Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kit
The Museum of the History of Barcelona, better known to locals as Museu d’Història de Barcelona, was an architectural parfait—to quote a certain donkey—of time periods and archaeological layers.
A centuries-old palace, which had been moved stone by stone from another location, sat atop an excavated Roman-era site, alongside a fourteenth-century chapel and a modern souvenir shop.
Lienna and I had spent the night in an upscale single-bedroom apartment that would’ve broken our collective bank accounts had we actually paid for it.
According to the listing, there was a rooftop pool and a full-sized gym in the building, but we’d kept to our room, sleeping in shifts until the sun crept above the neighboring high-rises and beckoned us to continue our mission.
After snagging a couple of breakfast sandwiches and extra-large locally roasted coffees, we hopped on the metro and made our way to the Gothic Quarter, where we blended in with a gaggle of German tourists on their way into the museum.
Inside, we found old-timey photographs, worn stone sculptures, marble busts of long-dead civic leaders, and beautifully restored stained-glass windows.
But you know what wasn’t behind glass for public viewing? A thousand-year-old part-Futhark, part-Arabic grimoire.
Despite Teddy’s claims, the absence of the Sha’ir’s old-timey tome made sense; this was the Museum of the History of Barcelona, not Bahla.
Nonetheless, several grimoire-less hours of meandering through exhibits didn’t dampen our dedication to relieving Dr. Ballester of his grimoire. We just needed a break.
“I vote for a tapas-style lunch,” I said to Lienna as we stepped onto the pedestrian-packed cobblestone street outside the museum’s entrance. “Then we can do more recon and figure out where Ballester is hiding.”
While the lack of easy grimoire sightings hadn’t surprised us, we also hadn’t found any signs of Teddy’s ex-partner during our educational excursion, and that had us stumped.
“Security camera at two o’clock,” Lienna whispered, her attention on the assortment of gift shops, cafés, and art galleries that populated the buildings across from us.
I’d been doing regular clairsentient sweeps of the area, and while I’d picked up on the odd mythic mind, I hadn’t yet sensed anything akin to a threat—just locals going about their day. But that didn’t mean we could let our guard down. Anyone could be watching through an unblinking digital lens.
I glanced to my right. Sure enough, just above the entrance to a gift shop brimming with tourist catnip, a camera was pointed down at the street. Perched on top of it was a single pigeon that stared at me with big dumb eyes and cooed aggressively.
Was that feather-brained dumpster diver actually looking at me? No, that was absurd. My paranoia was getting the best of me. There was no way the Barcelona MPD had a witch on staff with a familiar that looked exactly like a pigeon so it could patrol the streets in complete anonymity … right?
I shook the thought from my brain. “We’ll give it a wide berth. Stick to this side of the street.”
She nodded, and we scooted along the exterior wall of the museum. As we shouldered our way through the lunchtime throng, a middle-aged woman appeared in front of us, a smile on her lips.
“You two must be here for the tour,” she said, the cheerful cadence of her American accent setting her apart from the locals. She had a clipboard in hand and a museum-branded tote dangling from her shoulder.
“Oh, no thanks,” I replied. “We didn’t book a tour.”
Lienna and I tried to move past her, but she blocked us again.
“I’m quite certain you did,” she stated firmly, her smile widening and her eyebrows arching above her sunglasses in a very “are you picking up what I’m putting down?” sort of way.
I scanned her with both my eyes and my clairsentience. My peepers registered the obvious: fair skin, medium-brown hair in a simple ponytail, and a classically American black leather bomber jacket zipped up against the cool November breeze.
My clairsentience registered the less obvious: she was a mage.
“I have your tour info right here,” the woman told us, tapping her clipboard. “Two VIPs booked under the name Kit Morris.”
Wait, what?
Lienna stiffened. “Excuse me?”
I switched to telepathy, but she wasn’t thinking much of anything—just fragments with no context.
A prime example of anti-telepathy training.
Swapping lenses again, I focused on her intent.
She had a conspiratorial air, but it lacked malice.
As far as I could tell, she wasn’t an enemy, and as I squinted at her, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something familiar about her devious smile.
Then it clicked. She was one of the people in the photo at Teddy’s house.
“Which tour did we book?” I asked cautiously.
“Well, that’s actually the problem,” the woman replied. “You’re in the wrong place. The Museu d’Història de Barcelona has several locations throughout the city. You’re supposed to be at the El Born location a few blocks over.”
“Is that where we’ll find the Ballester tour?”
Lienna gave a little twitch of surprise.
“Precisely,” the mage answered. “Might I recommend, however, delaying your experience until this evening? There is a self-guided opportunity at 6:45 tonight that I believe will suit the two of you much better.”
I nodded.
The woman swung the tote off her shoulder and pulled out a sleek black camera.
She looped the camera strap over her neck, then held the tote out to me.
“Here are the guides and memorabilia included in your tour package. I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the material before your historical experience.”
I took the tote and peeked inside, finding a folder stuffed with multicolored papers and glossy photos. “Thanks.”
“For VIPs such as yourselves, I cannot emphasize the importance of understanding the museum’s operations enough.
” She stepped in closer, her voice dropping but retaining its chipper tone.
“A local guild handles security, for example. You’ll notice uniformed guards, but rest assured that plainclothes guards will also be on duty. ”
That might make our appropriation of the grimoire a little trickier.
“And when you arrive,” the mage added, her conspiratorial smile pulling at one corner of her mouth, “tell Dr. Ballester that Teddy sends his regards.”
I smirked. “No problemo, amiga.”
She stepped back. “Enjoy your experience!”
And then she was off, cutting across the crowded street and disappearing down a shadowy gap between the buildings that seemed far too dark for a sunny afternoon.
“Dr. Sorensen sent her?” Lienna asked, staring at the spot where the mage had disappeared. “Do you buy that?”
“I think so.” I slung the tote onto my shoulder and took Lienna’s hand, drawing her along the sidewalk toward the cafés. “I recognized her from that photo in Teddy’s house.”
“Hm,” she murmured noncommittally. “What’s in the bag?”
I fished out the paper that had first caught my eye—a colorful visitor map of the El Born museum’s interior with handwritten annotations about the security around each exhibit. I passed it to Lienna, and her skepticism dwindled as she skimmed it.
She pointed at the info at the top of the map. “It closes at seven, but she told us to do our ‘tour’ at 6:45, didn’t she?”
“She did.” I dug in the tote for more goodies. “The public will be clearing out but most of the employees will still be there.”
“Including a bunch of mythic guards.”
“And a certain thieving archaeologist.” I pulled out another map, this one outlining a path to Ricard Ballester’s office, complete with a layout of all the cameras and access codes to locked doors. I detached a photo paperclipped to the page and passed the second map to Lienna.
Gazing down at the photo, I felt a grin stretch my lips.
It was a shot of an office, the corner of a desk and a filing cabinet visible on one side.
But the focus of the photo was a glass display case in which an ancient grimoire sat, open to a page of runic script.
The grimoire was circled in red marker, and two words had been jotted beneath.
Have fun!
-M
I flipped the photo over. The date scribbled on the back was from two years ago.
“Well, well, well …” I drawled. “It seems Teddy wasn’t content to let ol’ Ballester keep the grimoire forever. Teddy had the place scoped out. That’s how ‘M’ had all these security details ready on such short notice.”
“Speaking of security …” Lienna looked up from the second map. “What kind of museum has this much? If it were the Louvre, sure, but a local history exhibition?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we’re going to find out.”