“That would be me.”
A woman stepped out of the control room and walked briskly toward the group. She wore a demure, knee-length, navy blue skirted business suit, a white blouse, and low black pumps. Her copper-red hair was pulled back into a neat bun. The severe style highlighted her elegant profile. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses framed her blue eyes. She gripped a metal clipboard in one hand.
“I’m very good with crystals,” she said in a warm, feminine voice that could only be described as charming. “Imagine my delight when I realized I could embed certain emotional prompts into some old crystals we found here in the lab and use the tiles to switch them on. I’ve learned so much from the experiments I’ve been running here at the art colony.”
“Shit,” Luke muttered.
The woman managed to look both hurt and disappointed. “Is that any way to greet the woman you were planning to marry? Wehad some good times together. So many memories. I still think about that night at the little inn in the wine country—”
“That’s enough, Victoria,” Luke said quietly. “We’ve got a situation here. You need to focus. We all do. This chamber is hotter than hell and getting hotter.”
Bewildered, Whitley turned toward Victoria. “I don’t understand. What’s going on here?”
“Shut the fuck up, Whitley,” Victoria said in the same charming tone. “This is my project. It has been from the beginning. You are the very definition of a useful idiot.”
Sophy winced. That voice was dangerous. It carried the currents of Victoria’s reflection talent.
Whitley’s jaw dropped. “How dare you? This is my project.”
Victoria ignored him. So did everyone else.
The chamber was hot, Sophy thought, but that was nothing compared to her temper. She flashed Victoria her most polished smile.
“So, you’re the secretly sexy librarian,” she said.
Fifty-Four
“The what?” Victoria blinked andthen she laughed. “Yes, the innocent-librarian-goes-wild-in-the-stacks trope works like a charm every time, especially on a no-talent.”
“This is embarrassing,” Luke muttered.
Deke grunted in a sympathetic way.
Sophy paid no attention. She was focused on Victoria.
“When Luke told me about you, I knew you were almost certainly a reflection talent,” she said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You have failed to uphold the standards of our profession.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not a real librarian.”
“Iknewit. How did you get your fake librarian hands on the crystals in Pandora’s box?”
Victoria’s eyes shimmered with triumph. “Everyone remembers that there were three paranormal engineers on the Kaleidoscope program, but no one remembers there was a fourth talent on the team. My great-grandmother.”
“The secretary,” Sophy said. “Mildred Green. My great-grandfather wrote that he was starting to suspect she was the real Communist spy.”
“There was always a secretary in those days,” Victoria said. “No one paid much attention to them but they knew all of the secrets. For example, my great-grandmother discovered the combination of the safe. On the day of the explosion, she grabbed the crystals on her way out. Later she went to the trouble of faking her death, but it hardly mattered because everyone had forgotten about her.”
“I understand,” Sophy said. “Librarians have a similar image problem. Everyone wants help from the staff at the reference desk, or readers’ advisory, or the archivist, or the rare books specialist, but no one remembers the person who helped them locate what they were looking for.”
“Luke is right about one thing,” Victoria said. “This place is going to explode. If you don’t unlock the crystals immediately I will leave you and your friends down here. Just think—you’ll have a front-row seat for the fireworks.”
Sophy got a senses-jarring ping.
“Okay, this is interesting,” she said. “Evidently you do realize that we’re all standing in the middle of a ticking time bomb. You’re scared, as well you should be, but you’re going to try to force me to unlock the crystals anyway. As soon as that’s done, you’re going to grab them and run, aren’t you?”
“What is she talking about, Victoria?” Whitley yelped.
“She’s not buying your theory that the towers can store vortex energy safely,” Luke said. “She’s just here for the crystals. Right, Victoria?”
