“In 1799, that corps of explorers discovered the Rosetta Stone, and sparked a worldwide interest in ancient Egyptian artifacts, with many of the Forged instruments or objects going straight to House Kore. Bees were sacred in ancient Egypt as well because they were said to grow from the tears of the sun god, Ra. But I think the other reason they held such interest to the Order of Babel was because of their honeycombs.”
“Honeycombs?” asked Laila. Honeycombs were delicious, but hardly the kind of ancient item she imagined would capture the interest of the Order.
“I didn’t think of it until I remembered something Zofia had said.”
“Me?”
Spots of color appeared on Zofia’s cheeks.
“You were the one who mentioned the perfect hexagonal prisms of honeycombs.”
“What’s so great about a hexagon?” asked Hypnos.
“Geometrically speaking, hexagonal prisms are the most efficient shape because they require the least total length of wall,” said Zofia, her voice rising slightly. “Honeybees are the mathematicians of nature.”
“This,” said Enrique, changing the display yet again, “is a hexagon.”
“I,” said Hypnos, clearly bored, “am a human.”
Séverin’s jaw fell open. “I see it.”
“See what?” demanded Zofia and Hypnos at the same time.
Séverin stood. “Extend the lines and you get—”
Enrique smile was grim. “Exactly.”
“You getwhat?” demanded Laila, but then the image on the wall changed, and she saw what formed when the lines of a hexagon were extended:
Laila felt a cold thud in her heart. She recognized that symbol in the blurred images of the necklace chain. In her hands, the pendant felt a touch colder than the rest of the necklace.
“It’s a hexagram,” said Enrique. “We know it as an ancient symbol that’s taken on all kinds of meanings throughout various cultures, but it also—”
“—is the crest of a House in the Order,” said Séverin, staring atthe six-pointed star. He absentmindedly rubbed his thumb along the long scar on his palm. “A House that was supposed to be dead.”
Hypnos gripped the armrest. “You don’t think—”
Séverin cut him off with a nod. His eyes looked hollow.
“The Fallen House has risen.”
21
ZOFIA
Zofia could not concentrate. Every time she blinked, she heard Roux-Joubert’s words echoed back to her: “I do love an idiot girl.”
Idiot.
It was just a word. It had no weight, no atomic number, no chemical structure with which it could bind to and thus make it real. But it hurt. Zofia squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the black table in her laboratory so hard her knuckles turned white. She felt the word like a slap to the face. In Glowno, she had once asked a theoretical question about physics. Her teacher told her, “You’d have better luck setting your desk on fire and seeing if the answer appears in the smoke.”
And so Zofia did.
She was ten years old.
When she came to theÉcole des Beaux-Arts, it was much the same. She was too curious, too Jewish, too strange. To the point where no one had pushed back at the idea of locking her in the school laboratory.
But not once had anyone been hurt by how she thought. Or rather, how she didn’t think.
