“Has he left you anything—a gift, something inconsequential?” Maxwell asks, his gray eyes sharp.
His words click.
I wrench the emerald pendant off my neck.
This and the music box are my most prized possessions from him. Both are symbols of his eternal love.
Flipping the pendant around, my breath freezes when I see small protruding marks I wrote off before.
I always thought they were handcrafted imperfections.
My vision sharpens, laser-focused on the lighter and my pendant. I hold my breath.
I snap the pendant against the marks on the lighter.
Click. A perfect match.
“Holy shit,” Rex mutters. “You’ve had that necklace forever.”
“He gave you the key years ago,” Maxwell murmurs, disbelief clear in his voice. “The fucking dealer of secrets.”
But I twist and shake the lighter. Nothing opens. The pendant unlocked something, but it isn’t enough.
There’s another missing piece.
Teeth snagging my lip, I rack my mind.
It’s a puzzle, just like the ones he’s sent me over the years.
My chest tightens. Tears sting my eyes again. Decades wasted, and I had no idea who he was all this time.
But I know he left this for me because he believed I could solve it.
I trace the vines, the delicate petals of the roses, his name carved on the bottom.
ELIAS KENT
My fingers still. I press down.
A small click. A shift. Just like the Japanese secret boxes he sent before.
These are levers. They shift and slide. Since it didn’t budge before, the pendant key must’ve triggered the mechanism.
If I rearrange the letters into the right order, it’ll unlock.
But what’s the sequence?
Sweat beads on my upper lip. I start shifting letters.
SAINT EKE
Nothing happens.
“The motherfucker. Why can’t he ever be straightforward?” Rex mutters.
I snort, the stress and absurdity of the situation finally hitting home. Aria dashes off somewhere.
“If he were an open book, he wouldn’t be alive,” Maxwell says.
