The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues #1)(11)

"My dear children, may I suggest something? We need an alliance."

Dan was immediately suspicious. "Why would you want an alliance with a couple of kids?"

The old man chuckled. "You have intelligence and youth, and a fresh way of looking at things. I, on the other hand, have resources and age. I may not be one of the most famous Cahills, but I did change the world in my own small way. You know my fortune comes from inventions, eh? Did you know I invented the microwavable burrito?"

"Wow," Dan said. "Earth-shattering."

"There's no need to thank me. The point is I have resources at my disposal. And you can't travel around the world on your own, you know. You'll need an adult chaperone."

Around the world?

Dan hadn't thought about that. He hadn't even been allowed to go on the fourth grade field trip to New York last spring because he'd put Mentos in his Spanish teacher's Diet Coke. The idea that this clue hunt might take them anywhere in the world made him feel a little lightheaded.

"But -- but we can't help each other," Amy said. "Each team is separate."

Alistair spread his hands. "We can't both win.

But this challenge may take weeks, perhaps months. Until the end, surely we can collaborate? We are family, after all."

"So give us some help," Dan decided. "There's nothing here about Richard S___ .

Where do we look?"

Alistair tapped his cane on the floor. "Grace was a secretive woman. But she loved books. She loved them very much. And you're right, Amy. It does seem strange there are so few of them here."

"You think she had more books?" Amy cupped her hand over her mouth. "A ... a secret library?"

Alistair shrugged. "It's a large house. We could split up and search."

But then Dan noticed something -- one of those random little details that often caught his eye. On the wall, at the very top of the bookshelf, was a plaster crest just like above the front door of the mansion, a fancy C surrounded by four smaller coats of arms -- a dragon, a bear, a wolf, and a pair of snakes wrapped around a sword. He must've seen this before a million times, but he'd never noticed that the smaller crests each had a letter carved in the middle -- E, T, J, L.

"Get me a ladder," he said.

"What?" Alistair asked.

"Never mind," Dan decided. He began to climb the shelf, knocking down books and knickknacks.

"Dan, get down!" Amy protested. "You're going to fall and break your arm again! "

Dan had reached the crest, and he saw what to do. The letters were smudged darker than the rest of the stone, like they'd been touched many times.

"Amy," he called down, "what were those four branches again?"

"Ekaterina," she called. "Tomas, Janus, Lucian."

"Ekaterina," Dan repeated, as he pressed the E. "Tomas, Lucian, Janus."

As he pressed the last letter, the whole shelf swung outward. Dan had to jump away to avoid getting squished into a book sandwich.

Where the bookshelf had been was a dark stairwell, leading down.

"A secret passage," said Uncle Alistair. "Dan, I'm impressed."

"It might be dangerous!" Amy said.

"You're right," Dan agreed. "Ladies first."

CHAPTER 5

Amy could've lived in the secret library. Instead, she almost died there.

She led the way down the steps and gasped when she saw all the books. They went on forever. She used to think the main public library on Copley Square was the best in the world, but this was even better. It seemed more library-ish.

The shelves were dark wood, and the books were leather-bound and very old, with gilded titles on the spines. They looked like they'd been well-used over the centuries.

Oriental carpet covered the floor. Cushy chairs were spaced around the room so you could plop down anywhere and start reading. Maps and oversize folios were spread out on big tables. Against one wall was a line of oak file cabinets and a huge computer with three separate monitors, like something they'd use at NASA. Glass chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling and provided plenty of light, even though the room was obviously underground. They'd descended a long way to get here, and there were no windows.

"This place is amazing!" Amy ran into the room.

"Books," Dan said. "Yay." He checked out the computer, but it was frozen on the password screen. He jiggled a few file cabinet drawers, but they were all locked.

Uncle Alistair gingerly picked a red folio from the shelves. "Latin. Caesar's campaign in Gaul, copied on vellum. Looks like it was handwritten by a scribe around, oh, 1500."

"It must be worth a fortune," Amy said.

Dan suddenly looked more interested. "We could sell them? Like, on eBay?"

"Oh, shut up, Dan. These are priceless." She ran her fingers along the spines -- Machiavelli, Melville, Milton. "They're alphabetical by author. Find the S section!"

They did, but it was a disappointment. There were ten shelves packed with everything from Shakespeare's First Folio to Bruce Springsteen's Complete Lyrics, but nothing with Richard for the first name.

"Something about that ..." Amy muttered. The name Richard S-, coupled with the word Resolution, kept nagging at her. They went together, but she didn't know how. It drove her crazy when she couldn't remember things. She read so many books sometimes they got jumbled around in her head.