That was the dangerous part. Sitting here with my old teammates, with Grace fitting in as though she’d always been part of the group. She laughed at jokes and asked questions, and the whole thing made me feel like the world was a little less dark. Fuck, it felt like a life I could want.
But wanting things had never ended well for me.
“Jean told me about a dig site in the mountains?” Grace set down her glass. “He said it was one of the harder missions, but it wasn’t his story to tell.”
Arthur put his glass down, and his lips thinned. “It was a rough one.”
“That was one of our first sites, when we still thought we could handle anything,” Merlin said. “Word got out we’d found a cache of gold coins, and some local insurgents got interested.”
They’d probably been following our movements for weeks, hoping we’d find something so they could swoop in and take it. “We lost two of the archaeologists and had to abandon the site.”
Grace’s face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to?—”
“It’s fine.” Arthur picked up his fork and speared the last bite of his strudel. “It was a long time ago.”
“That’s the job,” Merlin added. “You do what you can, and sometimes it’s not enough.”
The candle between us flickered.
Dr. Rashid had spent forty years documenting Bactrian burial sites. His assistant, a young woman named Amira, had just finished her PhD. They’d trusted us to protect them, and we’d failed.
You do what you can. Sometimes it’s not enough.
That was the last time we’d failed so horribly. And I wasn’t going to fail again. Not for Grace.
“The coins made it to Kabul,” I said. “They were in the museum’s hands when we left.”
Merlin nodded. “But who knows where they are now. I think the Taliban is still searching for where the Tillya Tepe Bactrian Hoard went.”
Arthur reached for the bottle on the table, changing the topic at the right time. “More wine, anyone?”
The conversation drifted as the evening wore on. Merlin explained the politics of museum acquisitions—who legally owned artifacts looted during wartime, and whether repatriation was justice or theft. At Grace’s prodding, Arthur talked about his father’s art collection, their cottage in England, and a recent auction acquisition.
Grace asked questions about everything. What was the oldest thing we’d found? What was the strangest? Had we ever been tempted to keep an item for ourselves?
“Once,” Arthur admitted. “There was this coin. Alexander the Great’s face on one side, an elephant on the other. It fit perfectly in my palm. I thought about it.”
“But you didn’t?” she asked.
“Merlin would have lectured me for the rest of my life.”
“I would have,” Merlin confirmed. “I had a speech prepared.”
“It wasn’t for the gold,” Arthur said, holding out his hand as though the coin were still there, “but because it was Alexander. When I signed up for the military, I knew I’d be part of a longstanding and proud tradition. But after I left and went to work at Pendragon Security, I was surprised by how muchhistoryI was part of, too.”
I let the conversation wash over me. Let myself watch Grace’s face as she listened, the way she leaned in when something interested her, the way she tilted her head when she was thinking.
By the time we finished eating, the restaurant had mostly emptied. Our server had stopped by twice to ask if we wantedanything else, and twice Arthur had ordered another round of coffee to keep the table.
“We should probably let them close,” Grace said, glancing at the staff.
“Probably.” Arthur signaled for the check. “Caulfield’s supposed to arrive by three, so we’ll muster at eleven for brunch, eat, review our plans, and drive over in two vehicles.”
Arthur charged everything to his room, and we headed upstairs. When we stepped out of the elevator into the long hallway, the Pendragon night shift had already taken position. Radek and Aleš had gone home and would accompany us to Henri’s tomorrow.
We reached Grace’s room first. She stopped at her door and pulled out her keycard.
“I should check it out first,” I said, reaching for the card.
