Something wispy smacks me in the face. I sputter and swat it away. Cobwebs. I wipe myself off all over to make sure there are no errant spiders.
I make it a few more paces before the toe of my boot hits something hard and I almost fall again. This time, thankfully, it’s some kind of stair.
I kick around it. Not very big. I step onto it and feel the wall. There’s a door. I try the handle. It gives way. The door opens. I shut it again quickly. Nothing happens. If there’s anyone on the other side, surely they’ve heard.
I take a deep breath and open it again, peering around the edge into the room.
It isn’t a storage closet, thankfully. If I never see another one of those, it will be too soon. It’s a small, square space, with stone walls, completely empty. There are lamps on the wall—and they’re lit, though burning low, casting shadows across the walls. Someone has been here recently.
I close the door behind me and step inside. The dim flames of the lamps flicker. I inch my way across the room. A sense of excitement and dread courses through me. On the opposite side of the room is another door. When I open it there is another series of steps.
I descend into the stale, cold air of another room, this one very small. An antechamber. It’s dark, only one light remaining, and smells like metal and dust.
Beyond it, there’s a curved entryway, leading into what I guess is the vault. I hurry down the steps and flatten myself to the side of the wall to make my way around the room. I try to peek around the entryway, just enough so as to not be seen.
Unlike the antechamber, this room is enormous, wide, with a high, vaulted ceiling. There are many oil lamps, all brightly lit, and the walls are painted stark white. It’s a severe contrast to the antechamber and the oppressive passageway leading there.
In the middle is a metal door with intricate inlaid swirls, shining with gold and diamonds in a serpentine pattern of scales not unlike that of a water dragon. Once more, an Ophir symbol in the heart of Lacon. But I shake the thought away. I need to focus on the task at hand. I’ve reached the vault.
Blast it open, Eban said. I don’t need to pick a lock. And I don’t need to use a key. I close my eyes, channeling the power within me. But just as I’m about to scorch the door, the most unexpected thing happens.
It opens.
And Darius strides out.
“Gin,” he says. “There you are!”
“Darius! How did you get in there?”
He dangles a golden key with a smile.
“Wait! You had a key to the vault all along? Then why did you—why did you send us to the arena?
“I told you, I needed a distraction.”
Then I realize: Darius, when he told us he needed a distraction—wewere the distraction—he’d told us the plan backward. While he went to get the relics, we kept the Blackcoats occupied.
“You sent us to our deaths,” I say.
“I tried to tell you to come with me,” he says. “I never wanted you to come to any harm. And besides, you performed excellently,” Darius says. “As I knew you would. You really are extraordinary.”
“You have the relics, then?”
“I do,” he says, holding up an ornate metal treasure box that bears the same serpentine pattern as the vault door.
“Great. Let’s get out of here. It’s almost sundown. Eban will be waiting for us at the garden. We need to get to the Lashing before they figure out the relics are gone.”
Darius sighs. “The relics aren’t going to the Lashing.”
“What are you talking about?”
Then it hits me. I look at the clothes Darius is wearing. Yes, he’s dressed as a nobleman. But not just any nobleman. The deep navy-blue shirt, with the distinctive House Eternal silver buttons, embossed with swirls, and the dark pants, far too expensive for Darius.
Rollo was wearing them earlier this evening.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXGIN
Darius is wearing Rollo’s clothes. He’s even wearing Rollo’s signet ring. “Darius,” I demand, “what’s going on?” Even though, deep in my soul, I know. I know. I know why he always felt safe and familiar. But how is it possible?
