Page 20 of Chaos and Crowns

Odelle shook her head. “Being the brains of the operation seems so much less fun without a van full of screens and spy equipment. Alas, I drive a sedan.”

Thad patted her shoulder sympathetically. “Next time we steal a priceless artifact, I’ll rent you a van.”

The drive to the Whitehall’s house was short, but this time Odelle parked around the corner, just in view of the back deck and balcony that would serve as Antony’s point of entrance.

“Alright, time to see if we can get these socialites to swallow this hook,” Thad said as he grabbed his case of jewelry and straightened his bowtie. Then he disappeared around the corner, and Odelle and Antony settled in to wait.

Odelle didn’t want to miss Thad’s signal, but the thought of sitting in silence for the next half hour with Antony was not appealing. She turned to ask him for more information about how the crown’s powers worked, then paused. His head leaned back on the headrest, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. Odelle stared at the pale column of his throat for a moment, observing the slight bob of his Adam’s apple as he took slow, even breaths. He appeared to be…asleep?

Odelle cleared her throat, but he didn’t rouse. She could now hear Thad greeting the Whitehall’s in her earpiece, but her focus remained fixed on Antony. Odelle gently jostled his shoulder, and his head fell forward before jerking upright. He blinked as if dazed before his eyes focused on Odelle.

“Did you have to stay up all night to finish the crown or something?” Odelle asked.

Antony shook himself.

“I finished yesterday afternoon,” he said with a shake of his head. “Since the Defeat, using the Light for Smithing is more exhausting than it used to be.”

Odelle frowned.

“I thought the copy of the crown wasn’t going to have any powers—that you wouldn’t be using the Light.”

Antony opened the box in his lap to reveal the delicate work of bronze within.

“I still had to use Light to make this copy, even if I wasn’t imbuing it. I had to use similar techniques to the ones I used to make the original to get the copy to be believable.” Antony lifted the crown out of the box, and it glittered, casting dots of rainbow light around the interior of Odelle’s car. The way it glowed had Odelle questioning Antony’s assertions that it didn’t carry any innate magical properties.

Antony blinked slow and heavy as he inspected the crown, like the blink of a cat settling in for a long nap. His chin momentarily sagged towards his chest before he jerked his head up again.

Odelle bit her lip. Exhaustion did not bode well for Antony’s challenge of climbing in through a third story window and switching out the crowns. In her ear, Thad chattered away about pottery to the Whitehalls. Odelle would just have to distract Antony from his exhaustion. Keep him awake the same way she had survived long nights of studying in graduate school. She glanced at the crown in his lap.

“Can I try it on?” she blurted out.

Antony looked back and forth between her and the crown.

“Uh…sure.”

He held it out to her. Odelle picked it up gingerly, as if it were made of spun glass. Antony had assured her that the real crown wouldn’t break easily, but the olive leaves looked so delicate, Odelle still felt like they might crumple under her fingers.

Placing it on her head, Odelle opened the mirror in the sun visor to make sure the peak of the laurels was centered on her forehead. Catching sight of herself, she had to admit she was disappointed crowns were no longer an acceptable choice for everyday fashion. She never wanted to take this off.

Odelle looked at Antony and found him glazed over, staring at her with his mouth hanging open. He really was out of it.

“Are you sure this thing isn’t magic?” she asked in an effort to perk him up. “Because it feels kind of magical to me.”

Antony snapped out of his stupor once more.

“Oh, I’m sure,” he said. “With the way our access to the Light is now, imbuing something with the Light would probably put me in a coma.”

Odelle frowned, remembering how Nora had slept for a whole day after using the Light to save her a few months back. Antony seemed to be faring better, but only just.

“So the original, you imbued it with Light to give it the power to amplify the wearer’s best trait? Why?” Odelle endeavored to keep Antony engaged.

Antony stared at the crown instead of Odelle’s face as he responded. “To be honest, just to prove to myself that I could. It was a deceptively tricky project, and I felt that completing it would convince me that I had mastered the Light. It was the first thing I made after finishing my apprenticeship with the Smiths. A test I set for myself.”

“Why was it so difficult? Did you imbue it with a lot of Light?”

Antony shook his head. “That’s what made it so difficult. Making it too powerful caused its effects to backfire. Amplify somebody’s best trait too much and you soon find out that it’s usually also their worst trait. Confidence quickly amplifies into pride, and even compassion can become paralyzing when it keeps you from taking a stand for what you believe in.”

Odelle chewed on his words, reflecting on every person who had ever referred to her as too much and how they would react if her personality was amplified. “What did you have to do to make it work the way you wanted it to?”