Chapter 43
Gwen
Rick, the guards, Dr. Hopkins, and the man who’d claimed they called the police stood around the bank of security monitors.
Arthur had offered them money, threatened them, and they’d threatened him right back.
How many of the threats were merely bluffs?
Would the Custodians open the door and let me out?
And what would Rick do if they tried?
A sliver of corridor feed showed Arthur standing next to the wall outside the safe room.
Rifle slung across his body, he had the easy posture of a man waiting for a dinner reservation.
His voice came through the security system’s speaker.
“We can hold this position for days, and you know it. I’m sure Gwen’s told you about her email by now, so here’s where we are: either everyone walks out of here tonight, or the whole world learns what you are. ”
The old man’s head came around to Rick. “What email?”
Rick’s eyes cut to Dr. Hopkins. Dr. Hopkins’s eyes cut back. Half a second, maybe less.
“What email?” the old man said, sounding as dangerous as Rick.
“We were dealing with it,” said Dr. Hopkins.
“Dealing with it?”
Clearly this man was in charge. Was he the one who needed an escort to the safe room because he was that important? Was he the Warden named in their Charter?
That’s not the important part, Gwen. No, the important part was that they were arguing. The longer they argued, the more opportunity I had to figure a way out of this.
I stayed against the wall, keeping my distance from the man who liked hitting me so much. “I have an email scheduled to broadcast everything I learned about your organization. I told Rick after we left Tintagel. It goes out in less than two days.”
“There is no email,” Rick said.
“The Aurelian Custodians, chartered by Edward the First. New Avalon, the Passage under Tintagel, and the sword as key. Dr. Hopkins has been chasing people away from this area for years, to hide your truth.” Please let it all be right.
I kept my eyes on the old man. He was the one I still had to convince.
“Friday afternoon, the email goes to the press, my colleagues, universities, plus a bunch of history and conspiracy influencers.”
I kept my chin up and my voice almost steady through it all—the parts I wasn’t sure of as well as the outright lies. I should have thought about influencers in the first place, but they didn’t know that. Dr. Hopkins folded his arms, while Rick took a step toward me.
“If all of this is true, I cannot let you leave this estate alive,” said the old man, as though killing someone were as common as breathing.
He tilted his head, and the temperature of his voice dropped.
“Unless Rick’s partially right, and you’re attempting to pass off what you learned in our home tonight as being in your email? ”
I tried to appear confident, but I didn’t have the poker face for this.
“I suspect you know nothing more than that fool Fergus McConnell, and we discredited him a decade ago.” He waved a hand, dismissing me. “Your email means—”
The room jumped—the whole thing—and I stumbled into the wall. Dust dropped from the ceiling like thin curtains. The lights flickered but held, and cries rose from the room down the hall where several of the people had gone.
Over the security display, Arthur said, “Good job. A few more of those and we’re through.”
They were blasting? They were seriously using explosives to get in here?
“First, you’re wrong about him walking in with force,” Hopkins hissed at Rick. “Now, you’re wrong about what he’ll do for the woman. What do you expect you’ll be wrong about next?”
Rick moved. Three strides, and his hand was in my hair, hauling me toward the steel door’s frame. “Open the channel.”
Nobody moved.
“Open the fucking channel!”
A guard reached over and did. Rick’s mouth was at my ear, but every word was for Arthur. “Your girlfriend’s up against the wall now, Arthur. She’s not moving until you back the fuck off.”
The speaker gave him nothing. The silence was worse than any response, and he must have known it. He let go of my hair and braced an arm across my collarbone. His breath came fast and sour. “Tell him to back down.”
What had he been like before Arthur? Had he been a leader worth following? A decent operator, at least, before Arthur’s father turned him into this? His ego had eaten him down to the bone.
Ego?
Isn’t that your issue, too, Gwen?
I didn’t have an ego. I was simply trying to prove myself. Regain my—
Wait. Had I forced Arthur to take me to Tintagel because my ego was controlling everything? Was he storming this estate because I’d needed the whole world to know Lionel was wrong and that I was an excellent scholar?
Arthur’s voice came through the security system. “Let’s load up another charge.”
Rick pressed harder. Leaned closer.
I had to let go of the thing Rick couldn’t.
“Maybe the email doesn’t scare you.” I spoke past Rick to the old man.
“But the FBI should. They seized your sword at a black market auction. They already have my photos of it, including the inscription and the symbol. If it doesn’t go back to them, it will be broadcast on every stolen-art database, every Interpol circular.
Art investigators and provenance researchers track those things down for sport. Every hunt ends at your door. Forever.”
Rick’s arm tightened.
I coughed, the pressure on my windpipe making it difficult to breathe.
But I forced my words out. “Or the sword walks out of here with me tonight. I’ll finish my documentation for the FBI and attribute the blade based on the sketch from the Troyes archive.
