“Gaudy, I know.”
“Beautiful.”
“My great-grandfather had this room built after he visited the castle’s trophy room, another oval, gaudy monstrosity.”
“I hope I get to visit that monstrosity.”
He stops in front of a metal panel, and his fingers scrabble up one vine, down another, up, down.
“Why are you groping the wall?”
“I’m unlocking the vault.”
My eyebrows rise. “By fondling the bas-relief?”
He chuckles, but his low laughter is drowned out by the click of a latch and the groan of metal against wood.
He presses his fingertips into the panel, and it swings inward.
I blink, then blink again. Sunlight trickles like raindrops through a latticework of wooden shelves two stories high, barely illuminating the room and yet setting it ablaze. Shelves upon shelves shimmer with gold trinkets, trays of precious stones, marble busts of comely Fae polished to a mirror shine, leather-bound books with gilt spines, and weapons encrusted with emeralds. Long spears tipped with ebony points are hooked to the wall, along with strange, black-bladed daggers I’ve never seen wielded around Luce.
Purely decorative, I assume. Like the silver bird impaled through its wings by two black spikes—a grisly work of art.
As Phoebus wedges the bag to keep the door from sealing us in, a chill tiptoes up my spine. I’d have called it awe except it tightens my skin and prickles my lungs.
Dread.
I’m in a vault heaped with riches, yet feel like I’ve entered a mausoleum full of bones.
Twenty-One
My gaze slides around the room, on the hunt for the source of my discomfort. The splayed bird is gruesome, but it’s more than that. There’s this unnerving, eerie hum that agitates my blood and hardens my stomach. “Did someone die in this vault?”
Or does something live in it?Like a ghost. My gaze scrapes over every somber corner for movement.
Phoebus straightens and scrutinizes my face, a corner of his mouth tugging up. “Not yet, but you’re looking alarmingly pallid, Fallon. Too much wealth to behold?”
My gaze returns to the bird, to the black spikes that protrude from its metal chest—
Santo Caldrone. Is that one of the . . . one of the . . .?
My hand drifts to Phoebus’s arm, grips it for support.
“Are you trying to rip off my limb? Sure, it’ll regrow, but I’m quite attached to it.”
“Gold. Acolti.” My head spins so madly I half expect it to unscrew itself from the rest of my body.
I don’t realize I’ve repeated Mamma’s mutterings out loud until Phoebus clucks his tongue. “Yes. Lots of gold. I warned you. Are you about to swoon? You look positively unwell.”
Bronwen watches.
Find the five iron crows.
Oh Gods, oh Gods, oh Gods. Mamma sent me to Phoebus not for a coin but for a crow. She knew!How?Did Bronwen whisper it into her ear?Impossible.Bronwen confessed to knowing the location of just one.
I don’t realize I’ve released Phoebus’s arm and strode deeper into the room until I’m standing right beneath the solid metal bird.
“Ah.So that’s what got your drawers in a twist.” He moves closer to me. “No animal was harmed in the making of this garish statue,Picolina.”
