Chapter 7 #4
“Taking back what’s mine,” he growled. “Isn’t that what you came here to do?”
“Yes, but—” Celia looked around wildly. No alarm had gone off, but that didn’t mean they were in the clear. “I had a plan. I have a key! See?”
She held up the charm at the end of her necklace.
Key: fits into any lock. Acquired by P. Sinclair.
Prague, 1675. As soon as Celia held it out to the display case’s lock, the teeth shifted to match.
She unlocked the glass door quickly, grabbing the sunbeam locket and replacing it with a hasty thought.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. The false necklace came out without fecal matter attached, thank God, but that didn’t make up for the fact that the sky overhead was no longer clear.
Fog was beginning to crawl over the glass ceiling—a sure sign that they were, in fact, in deep shit.
Order members often moved in such conditions.
Especially when they were doing magical tasks, like coming to the defense of their beloved vault.
“We have to get out of here!” She slipped the sunshine locket over her head and grabbed Ezra’s bandaged hand, tugging him as fast as she could down the aisle. “Now!”
Overhead clouds grew as they dashed for the blood-hewn door. One way in, one way out. They had to reach the sphinxes before the other magicians did, or else they’d be trapped in the vault. Cornered and outnumbered.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The exit burned red in Celia’s vision. Her lungs were on fire too.
She could see the sphinxes standing guard, but no other shadows had joined them.
Yet. The Egyptian gallery remained empty as she and Ezra sprinted over the threshold, but she could hear angry shouts bouncing from the nearby hall.
Order magicians were in the building. There were more escape options now, but just as many chances to bump into the men hunting them. Should they run left or right? Or—
It was Ezra’s turn to tug her hand. The scholar pulled Celia into the center of the gallery, toward the very sarcophagus where she’d first spied him with Biz Ellington and her feathered friends. The Eye of Horus watched them warily as they approached the heavy black stone of the coffin’s lid.
Ezra got straight to work, his biceps bulging. “Help me push!”
“Are you serious?” Celia hissed. “That weighs tons.”
The scholar merely pushed harder and was rewarded with the scrape of stone.
Shit. Celia gritted her teeth and joined him.
The lid shouldn’t have budged. And yet… it did.
Just enough for the two of them to slip their bodies through the gap, into the hollow part where a corpse once lay.
Once they were both inside, Ezra tried to shut the stone using just his shoulders some.
He managed inches before footsteps filled the gallery.
Celia held her breath, her spine rigid against the stone as she listened to the magicians’ voices. Only a few feet away.
“What’s going on?”
“The sphinxes allowed someone through… but there are no signet rings nearby. Other than ours.”
“How is that possible?”
Celia still wasn’t sure herself. She let out a shaky breath, allowing her eyes to slide over to where Ezra was crouched.
Well, crushed. The sarcophagus was a tight squeeze for the two of them.
She’d never felt more like a tinned herring.
At least it wasn’t pitch-black—the pyramid the scholar squeezed to his chest caught what little light leaked through the open lid.
Was his mother an Ageless One? If so, how had one of her relics ended up in the hands of a magician like Thomas Ellington?
Ezra seemed to have some sort of connection to the family…
one that went beyond the casual dance floor foxtrot.
The scholar’s breath sounded shaky too, so loud that she feared the Order scouts would hear through the crack in the coffin. So far, they hadn’t seemed to notice the wayward lid.
“Should we send word to the Apex?” one of the magicians said.
Celia’s ears pricked at this.
Her heart too.
“I think it would be wisest to check and see if anything is missing before we alert him…” another of the men broke in.
“He’s the one who altered the spells on the sphinxes. Maybe he knows something we don’t—”
“Of course he knows something we don’t! He’s the Apex! And I hardly think the most powerful magician in Britain would appreciate being bothered about every little hiccup that happens under the Order’s watch.”
Celia squeezed the key that sat between her breasts.
There was no way she’d be getting back into the vault now—not after this.
The Order would heighten their security.
Alter the spell on the sphinxes or add even more statues to guard their treasure trove.
Her nostrils flared at this thought. Papa’s horseshoe.
The Sinclair jewels… America and her mother’s laugh.
All of those things were beyond her reach, thanks to this scholar and the pyramid he held in his bloody hand.
Shit.
He’d better be worth it.