Chapter 38
The front hall of Le Musée de l’histoire de Montréal was stunning.
The man standing at the door in a tux only gave their invitation a cursory scan before letting them inside.
Katja walked with William, Natasha with Malek, and Ultima stuck with Caspar as her date.
She demanded that he hold her chair and pretend to guide her, though she’d used the control panel and sometimes cut him off.
“Just to keep you on your toes,” she said when she’d done it for the fourth time.
“It’s like you want to get caught.” Caspar huffed, utterly exasperated. “Shouldn’t we be keeping a low profile?”
“Yes, but that’s easy when you’re with me. Now, come on. We need to walk past the guests into the hall.”
Caspar glanced ahead as Katja and William entered the foyer, where music and conversation hummed.
The plan had been to go to the party, see where George and Amara were, and then break away and go down to the basement storage area.
The fact that Ultima was already veering from their plan sent Caspar’s anxiety from a seven to a thirty on a scale of one to ten.
“Won’t we be seen?”
“You’ve never learned how to blend in, eh?”
“I survived prison for seven years, Ultima. I think I know what I’m doing.”
“Good. So you won’t mind following me.”
Without waiting for another word, she geared them toward the hallway while everyone else went to the banquet room.
They stumbled across a few waiters who didn’t seem to notice them heading in the wrong direction.
Once they bypassed the coat check, a stunning fountain, and another exhibit on loan from a different donor, Caspar was feeling nervous.
“How come no one has stopped us?”
“No one likes to look at the smoking hot girl in a wheelchair. Gives us the edge.”
“So why not go downstairs right away?” Caspar asked. “We’re pushing our luck.”
“Luck is what you make of it. And I’m looking for some champagne before I do a damn heist. Makes me feel better.”
Ultima turned another corner and came across a waiter with familiar brown hair and dark eyes.
“Jocasta?” Caspar asked.
Jocasta held a finger to her lips. “I’m not here. I’m merely security. Not part of the heist.”
“A shame, really,” Ultima said, batting her eyes. The two of them continued to flirt as Jocasta handed over flutes of champagne. Caspar took one, and relished the bubbles on his tongue. With the slight rush of alcohol, he felt as if he could do this—and understood Ultima’s plan a little better.
“You got your escape routes memorized?” Jocasta asked.
“One way in, one way out,” Ultima said. She smiled again as she gazed around Caspar’s large frame. “And there’s Kitty-Kat. I guess we’ve gotta go.”
“Good luck,” Jocasta said.
“Luck is what you make of it,” Caspar said.
Ultima gave him a subtle nod before she handed off her empty champagne flute.
Katja took Caspar’s position behind Ultima’s wheelchair, and the three of them went in search of the stairs for the basement.
They found a service elevator and managed to open up the keycard access with something Ultima slipped out of her sleeve.
Once inside, the creaks of the elevator replaced the din of music and chatter.
“How’s the crowd?” Caspar asked Katja.
“Good. Fancy. Amara is giving a speech and George is watching her like a lovesick puppy, so we’re good. We’ve got time.”
The elevator doors opened. Ultima used her control panel to inch forward, checking both ways before she ushered them toward a large concrete door. A keycard panel glowed red, but soon granted them access after Ultima worked her magic.
“We should have ten minutes now,” she said as they stepped inside.
“That’s when the owner gets pinged that someone is down here.
We’ll have about another ten after that before they send staff to investigate.
We should be gone by then, and since we’re only stealing the crown, this should be a breeze. Katja?”
Ultima gestured to a storage unit all the way at the end of the row.
Each unit was covered in metal wire, securely locked in place, but transparent enough to see what was inside.
A keypad was attached to each doorknob so donors could enter their private codes.
As soon as Katja spotted Cosner’s locker, she wheeled Ultima the rest of the way so as not to make too much noise.
Caspar followed close behind, keeping his eyes peeled for some kind of security.
The storage units captivated him. The first one they passed contained a dozen taxidermied animals, including a small griffin and the head of a unicorn, both of which Caspar had been sure were only myths.
The next unit over had gems stacked with crystals and other metals.
They looked nothing like his own stones, which he kept in his jacket pocket for safe keeping, but they still shimmered in a familiar way.
