Chapter 23 #2
Caspar felt a chill go through him, and had to tear himself away from Cassie’s knowing stare.
William had found a taxidermied fox with horns in the corner, and stared at it with wide, startled eyes.
Natasha held the iPad to her chest, but her brows were knitted in confusion.
What Caspar had feared was now confirmed by everyone else: The riddle was nothing.
Just nonsense strung together by a strange woman who thought her cat was her husband.
“All right,” Caspar said. “Let’s head back to the apartment.”
They all rose and gathered by their shoes in the front hall. When Caspar heard someone call his name, he turned to see the cat—Edie, not Cassie—perched in the hallway.
“Caspar?”
Edie’s mouth had opened, but Caspar was in too much shock to believe the voice really came from him.
The voice had been distinctly male and oddly French-sounding, but it couldn’t be real.
Caspar was worried he’d fallen under the old woman’s spell.
He glanced at his friends, all of whom were also staring at the hairless cat in wonder.
All doubt was removed when the cat opened his mouth again and uttered, “Bonne chance, mon amis. Tu est plus près que tu penses.”
“Good luck?” Caspar raged as soon as they stepped off the elevator. “I don’t understand.”
“Good luck, my friends,” Malek added. “You are closer than you think. That’s what Edie said.”
“But we’re talking about a cat here,” William added. “There’s no way that was real. A talking animal. Ack. Still gives me the creeps.”
“If it gives you the creeps, it’s probably real,” Caspar said.
“All the kids afraid of monsters under their beds beg to differ,” William said.
“But monsters are real. Supernaturals are real,” Caspar said. “Sure, the kid under his bed garbles the story a little, but he’s basing his fear on a real beast. It’s still true.”
“And how is all this arguing going to help?” Malek touched his temples, obviously tired. “I feel like we’re fighting, but we’re all on the same team.”
“True,” William said. “I just thought she was a hoax. Up until the last minute.”
“Me too,” Caspar echoed, followed by Malek.
The three of them grew quiet as they stepped out into the afternoon sunlight.
Natasha had run ahead of them and now sat on the curb, a notebook next to her iPad, into which she’d transcribed the entire riddle.
She examined it with a keen eye, quickly switching back and forth from the paper to the screen.
“What are you doing?” William asked as he sat next to her.
“I’m solving this thing. If we already have two of the answers for where the guitar and the ring were, then we can figure out the rest of this riddle as if it were algebra.
” Natasha made a face as she stumbled on the section of the riddle dedicated to the ring.
She turned to Malek. “I know Jocasta found the ring, but where?”
“Oh. Um.” Malek shut his eyes as he remembered. “She’d broken up a gang hideout. Alchemists were making weapons out of gold so they’d never stop firing—wait. There was gold in that riddle, right?”
Natasha nodded and read out the first verse again. “Gold melts all the time, though.”
“But all items, once bound to a djinn, can’t be destroyed—only scattered and lost. By the time Jocasta got there, the ring was in their scraps, so she took it to investigate, but ended up activating me instead.”
Malek sat on Natasha’s other side and examined her work, wide-eyed. Caspar merely peered over her shoulder as she rehashed the guitar’s section, which referenced a Picasso painting of a man with a blue guitar.
“Locked away in a fairy tale palace without a key to set it free,” William repeated. “That’s Bluebeards. The shop.”
“Exactly,” Natasha beamed. “Which means these two paragraphs are about the microphone and the crown.”
Moments passed as Natasha continued to work. When she started to draw a table filled with Boolean codes to help eliminate options, Caspar fought off a wave of nostalgia from his university days.
“What did you get your Master’s in?” Caspar asked.
“Economics and archeology,” she said. “I have two Master’s, really. I got the first one because my dad wanted something practical, and then the next one was for me. As it turns out, both are perfect for this.”
“You don’t say.” Caspar was silently amazed.
He’d taken all these courses in the math and sciences, but he’d never used his knowledge like this.
His first reading of Natasha as an obsessed fangirl had been utterly wrong.
She was his biggest fan, but she also had her own complex life and unique knowledge to bring to their group.
She wasn’t just a weepy runaway who wanted to hang out with the in-crowd—she was practically magic, though she was human.
Even as Natasha’s work slowed, her ability to work through many of Cassie’s points was still admirable. “I think your crown is in Montréal.”
“What?” Malek asked. He examined the fourth stanza, where the only French words were located. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, ‘magique’ is a dead giveaway. It’s French for ‘magic,’ and Montréal is the techno-witchcraft centre of Canada. I still don’t know where in Montréal, but I know the crown’s there for sure.”
“That’s still more than we had two hours ago,” Caspar said. “Do you think a witch may have it?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it’s inert.”
“Why?”
“‘Temps a Oublié,’” Natasha said. “It’s fragmented—not a whole, proper sentence—but the verb means ‘to forget.’ Wherever in Montréal, the object’s forgotten about and probably not going anywhere soon.”
“And the microphone?” Malek asked. “Is it also inert?”
“I’m pretty sure.” Natasha focused on the third stanza where she’d written “MIC” in large letters. “The part about light is about the CN Tower, I’m sure.”
“Really?” William asked. “Why?”
“They changed the light scheme around the time all of these items went missing. So if that’s what it refers to, then it means the mic is local. But I’m still stumped at what trading for bone means. Malek?”
Malek shook his head.
“I know,” William said. He rose from the curb and flagged down the first taxi he saw. “Come on. Get in.”