================
Beneath it, he’d built a flow chart.
The bloodline connection has to exist → Lechuza transformed →The font recognized the Veil form → The key/lock mechanism engaged → FAILURE POINT = incomplete resonance synchronization?
Off to the side, he’d written another cluster of questions so aggressively the marker strokes cut into each other.
Who was her ancestor?
How far back do the records go?
Has the bloodline remained intact?
Any recurring symbols?
Oral traditions tied to the font?
Private journals?
Hidden archives?
Then lower, separated from the rest, boxed in twice:
She killed a conquistador named Cisco.
Fly stared at that line the longest.
Cisco who?
What exactly had been happening during the Incan collapse when the conquistadors arrived?
Somewhere inside all of this, buried beneath five centuries of missing information, was the variable that had stopped the font from opening.
The doors opened, and Fly looked up automatically, and for one strange second the room stopped feeling modern.
Lechuza stepped inside dressed in black and gold that caught the low light like living fire. The simple black, capped sleeve shirt clung close to her body in layered silk embroidered with geometric gold thread that mirrored the chakana patterns spread across the documents in front of him, paired with gold, poofy, skirt-like shorts shot through with bronze. He recognized theUrquchillay, the god who watched over animals, depicted as a multicolored, metallic llama. TheUrcaguaryfollowed, the god of jewels and precious metals, a cross between a deer and a snake, then theSupay, the god of death, and finally the god of creation,Pacha Kamaq. It translated to Earth Maker, a geometric face in a circle. Gold cuffs circled both wrists. Her dark braid fell over one shoulder, woven through with thin metallic strands that flashed bronze when she moved. She looked less like a CIA operative and more like something the mountains themselves had shaped and hidden away for centuries.
The power from the Veil swirled around her, and he swayed slightly in his chair, dizzy as he studied her aura, now shot through with that unmistakable, luscious lapis lazuli, so deeply blue he felt it in his chest.
Sunlight, thick with dust motes, slanted through the tall, arched windows, illuminating the ancient wisdom held within the shelves. The light caressed her, loved her out in the open, and when Flash entered, Fly swore it bent toward him with an aching yearning. His aura had been altered, too, mirroring that blue light at a paler frequency. This place was for quiet contemplation, but the air between the two of them was charged with a tension that felt electric, a storm building in a bottle. Fly’s shoulders eased. That bruised energy was dissipating. So it looked like they made some inroads toward getting closer. That was good, and a relief. Without them, the planet was doomed.
His teammates followed, and Easy sauntered over and plopped down looking rested and full of sass. “Damn, Professor, it looks like theDa Vinci Codein here.”
Fly reached for a chair, sat down, fighting vertigo, sending his hands through his hair.
Easy peered at him. “Did you get any sleep, broski? Food?”
Fly waved him off. “Slept for a bit, and if I eat another bite of delicious food, I’m going to need another nap.”
“Amen to that,” Twister said. “If we lived here, PT would be more than training. It’d be a necessity.”
North nodded. “It’s made with power in it.” He turned to Lechuza. “In thatLike Water for Chocolatesense. The person who made the food resonates with your blood.”
“She’s my distant cousin. Her bloodline stems from an ancient folklore. The First Weavers, theQ’apaq Qillqay. They’re said to be the Sovereign Scribes of cosmic reality.”
Fly stiffened and sat up. “I read something about that. I’m picking up some Quechua.”
Lechuza lifted her chin. “Seriously, in twelve hours.”
