Dani swings past me, not even batting an eye at my handiwork as she bends down to scoop up a pulse pistol mid-stride and follows Orion’s path toward the back door.
“Come on, ghoulie. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
I’m right on her heels, stepping out into a narrow hallway with a few doors leading off it and a set of stairs heading up to higher levels above. The vault room, though, is down on the ground floor, and it doesn’t take us overly long to find it. Through one office, around a corner, and there it is. A nicer, thicker, more ornate door than any of the others, sealed up tight with a red crystalline lockpad. Orion is already there, an ear trumpet pressed against the door as he works his fingertips over the smooth crystal in fine, delicate shapes.
I pull off one of my gloves, pressing my bare hand against the engraved surface, and take a deep, slow breath, counting by the beat of my pulse as it pounds in my ears. Halle and Kelda are behind that door. They have to be. Theyhaveto. But I need to breathe through that feeling because otherwise I’ll throw my whole body against that door until it gives out—or I do.
“How bad is it?” I ask him.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Orion mutters. “It’s just going to take a minute here.”
“An actual minute? Or a metaphorical minute?”
He hushes me with a look. “I’m working as fast as I can, V. I promise. A little elbow room might help.”
His voice is a soft reprimand. But I can’t help but feel theweight of every moment that passes. I pace the little office, wearing a circle in the floor around Dani, who’s flipping through the desk drawers, scanning metal tablets and tossing them when they prove uninteresting.
It’s definitely longer than a literal minute. It’s two minutes. And then it’s five. It might as well be forever as the tension stretches tighter and tighter across my skin.
Suddenly, Orion straightens, pumping a fist triumphantly. The crystal pad flashes and then there is the click of a lock. Leaping past him, I wrap my fingers around the handle of the door and haul backward, pulling it open, my heart pounding wildly in my ears. The instant I have enough space, I squeeze through into the vault room.
All the joy drains from my body.
The vault is empty.
Halle and Kelda aren’t here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I CANNOT EXPLAIN WHY I STILL HAVE MY BROTHER’S CHILDHOOD DRAWINGS EVEN NOW, A DOZEN YEARS SINCE THE ARCHANGELS TOOK HIM AWAY. NOR DO I KNOW WHY I HOLD SUCH CERTAINTY THAT THERE IS A GREATER MEANING TO THEM BEYOND A YOUNG BOY’S IMAGINATION. BUT THE CLARITY AND FREQUENCY OF THIS STRANGE KNOTTED DESIGN HE MADE OVER AND OVER… IT HAUNTS ME.”
—FROM THE WRITINGS OF ELSJE AALDENBERG (YEAR 938)
The vault room is small, the walls lined with shelves full of cash and records deemed important enough to lock away, with six square feet of open space in the middle where two kidnapped girls could be sitting.
But I’m standing right here. And they’re definitely not.
There’s a heavy creak of hinges as Dani and Orion pull the vault door open wider and step inside behind me.
“They’re not here,” I say between gritted teeth. Not that Ineed to point it out or anything. They can obviously see as much for themselves.
But Orion isn’t even looking at me. He doesn’t seem to register the absolute failure around him at all. He’s staring at a corner of the vault room, his eyes pinned on a large, intricate-looking contraption on the floor that’s slightly bigger than my head and looks like someone took four or five giant metal ropes and knotted them together.
“It’s here,” he murmurs, bending low to study it, his hands moving lightly over its surface. “It’s actually here…”
I stand over him, arms crossed. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s an Aaldenberg knot.” He glances up at me and immediately spots the lack of recognition on my face. “Named after Elsje Aaldenberg, the first person to theorize their existence. They’re supposed to be these highly secure, arcane safes that hold vital information, but no one’s ever confirmed their existence before, let alone cracked one open.”
My jaw tightens, anger roiling in my stomach. “Like I give a single shit!” I go to grab him by the vest, trembling all over, wanting toshakehim—
—and then my fingers hit something thin and flat and metal on his inner pocket. The telegram dispatch. From the warden on the prison train. It comes back to me so clearly now: his reaction when he found it, how his hand has been straying to it, over and over, ever since, in order to make sure it was there.
“Val…” Orion’s watching my face, nervous. “Don’t…”
With quick hands, I pluck the telegram from his vest and turn it toward the light, skimming the words etched into the surface:
Y’ALL SEEM AWFUL ANXIOUS TO GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS SO-CALLED “USELESS” PUZZLE BOX. RECKON GOLD TOWN WILL KEEP IT SAFE IN OUR VAULT FOR A LITTLE BIT LONGER…
