I slumped against the wall, thinking. Could I get Roux up here to knock the guy out?
No, because Roux wouldn’t fit in the dumbwaiter.
And, yikes. The fact that that was my primary reason was really, really disturbing. I was definitely going over to the dark side.
Which left two options. Quitting and shadow-walking.
Quit, ninety-nine percent of my mind barked immediately.
But one percent held out. It could work…theoretically.
“Mina!” Roux’s voice carried up the dumbwaiter.
I pushed the doors to the contraption closed, afraid that the sentry might hear. Then I tiptoed back to the door and peeked through the keyhole.
The shelf I’d left the paintings on was barely two steps away. So near, yet so far.
Holding my breath, I eased the door to the library open. The room was dark — too dark for human eyes — except over by the main door, where the sentry stood. But for my eyes…
I could make him out easily. He cracked open the far door to peer down the hallway into the reception area, just like I spied on him from behind. I couldn’t hear the communications coming through his earpiece, but I could hear him muttering.
“Fire? There’s a goddamn fire now?”
Ha. Yes, thanks to Marius.
“Standing by,” he said grimly.
I eyed the shelf where I’d stashed the paintings, then the sentry, who focused on the commotion in the main part of the building. Meanwhile, the fire outside flared, illuminating the windows, and I could sense Roux’s mind tapping at mine.Hurry!
So I did. I ignored every paranoid cell in my body and started reconstructing the space around me. The soft rug under my feet. The slightly warmer air surrounding my body. The light draft moving from the library to the office…
Then, with a deep breath, I stepped into the library. I kept the image of myself upright behind the doorway, not because thesentry could see it, but because it blocked the glint of fire coming in through the office windows.
“Unit three, over,” the sentry said in reply to a summons on his earpiece. Then he turned, scanning the room.
I froze, but his eyes moved right over me.
“Negative. Nothing here,” he reported, turning back to the doorway. “But that fire sounds like it’s getting closer.”
Definitely, and the room was getting warmer. Yikes. How big was that fire?
I inched toward the shelf with the paintings, then reached out cautiously. My fingers tapped over a row of books, then touched wood — the frame of a painting.
“You’re evacuating the building?” the sentry said into his earpiece. “What about the art?”
Leave it,I urged him, wishing I could enthrall people the way Henrik did.
“We could leave it, you know,” he said.
My jaw dropped. Coincidence, or had I succeeded?
Either way, I had to get moving. I stepped even closer, using both hands to lift the heavy paintings. I bit my lip, sure the light creak would give me away. But someone shouted at the sentry from outside just then, covering the light scratch of wood over leather book bindings.
“Does the boss want this stuff evacuated or not?” the sentry barked to whomever it was.
I held both paintings against my body and hurried back into the office, then pushed the door shut behind me. I panted for a moment. Wow. I’d succeeded in shadow-walking. Okay, in a dark room with a distracted guard, but still. Pretty amazing.
I placed the Van Gogh and the fake Monet in the dumbwaiter and formed a fist to signal to Roux. One trip for the paintings, a second trip for me, and we would be out of here.
