“I love you, too, Stuart.”
“I do.” He stretched, then smiled. “So that’s off my chest. Did you want to talk about something?”
I started to say that it could wait, but I got distracted by the way his thumb was moving on my ring, making the stone wink in the light. It was small, bought when Stuart was still working as an attorney for the County, and making very little money.
I kept watching, thinking. The little glimpses of white. The flashes of color. All from those little cuts in the stone.
It reminded me of crystals. And the way they grew. And that reminded me of Celia, trapped somewhere, probably locked in a crystal vault if she was even still alive.
Alone and scared.
Trapped.
Trapped in crystal. Trapped in stone.
I whipped my head up. “Stuart, I have to go downstairs. I just realized something, and I need to go right now.”
19
“I’m not finding anything,” Eliza said the next morning, after we’d worked through the night, trying to chase down my theory. She slammed her laptop closed, then banged her head on the case. “Anybody else?”
Everyone at the table shook their heads. Eliza grimaced. “At least I’m not alone.”
“We’ve got your back,” Marcus said, reaching over to rub her shoulders. She tilted her head and smiled at him, then sighed as if in bliss.
I glanced down to hide my expression as I wondered what might be brewing there. From the way Ana and Ren were looking at each other and then over to Eliza, I assumed they were wondering the same thing.
I caught Ana’s eye, then glanced down at my own computer as if in command. She swallowed, then her fingers started flying across the keyboard.
“I don’t even know where else to look,” Ren said. “We’ve looked at all the auction houses. Maybe wholesalers in the diamond district?”
“That’s not bad,” Laura said. “And it’s worth a shot. We’re not getting anywhere.”
Last night, I’d come to them to explain how looking at my ring had reminded me of cut crystals. And that had reminded me of Celia, trapped in a crystal vault.
And who else had been trapped? A demon, put in a cage cut from a gemstone. Trapped by Solomon himself.
“We know all of that,” Ren had said.
“Yes, but do you know about all the extras?”
They’d looked at me like I was insane, all except Eric. He’d followed my lead down a very windy and weird path, finally learning that over seven centuries ago, some prince I’d never heard of in a country that no longer existed had traded something called the Remnant for a bride.
That was hardly earth shattering, but what fascinated Eric was a cross-reference about the Remnant. That article indicated that the full name of the Remnant was actually the Remnant of Ornias.
“What’s the big deal about that?” Ana had asked.
“It’s actually pretty cool,” I’d said, as Eric had gawked at me. “What?” I’d asked. “I can’t be interested in the historical stuff, too?”
“Just tell us,” Ren had said, and Eric had waved a hand, urging me to proceed.
I did. After all, I knew this story well. The damn stone had wreaked quite a bit of havoc in my life, after all.
“Either of you know who Ornias is?”
They both shook their heads. “You, two?” I’d added, pulling Mindy and Jared into the makeshift class session.
“He was the demon that was bothering King Solomon while he was trying to build a temple,” Mindy said.