There were old books like Erwin had, arcane symbols on canvas bags, seashells and other sea debris, and then something that made Caspar stop in his tracks.
A storage unit close to the Cosner’s had rows and rows of tapestries hanging on the walls.
Not just any tapestries, though. The closer Caspar got to them, the more he realized they were all images of djinns.
All the families were represented through the colours of the backdrops, but Caspar didn’t recognize any of the people.
When he stepped closer, he heard the same humming and chattering from his dreams—and it was like he was flying again.
At first he thought those dreams were how he’d felt escaping with Malek in Jocasta’s getaway vehicles.
But now he knew, as he stared at an image of a djinn with wings spread out against his back, that someone in his family had flown, years ago, and maybe someday in the future, he would too.
Caspar wanted to reach out and open this storage unit, but Ultima pulled his attention back to their mission—and the crown at the centre of the Cosner’s unit. It sat on the purple pillow in a glass case like in the museum photograph, but it was so much shinier—and bigger—than Caspar anticipated.
Caspar let out a low breath. He’d thought the first photograph had been photoshopped.
He expected the diadem to be like a fragile, gold leaf rather than solid gold.
But no—though it was still behind glass and metal bars, the crown was already larger than life.
Opulent and ostentatious—but so utterly Malek.
This was his legacy. The one thing his parents had passed down to him that he could keep without etching on his skin.
“There we are,” Ultima said. “I love predictable passwords. Go Zeus.”
The metal door swung open. Caspar was about to waltz inside and take the crown and run to Malek, but Ultima held his arm back.
“Not so fast. Let Katja.”
Katja brought out a jar that seemed to be filled with purple sand. She blew it into the entrance of the unit. The purple dusted the air and highlighted several lasers surrounding the crown like a force field.
“Shit,” Ultima said. “Should have known they’d try to set a light trap.”
“A light trap?”
“From a techno-witch,” Katja said. “We walk through the lasers, we get rooted into place. Shit.”
“So what do we do?” Caspar said. He could already feel the power emanating from the crown. He couldn’t imagine what Malek felt on the upper floor. “We can’t just walk away.”
“We can’t, no. Especially now that we have only eight minutes. In the old days, when I was still a contortionist, I would bend between some of those lasers and remove it myself. Maybe involve Odessa, the other trapeze artist I worked with.”
“But we don’t have Odessa now,” Caspar said. “So what do we do?”
Ultima’s gaze fell on Katja with a sly smile. When Katja realized she was being singled out, she shook her head.
“No. Uh-uh. I’m not a contortionist. I can barely do a summersault.”
“I’m not asking you to do a summersault. But if you hang off the giant’s arms over here, and he lowers you over the lasers, we can get it out.”
“What?” Caspar and Katja both asked in unison.
Caspar assessed the laser as Katja blew more of the purple sand.
They were spaced apart enough that someone couldn’t walk through it, but the arrangement that Ultima described, with Caspar acting as the trapeze and Katja acting as the trapeze artist, could work.
She was only 5’2”, and if angled just right, she could lift the crown and Caspar could lift her back over.
“I’ll do it.” Caspar shucked off his jacket and started to roll up his sleeves. He grabbed a box full of books from the side of the unit and used it as a base to stand on, giving him more purchase to lower Katja down over the light trap
Except Katja wasn’t moving.
“I’m a necromancer. Not a gymnast.”
“You’re a lot of things, Kitty-Kat. And one of them is my cousin. I know you can do this.”
A private moment seemed to pass between the two of them. When Ultima whispered something in Katja’s ear, she seemed to roll around the implications before huffing.
“Fine. But we have to make this quick. And I swear to God, Caspar, if you drop me—”
“Then we’re both trapped with a crazy former contortionist who is going to talk her way out of whatever ensuing mess we get ourselves into. I promise, if you do this, I will give you my last wish.”
Katja furrowed her brows, but shook her head. “Ultima already promised me an exclusive interview about her past crimes.”
“Stop the chit-chat,” Ultima said. She grabbed the bottle of purple sand again and blew it across the light trap. “There are your marks. You better get ready, set, and go. Five minutes.”
Katja took off her shoes and Caspar got into position. They would only get one shot at this, but Caspar was determined to get it right.