored suit.
“May I?”
