Bes clears his throat. “Can’t say you have.”
Mara whispers, “Don’t worry, it’s not for very long.”
As if the time spent lessens my fear of it.
She ends up being correct about the short duration. By the time panic thinks to set in, the passageway opens up into a room barely large enough to fit the four of us. Unlit oil lamps hang on the walls with rusted hooks. How often is this passage used?
I’m the last one to make it out of the narrow path, and I suck a full breath into my lungs once I do, vision clearing.
“Afraid of small spaces, eh Hawkins?” Cec asks.
“Sometimes,” I concede, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass.”
Cec chuckles. “Not certain how that’s relevant, but I don’t doubt it all the same.”
“We don’t have much time.” Mara grabs a lamp and hands it to Bes. “From what Kali managed to gather on her reconnaissance, Gurlitt takes his tea in his room around this time and then goes on a stroll about the grounds—we have to get to him while he’s out in the open.”
Handing Cec her flashlight, she grips the layers of thick fabric around her knees, bends over, and pulls the entire façade over her head. She wears a similar outfit to the one I met her in, the colors of her shirt and pants only slightly altered. The smoothness of her black locks catches in the light as she pulls it back at the nape of her neck with a leather strap.
“Thank the gods I don’t have to wear that suffocating thing anymore. That’s as close as I ever want to get to being a nun,” she huffs.
Once she collects herself, she grabs the flashlight back from Cec. “Let’s get a move-on.”
“Where’s Kali?” I wonder as we follow her once again. The shrill resonance of my voice and the constant dripping of water keeps me on edge.
“Part of her job was to get through the door at the end of this passage to the castle and sneak back down to tell us how to get through.” Mara pauses. “She never came back.”
“That’s reassuring,” Cec mutters. “But I’m sure she’s alright. If anyone can escape undetected, it’s her.”
God, I hope so.I don’t know Kali beyond meeting her in the urn room and speaking briefly with her outside the great hall, but no one deserves to be caught by the God Men, or any of these other fascists.
“What is this place?” Bes asks after a moment.
“This part of the tunnel was carved out at the outset of the Great War,” Mara explains, “connecting the church to what was originally a treasure store beneath the castle.”
Mara stops me before I can ask my next question. “And no, the treasure’s not there anymore.”
I frown.How disappointing.
We hurry through the underground tunnel with ease, our progress marked only by the taps of Cec’s cane on the floor. Luckily, there are no splitting pathways to choose from; it’s a straight shot up until we meet a long flight of stone-carved stairs.
At the top of it, we stop at the wooden door sealed shut with a complicated lock. And no key to unlock it in sight.
While I catch my breath, Mara lays a hand on the door. “I didn’t have time to look for the key that unlocks it. I barely escaped down here in the first place, when a priest came by on his rounds, before tasking Kali with it.”
She holds her flashlight up to the door, illuminating a symbol there. Upon closer inspection, I realize it’s a long, simple staff overlaid with gold and sunken into the wood. The top curls around a gold bead…Why does this staff look so familiar?
“Saint Nicholas,” I whisper, clicking my flashlight off to have use of both hands. “This is his staff.”
After a moment, Mara shakes her head. “Of course.”
Flashlight gripped in his other hand, Bes reaches up and presses his thumb into the gilded bead at the curled tip of the staff, like he did with the bird’s eye to get into the club in Civitavecchia.
Nothing happens. He grunts in frustration.
It’s the six symbols beside the door, carved into loose rectangles of stone that protrude from the wall in a horizontal fashion, though, that drawmyattention.
I press my fingers against Bes’s flashlight and shift it over to illuminate the etchings. “Look here, at these symbols.”