No one will ever question the sword’s origin. It’ll stay hidden in plain sight.”
Which had apparently been the Custodians’ method for seven hundred years.
“And if you change your mind later and go public, Dr. Lyons?” the old man said.
I turned my head toward the rabid dog holding me against the door. “I expect you’ll send Rick after me.”
The old man studied the monitors for a long moment, as my heart beat faster and faster, and Rick’s arm pressed harder and harder. One of the monitors showed a man applying more explosives to the wall. Arthur stood next to him, as calm as though this were any other job.
“You’ve spent years chasing people away from this place,” I wheezed to Dr. Hopkins, bile rising up my throat as I offered everything to him. “I’ll become your tool, in exchange for my freedom. I’ll delete the email and use the sketch you handed me at the archive.”
Dr. Hopkins frowned and glanced at the monitors. “She’s right.”
“You can’t honestly be considering this,” Rick said, turning toward them and easing the pressure on my neck. “She’s bluffing, and you’re handing them the only thing—”
“Let her go.” The old man didn’t raise his voice. “Someone fetch the sword.”
Rick’s arm came off me as if the words had cut it loose. For all his bluster, he ultimately answered to these men.
Dr. Hopkins gestured to one of the guards, who opened the channel to the men outside. “If we let her out, you’ll leave us be?”
“We will,” said Arthur.
A guard carried the black case out of the back room. Dr. Hopkins opened it so I could verify it. I stared at the sword as the steel door groaned open. More dust fell from the ceiling. Would they really have blasted the whole way through?
Rick barged in front of me and closed the case before I’d finished. “I can’t believe you’re letting her—”
Four big guns pointed through the doorway, but nobody fired. Arthur stood ahead of the others, eyes and gun trained on Rick. I wanted to run to him, wrap my arms around him, and never let go. But he ordered, “Gwen. Get behind me.”
I reached for the case, but Rick took it from Hopkins first. “How do we know she won’t—”
“Don’t be stupid,” said the old man.
The skin pinched around Rick’s eyes, and he held the case in my direction. I closed my hand around the handle.
He yanked. Me, the case, both. I stumbled into him, and his hand clamped around my throat. The case hit the floor. His mouth was at my ear. “This isn’t over.”
His free hand dropped.
A sudden loud thwack came from somewhere behind me, and Rick screamed. He went down, and I went halfway with him before his grip loosened and I pulled free.
“Nobody move!” hollered Arthur, at a volume I didn’t think he had. “Hands up! If anyone fucking raises a finger, you’re all dead!”
Other voices yelled, “Hands!” and “Nobody move!” and other things I couldn’t make out.
Hands rose inside the safe room—all of them.
Except Rick’s. His were wrapped around his thigh, where blood ran between his fingers, down his pant leg, onto the concrete.
Arthur had shot him. Arthur had actually shot him.
The scream turned into curses and unintelligible threats, barely making it out through his clenched teeth.
“Gwen.” Arthur again. Quieter now. “Come here. Now.”
The case lay on the floor by Rick’s boot. It had some blood on it.
I bent and picked it up.
My clothes had blood on them.
Not a lot, but definitely blood.
My lungs didn’t know what to do. I was pretty sure they were supposed to breathe. But the blood. It was a lot more blood than Arthur had lost from the knife wound.
“Gwen!” shouted Arthur. “Walk to me, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. He meant me.
Right.
I walked backward, unable to tear my eyes off Rick. And the blood.
“This truce lasts,” said the old man, stepping forward to match me, “as long as you’re silent.”
I nodded slowly at him and at Dr. Hopkins, who joined him.
“I got you,” Arthur whispered as he tucked me behind himself.
His team folded around us, dark gear and crisp movements, and we backed out of the room, up the stairs, and past a dozen Custodians sitting zip-tied in the center of the beautiful room with the chandeliers.
They kept their heads down. Whether they’d been like that all along, or if the single gunshot and Rick’s screams had ensured their cooperation…
That isn’t important, is it, Gwen?
Once we were through the doorway where I’d seen the men with the flashbang, Arthur released his gun, pulled his facemask down, and got an arm around me. His breath came out shaky, and the gear in his vest dug into my chest as he held me. “I shouldn’t have left you alone in the cave.”
The little itch started at the back of my eyes, but I wasn’t sure I had tears left to cry. My knees grew weak, and I let my forehead fall against his shoulder. “You came for me.”
“Of course I did.” He leaned back until his face came into view.
I wanted to kiss him, hold him, just be in his presence. I wanted to tell him what I’d found in the study. Tell him how I knew he was there before I even saw him.
“We need to exfil,” said one of the masked men. “We’ve got a second job tonight, after you’re safe.”
“Right.” Arthur released the hug, and the team moved. But his weapon stayed lowered. The team covered us, while Arthur kept his hand at the small of my back, as though he weren’t ready to fully let go yet.