"Holy balls, she's just hanging there!" Apollo hollered from the top of the stairs, scaring the hell out of Cosimo.
Bas moved him aside and hurried down to where they were standing. "Is she breathing?"
"No, but she blinked," Cosimo said, fighting the horror of seeing her trapped and aware of it.
"Let me see if I can talk to her," Bas replied, moving Cosimo aside.
"That was the woman I followed here." Marcella came to Cosimo's side and took his hand. "We will get her out,amore. It will be okay."
"I feel like I'm going to be sick. She's been stuck here this whole time..." Cosimo swallowed the salty saliva filling his mouth.
Charlotte handed him a bottle. "Drink this. It'll help."
Cosimo sipped, unable to make out the herby notes in the drink. After a few sips, the nausea lifted. "Thank you, Charlotte."
"Oh! She's alive in there all right," Bas said and smothered a laugh. "She's swearing a lot right now."
"Ask her what she did to trigger the spell," Valentine urged him.
Bas held up a hand to silence him. He closed his eyes for a few moments. "She said there was something shiny on the floor, and she went to pick it up."
They all looked around them at the dirt and rubble. Cosimo's dragon came to the surface, and his night vision flared to life.
"By her feet," Marcella said, pointing. There was the smallest speck of gold. "It looks like an arm band."
"Good spotting. Shotgun not picking it up," Apollo said and looked at Valentine. "Go on. You like to live dangerously."
"How about no one touches it directly," Cosimo snapped.
Valentine looked at Yelena. "What about one of those little ward bags you can make? Would that work?"
"What kind of ward bag?" Reeve asked curiously.
"Later. Maybe I can smother the spell," Yelena said, waving him off.
"Weave it like I do my patches," Charlotte suggested.
"Good idea. Like a magical fire blanket," Bridget added.
"Are you following any of this?" Marcella whispered to Cosimo.
"Yelena can do unique things with her magic that even the fae can't understand," he told her, smiling as Yelena and Valentine worked. "Watch this."
Valentine's magic spooled out of his hands in black and scarlet threads. Opposite him, Yelena's magic came out as bright silver. Starting from the center of the space between them, their magic combined, ducking and weaving to create a blanket of pure power.
"This is insane," Marcella whispered, her eyes wide.
"It makes perfect sense to them," Cosimo replied with a shrug. The blanket grew, and the air in the chamber went hot.
"Be ready, Dad," Valentine said, his eyes shining with magic.
Cosimo let Marcella go and looked at Charlotte and Bas. "Create a shield between us and you all, please. I don't want you getting caught in any backlash."
They hurried to do as he said, and when everyone was in position, he gestured to Yelena and Valentine. The blanket they created slid lightning fast over the golden object under Maria. The magic in the chamber broke, making Cosimo's ears pop hard, and he grabbed hold of his sister as she fell.
Maria gasped in a ragged breath and blinked up at him. "Fuck me, you got old, Cosimo. About time you found me. I thought you would never figure out that damn statue."
"I... You..." he said and hugged her tight to him. "I'm going to throttle you."
