Every nerve in my body was screaming,Run!
Beside me, Gabriela was screaming in a loud, high-pitched shriek. Quickly, I clapped my hand over her mouth. She whimpered against my palm.
The fire beast, I noticed, did not cross the threshold of the vault. Maximus noticed that too. “The spell that created it also confines it,” he said. “Stay here.”
Not going to argue with that.
I let my hand fall from Gabriela’s mouth. She clung to my arm, and I clung right back as Maximus stepped across the threshold at the same time that he drank from the second vial, the enspelled potion he’d said would require gold to make. He’d never explained what his spell did, and I’d pushed him on it. All he would say is that it was a spell to fight the fire beast, and that was enough information.
I should have asked more questions.
Shedding his trench coat, Maximus shuddered. His whole body seemed to suddenly writhe, and the fire beast lunged toward him. Suddenly, Maximus was engulfed in flames. And his bodybecameflames.
He became a fire beast.
Glowing like a piece of the sun, Maximus wrestled the monster. Their flames merged into one another until I couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended.
I watched, barely breathing. There was nothing I could do to help. I couldn’t tell if Maximus was winning or dying. I saw the monster’s head, its fiery teeth. I saw Maximus tear at the beast’s chest, as if clawing at its heart. And then the flames whirled and spun like a tornado, faster and faster. White-hot light flared out.
Flinching, I covered my eyes.
And then there was darkness.
“Is it over?” Gabriela whispered.
I lowered my hands. My eyes fought to adjust, to see shapes in the darkness. Fumbling, I switched on a flashlight. I swept it over the vault—and the beam landed on Maximus, bent over and panting but alive.
“It’s over,” he panted.
“You did it!” Gabriela kept her voice hushed, but her joy was clear.
“Remember: it will reset in thirty minutes,” Maximus warned. Hurrying inside, I helped him straighten. He leaned on me. He didn’t seem to be injured. Just drained. “We need to move quickly. The fire beast will regenerate soon.”
I tapped my earpiece. “Ryan, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m back,”he said, his voice strained.“Father left. Not sure where he is right now. That’s the problem with taking down the cameras. Going to try to locate him.”
Looking around the vault, I saw gold.
Lots of gold.
So much gold.
Bars in stacks. Coins in glass jars. Goblets on shelves, with piles of plates. And then there was the jewelry, displayed on black velvet as if in a jewelry store: necklace after necklace, as elaborate as anything an Egyptian mummy would wear. Bracelets, rings, earrings, cuff links. All the gold filled my eyes until I felt as if I were swimming in it. I breathed in and tasted the sweet metallic flavor on the back of my throat.
“Steady,” Maximus said.
Shaking my head, I tried to knock the sense of SO MUCH GOLD out of it. I wasn’t here for the beautiful, shiny, sweet…No, Sky, focus. Find the jewel.It shouldbe—
I saw it.
In the back corner of the vault. The jewel itself looked like a large moonstone or marble, milky white with swirls of shadowy gray. It lay on a pedestal, on top of a knot of wires.
“Sky, where’s the unicorn horn?” Gabriela whispered.
“Ryan?” I asked.
“To the right, third shelf, behind a goblet with rubies on it,”Ryan answered.“Did you find the jewel? Can you see what kind of security is on it?”
