“This isn’t about physical weight,” I said, my voice even as my pulse raced. “It’s about value. Cultural value.”
I stepped closer, careful where I placed my feet now, studying the carvings again. The statues weren’t judges waiting to be impressed. They were representatives, each one demanding to be acknowledged on their own terms.
Not measured against each other.
I scanned the altar, my mind racing, cataloging symbols, materials, craftsmanship. My gaze snagged on a small, worn coin. Human. Old. Familiar.
My boss had one just like it in his collection.
“That one,” Isaid, reaching?—
My boot caught on uneven stone. I pitched forward, caught myself, but the coin slid, bounced once, then vanished into a narrow crack in the floor.
Hadrian exploded. “Incompetent,” he snarled. “Useless?—”
Arthur rounded on him so fast it startled even me.
“You got us into this,” Arthur said, voice sharp and cold. “And if you haven’t noticed, you’re rapidly running out of people willing to die for your impatience. So, you can shut up and show some respect, or you can keep talking and watch this place finish what it started.”
Hadrian’s lips flattened into a thin line, fury flashing in his eyes, but he said nothing.
Arthur turned back to me, dropping to one knee. “Are you hurt?”
“My knee,” I said automatically. My heart slammed in my chest, but my brain did what it always did under pressure.
It lit up.
I sucked in a breath, the rush of realization cutting clean through the panic. With shaking fingers, I dug into my pocket and pulled out the coin I’d taken from Percy a few days ago. I hadn’t thought about it until now.
Arthur followed my gaze, understanding dawning immediately. “That’s it,” he said softly.
He helped me to my feet, keeping his hand at my elbow, then he took the coin from my palm.
“You ready?” he asked.
I nodded, heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
Arthur stepped forward and placed the coin onto the scale beneath the human statue.
For a terrible second, nothing happened.
Then the pan dipped, and stone groaned again.
The scale settled, perfectly balanced. The chamber seemed to exhale around us.
My knees went weak with the delayed shock of it all, and Arthur caught me without comment, his arm firm around my waist.
“You did it,” he murmured.
He moved to the altar next, scanning with new understanding, and chose items for the dragon and the sea creature with careful precision. Both scales balanced, the statues remaining still.
Only the Atlantean remained.
The other three scales sat balanced and quiet, their statues frozen once more in stone stillness. The fourth loomed over us, taller, leaner, its features too precise to be human and too restrained to be draconic. Its hands were open, palms up, waiting.
The altar felt different now. Lighter. Stripped of obvious answers.
I stared at the objects laid out there, my brain churning through symbols, materials, context. Everything that worked for the others failed here. Nothing felt specific enough. Nothing felt right.
