Had he been working on the enclosure through the night?
"What do we do now?" Mia asked quietly.
Kian forced himself to think past the shock. There would be time for that later.
"We need more information," he said. "According to Losham, the enclosure collapsed, but that doesn't necessarily mean everything inside was destroyed. The chests might have survived. The bodies might still be intact. They were too valuable to Navuh to take chances with."
"Or they might not," Lokan said. "If Navuh wanted to destroy whatever was in that enclosure rather than let it fall into anyone else's hands, he would make sure that it was destroyed."
"But did he want that?" Toven asked. "Navuh intended to hide his bargaining chip in that enclosure. Why would he create traps that would destroy what he hoped to trade for his freedom?"
"To keep it out of enemy hands," Lokan said. "Better to destroy something valuable than let it fall to your opponents."
"That's one possibility." Toven stroked his chin thoughtfully. "But there's another. Navuh might have designed the traps to appear destructive without actually destroying the contents. A bluff, essentially. Make potential thieves believe they've ruined everything, when in fact the treasure remains intact beneath the rubble."
Hope flickered in Kian's chest. "How likely is that?"
"With Navuh? Anything is possible. He has been playing games for five thousand years. He's a master of misdirection." Toven looked at Lokan. "You know him better than any of us. What do you think?"
"Navuh is arrogant," Lokan said. "Convinced of his own superiority. He believes that no one can outsmart him. But he's also paranoid. He plans for every contingency, including the possibility that his plans might fail. Why build a glass enclosure that would make everyone wonder what's inside? It's like he wanted to create a misdirection. I wouldn't be surprised if he never had those chests buried under that sand, and if he had, he might have built a backup in case the enclosure could be breached without triggering the traps. Something to protect his investment even if the primary defenses failed."
Lokan smiled weakly. "I wouldn't bet my life on this theory. But it's possible."
It wasn't much, but it was something to hold on to.
"I need to tell my mother," Kian said. The words felt like lead in his mouth.
"What are you going to tell her?" William asked. "We don't know if Khiann survived. We don't know if there's any hope left. How do you deliver news like that?"
"Honestly." Kian pushed to his feet. "I'll tell her what we know—that the booby traps were triggered, that the enclosure collapsed, but that there's still a chance, however small, that Khiann might have survived."
"What about the rest of the plan?" William asked. "Are we still going through with it?"
Kian nodded. "I need to speak with Turner and make some adjustments. The mission's parameters have shifted. Instead of focusing on breaching the enclosure without triggering the booby traps, we now have to sift through a lot of rubble, hoping to either find the chests still intact or to find none at all in that location."
William released a breath. "I can't even imagine how we might do that."
"We don't," Toven said. "We have Losham do that for us. He will search for the chests, and once he finds them, he will hold them for us somewhere safe."
That sounded so deceptively simple that Kian was tempted to dismiss it. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.
Having Losham at their beck and call was a huge advantage that they hadn't had before.
4
DIMITRI
The Russian folk music blared from Petrov's portable speaker, filling the lab with accordion melodies and voices that wailed about lost loves and lonely winters. Dimitri had grown up hearing those kinds of songs in his grandmother's kitchen, but he'd never been fond of them. Now, after weeks of listening to Petrov's playlist on repeat, he actively despised them.
But the music served a purpose.
He glanced at Mattie, who sat on a stool near his workstation, watching him work. She'd been quiet all morning, the shadows under her eyes telling the story of their disturbed sleep and perhaps more nightmares that she hadn't shared with him.
He hated that she was scared. Hated even more that he couldn't do anything to fix it. Well, maybe he could if the concoction he was working on did the trick and repelled immortals.
The smell was making him nauseous, but neither Mattie nor Petrov had said anything, so he assumed that they couldn't smellit yet. His new, sharper senses picked up on things their human noses and eyes couldn't.
He glanced at her just as she scrunched her nose.
