“Secret passage,” I whisper.
Actually, now that I get a good look at it, it’s not so much a passage as it is just some extra space between the inner and outer walls. The ceiling is high, but there’s a small square opening in it, like a trapdoor.
I clear my throat and let it carry in the small space. After a moment, a rope drops from the hole above.
Rook groans. “And why didn’t I need to know that I would be climbing a rope?”
I grin. “Because I didn’t know until just this second.”
He doesn’t look impressed. “But you had a feeling it was a possibility.”
I jump as high as I can and grab the rope. “Try not to rip your pants.”
The gloves I’m wearing have extra grip, as do my slippers. I’ve also roughed up the inside of the bodysuit’s legs around the knees to help with purchase. I’m not great at climbing ropes, but there has always been a certain physicality to our job. Not because we’re actually traipsing over rooftops and jumping over obstacles, but because we need to believe we can. Technically, I could do anything in the Afterlife if I believed hard enough. But it’s difficult to trick yourself into believing you can do something that you know you can’t do.
So, I’ve trained for this, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be winning any rope-climbing competitions. I know Rook could have done this faster, but he’s waiting quietly for me below, probably staring at my ass. At least he’s got a good view.
I’m out of breath by the time I reach the top, but thankfully a hand appears. I take it and let it haul me onto the floor of a thin, curved attic. I flop onto my back and take a moment to catch my breath.
“One day,” I gasp, “they should invent a ladder that can curl up like rope.”
“They already have that,” a voice says.
The hand pulls me to my feet, and I’m looking into the unamused face of the New Guy, Ezra Cardoso. He steps aside to reveal an unconscious member of the Coven. In their lap is the Voynich manuscript.
“It’s called a rope ladder.”
Earlier today, just as the sun was setting and before the chaos broke out but after Tolliver had taken over the security system, Ezra approached the Villa from the north, where there are several hiking trails. He wandered off-trail and made his way down the hill toward the museum. All he had to do was hop a few fences, dodge a few security patrols, and scamper up the side of the building. To the roof? Or to a window? I don’t know. He told me not to worry about it, so I didn’t. A magician never reveals his secrets, he’d said. But I know plenty of people who do actual magic, and my job is to get them to tell me their secrets, so.
I’ll figure it out eventually.
Once inside, Ezra met up with Tolliver, who no doubt told him he needed to find and subdue the person hiding the codex somewhere in proximity to the temple. And based on the book I see lying in an unconscious woman’s lap, he was able to do just that.
Rook finishes his climb in much less time and effort than it took me, and he doesn’t accept Ezra’s offered hand, instead pushing himself easily into the attic.
By the looks of it, we must be in a space built around the dome of the temple. It’s like an unfinished corridor that loops all the wayaround the outside of the dome, which acts as the inner wall. The place is dusty, with exposed beams, scattered nails, and that unfinished feeling of somewhere not meant to be seen. Think if a Bundt cake pan were made of splinters and neglect.
“Well done, New Guy,” I say, leaning over the unconscious member of the Coven, a woman who is obviously related to Hecate—some-fourteen-greats-granddaughter or something—and will be noticed missing before long. There’s a mist mask over her face connected to an amber glass bottle of Whispering Willow—the same compound Tolliver used to put the head of security to sleep and rewrite their memories. I’m guessing Tolliver told Ezra it was chloroform or something. That’s not how chloroform works, but I don’t think he knows that.
I take the codex out of the Coven member’s lap.
“NO!” CJ’s voice calls from behind me as they push themself into the room. “Never wear gloves while handling old books! You’ll rip the pages!”
“Codex,” I say. “And once Poppy gets this thing copied, we’ll be ripping all the pages.”
After Poppy’s outburst during the interrogation, the security guard led her and CJ not to some place of confinement but to the central security room, so they could watch the rest of our caper until it was time for their next part of the job.
Because, come on, did you think it was part of the plan to let Poppy and CJ get carted off and tortured by a syndicate? Absolutely not. That was Tolliver who led them away in his newly procured head of security uniform, complete with a face-obscuring helmet so no one could see him cringe at lying.
We knew we had to make the Coven think they had caught theintruders, and we also knew we had to evacuate the building so we would have the time and space to copy the codex.
So Poppy, who is ever so good at distraction, was given Dot Parker’s identity. Dot Parker was notorious for being fashionably late but never so late as to miss the bulk of the party. So, when the real Dot Parker, in the body of the real Laurie Love, showed up, the Coven knew something was wrong. They were always going to catch Poppy—that’s the point of a pig cadaver—but since we had Tolliver in place as security, she was never in any danger. And now we have a handful of minutes to swap out the grimoire with the fake.
After Poppy follows CJ and Tolliver up the rope, she takes the codex from me gently and sits cross-legged with a roll of tools we’d packed in the mail drop.
Everyone except Ezra is in black bodysuits. New Guy absolutely refused (“I amnotwearing a team uniform, much less one that leaves nothing to the imagination!”), but he had already shown he can get around in street clothes, so I didn’t push it.
Poppy takes her tools and some sheets of vellum out of her bag and sits on the dusty attic floor. “How long do I got?”
