“We saw him.” Adara grimaced. “I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I thought he was going to find one of us for sure.”
“Does that mean you’re willing to step back from all this now?” Rek asked instantly.
She gave him an exasperated look. “Of course not.”
He sighed, clearly disappointed.
I ignored their bickering, still trying to make sense of the tangle in my mind. “Could you see what sort of things he was taking? It didn’t look like gold coins to me.”
“No,” Navid agreed, his face thoughtful. “I didn’t see him take a single coin. He seemed to be focused on more unique items. I remember him choosing a large gold goblet and an elaborate gold necklace set with enormous rubies.”
“And he took that set of gorgeous painted vases we were admiring,” Adara added. “I’ve never seen anything like them. And that tapestry, of course.”
“Do you think you’d recognize those vases again if you saw one of them?” Rek asked.
“Definitely.” Adara nodded.
“That’s something, then.” Rek was sounding more and more cheerful. “We can send out word in case anything like them turns up for sale in any of the cities. If you can confirm it’s one of the vases from this cave, we might be able to trace the man selling it.”
I tuned him out, still focused on my own thoughts. But Samuel’s voice jerked me out of my abstraction.
“We should be moving,” he said. “Now that the thieves have come and gone, Benjamin will be getting jumpy if we don’t appear soon. We don’t want him riding back to the palace to report our deaths.”
“Yes, there’s nothing to be gained staying here any longer.” Rek eyed the closest chest of gold doubtfully. “Should we take anything? As proof of the cave, I mean? We obviously won’t be staggering out of here with chests full of gold.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” I said. “Not while we still don’t understand the enchantment. In fact, I brought my own coin to return.”
I thrust my hand into my pocket, seeking the small circle of metal. Instead of cool gold, however, my reaching fingertips hit only material. I frowned and dug around harder. But while my pocket seemed to be unusually gritty, there was no sign of any object in it at all.
I frowned back toward my hiding space. Had it fallen out while I was twisting around in there? I stepped toward the carpets, pulling my hand out of my pocket as I went.
The flickering flame of the closest lantern flashed across my fingers as I moved, and I stopped in surprise, staring at them. For a second, my hand had seemed to gleam golden. I peered more closely and saw my fingers were coated in a fine layer of dust that appeared gold in the orange light.
And my pocket had seemed unusually dusty…
All the strands came together in my mind, and I whirled back to the others, my voice sharp.
“We need to get out of here right now!”
CHAPTER13
“Explain it to me again?” Rek asked. “I want to be sure I fully understand your theory.”
“Of course.” I hoped my voice betrayed none of my inner turmoil.
As the smallest of our party, it was perfectly natural that I should have been the one chosen to ride double, leaving my horse free to carry the tragic burden of Kasim’s body. However, logic dictated that I should have doubled with the second smallest among us—Adara. When Rek volunteered to take me, however, no one else protested. And I certainly wasn’t going to cause trouble.
But now that one of his arms was around me, holding me steady against him, I had to confess—to myself, at least—that it had been more than agreeableness that kept me quiet. I had always admired Rek—he had been the leader of our childhood games after all, and far more reliable than either of the twins. But even then, he had been set apart—the crown prince.
The twins had been more approachable, as well as being the same age as me, so they had been the easy object of my childish affection. Looking back now, I could also see how liking the two of them equally had helped keep the whole situation firmly in the realm of giddy fun. My youthful self had never truly been romantically interested in either of them as an individual—merely in the idea of them and the idea of romance.
Now, as my breath came roughly and my heart beat quickly, I wondered something about those days. Even as children, Adara had always laughed at me for being too practical. Had I been shielding myself even then? Had I attached my romantic dreams to the twins because some subconscious part of me recognized that Rek was far too dangerous a person to fill that role? Dangerous for my heart, that was.
When I believed myself betrayed, I had certainly been quick to focus my anger on Rek. Had that been a defense mechanism as well?
The thoughts scared me, and I wished I could shove them back down to the hidden corner they had sprung from. Because if the old Rek, still teetering on the edge of manhood, had been a danger to me, the grown version currently holding me against his chest was far more so.
He was confident, thoughtful, and devastatingly attractive. Even the reckless streak that lurked beneath his responsibility thrilled me—calling to the same buried seed within me. Compared to Adara and the twins, we had always been the sensible, responsible ones—but we had still been there, racing into mischief beside them.