Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4)(10)

“Okay, I can buy us some time,” Dex said, “but I’m going to have to ruin the obscurer.”

“Is that the only way?” Fitz asked.

“No, I thought it’d be fun to make things extra hard and dangerous!”

“Hey,” Sophie said, stepping between them, “no time for fighting.”

Dex glowered at Fitz as he went back to work, twisting the obscurer apart and tinkering with the gears. He pulled out several cogs and springs and shoved them into his pocket before closing it back up. “Here, Wonderboy. Catch.”

Fitz caught it with his mind.

Telekinesis.

It was an elvin skill Sophie rarely used, thanks to an epic splotching match where she’d accidentally flung Fitz into a wall. But Fitz clearly didn’t share her reservations. He spun the obscurer a few times, probably to annoy Dex, then dropped the gadget into his hand.

“As soon as I open the door,” Dex told Fitz, “roll that in. Then we run. Everyone ready?”

Dex didn’t bother waiting for a reply before he tapped his fingertips against the lock and the door clicked open. “Now!”

Fitz bowled the obscurer into the museum and it streaked across the floor, blaring white noise and blinding everyone with a flash.

“How are we supposed to see where we’re going?” Sophie asked as Dex pulled her into the museum.

“We aren’t,” Dex said. “But no one can see us, either.”

“Ow, I just hit my shoulder,” Biana cried.

“Maybe it was on another naked statue,” Keefe suggested.

“EWWW, WHAT IF IT WAS?!”

“Will you two be quiet?” Fitz yelled. “Everyone follow my voice. I found the stairs.”

They climbed to the second floor, where the light was slightly less blinding.

“Which way?” Fitz asked.

“I think we’re supposed to go west,” Sophie said. “Everyone look for a green room and a plain wooden doorway.”

They walked by it at first, but Biana doubled back and called them over.

Fitz rattled the locked doors until Dex pushed him aside. “Leave this to the experts.”

Several agonizing seconds passed.

“Any time now,” Fitz said.

“Sorry, this lock makes no sense. Wait—got it!”

They raced into the corridor, and Dex flicked on the lights before turning to latch the doors behind him.

“Whoa, this place is huge,” Sophie whispered as they climbed the grand stairway. She’d been expecting a dark, cramped hall, but this really was the Path of the Privileged. The entrance ceiling was gilded and decorated with frescoes, and the walls were covered in priceless paintings.

“Better hurry,” Dex said, running to catch up with them. “The tweaks I did to the lock won’t last. Plus, I can feel cameras, and it would waste too much time trying to deal with them. The obscurer flash might’ve fried their circuits, but it’s better to keep your head down. And let’s get cracking on that next clue.”

“Wasn’t it the one with the blood?” Biana asked. “If it was, think it has anything to do with this?”

They stopped in front of a cluster of portraits that looked like they’d been burned and pieced back together.

“No. Those paintings were destroyed during a terrorist attack back in the 1990s,” Sophie whispered. “I can’t imagine the Black Swan would ever call that ‘blood turned precious.’?”

Biana shuddered. “Humans are so awful to each other.”

“Uh, didn’t a Pyrokinetic elf just burn another building earlier today?” Keefe asked.

“Are you saying elves are as bad as humans?” Biana asked.

“I’m saying we’re not as different as we should be. Certain elves, especially.” The bitterness in his voice made it clear he meant his mom.

“Come on, let’s keep moving,” Sophie said, then realized they were forgetting a clue. Before the “blood turned precious” they needed “eyes that watch eternal.”

Could it mean the portraits staring at them?

That didn’t feel right.

Then she spotted a barred round window.

“Is this the one we saw in your memory?” Fitz asked.

“It’s hard to tell. The scene in my head was from the other side of the wall. But I just remembered that these windows were called Cosimo’s eyes. They were his way of keeping watch as he walked through the city. That’s the next clue.”

“Great, so now the blood part is next?” Biana asked with a grimace.

“Actually, I think I know what that means—and it’s not as bad as you’re thinking.”

Sophie confirmed it a few minutes later when they reached a row of wide panorama-size windows. “Yep, we’re on the Ponte Vecchio now. There are a bunch of gold shops lining the bridge underneath us, but they used to be butchers. The Medicis didn’t like the smell, so they moved the gold merchants here.”

Biana gagged. “I still can’t believe humans eat animals. Did you do that, Sophie?”

“Hey—check out that view,” Keefe said, saving Sophie from having to answer. “I’ll give humans this, they make their own kind of beauty. Even if that river looks pretty brown.”