Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(22)

They walked through another archway and entered a smaller room. The light was dimmer here, filtered through the blue panels of a stained-glass dome above. The chamber was full of glass cases fitted with clever mirrors that made their contents seem to float in the blue-tinted light. It was like standing at the center of a sapphire.

The cases had no labels or plaques, and each had a different costume in it—a breastplate of pounded bronze and a pair of weathered sandals; the segmented steel and leather of what Alia thought might be samurai armor; heavy furs and beaded saddlebags; a pilot’s jumpsuit that looked like it might be from the twenties—Alia wasn’t too clear on the history of military fashion, though Nim would know. But when Alia looked closer, she saw the pilot’s jacket was riddled with bullet holes. She peered at the heavy plated armor in the case beside it. It had a hole in it, as if it had been pierced by a spear.

There was something else: the armor, the way the clothes were cut, the crowns and bracelets and boots. Alia stopped dead. They’d seen twenty or thirty people on the road into the city—and not a single man.

“Hold up,” said Alia. Diana was standing in front of a glass case at the center of the room, larger and brighter than the others, lit by white light piercing the oculus at the top of the dome. “Are there any men on this island?”

Diana shook her head. “No.”

“None?”

“No.”

“Holy shit, are you guys some kind of radical feminist cult?”

Diana frowned. “Not exactly?”

“Are you all lesbians?”

“Of course not.”

“It’s cool if you are. Nim’s gay. Maybe bi. She’s figuring it out.”

“Who’s Nim?”

“My best friend.” My only friend, Alia did not add. Jason didn’t count. And Theo was more “just a friend” than actual friend.

“Some like men, some like women, some like both, some like nothing at all.”

“But why no guys, then?”

“It’s a long story.”

“And how were you born here if there are no guys allowed?”

“That’s a longer story.” Diana turned back to the case and lifted the latch but then hesitated. Tentatively, as if she was afraid the metal might burn, she reached inside the case and took out a slender gold crown, a huge ruby cut like a star at its center.

Alia had seen a lot of big jewels on a lot of Park Avenue socialites, but nothing like that. “Who does that belong to?”

“Me, I guess. My mom had it made when I was born. But I’ve never worn it.”

“Is the ruby real?”

Diana nodded and smiled a little. “Red like the Dog Star. I was named for the huntress, Diana, and born under the constellation of her favor, Orion. The stone was cut from the stone of my mother’s crown.” Diana gestured to the wide tiara that hung suspended in the case, a far larger ruby at its center. “They’re heartstones. They act as a kind of compass.”

She popped the star-shaped ruby from its setting and returned the gold circlet to its base. “I hope no one will notice.”

“A missing ruby the size of a macaroon? Definitely not.”

Diana let her fingers trail over the other items in the case: a wide golden belt set with red jewels and hunks of topaz as big as Alia’s thumbnails; an elegant unstrung bow and an embroidered leather quiver full of arrows; a set of what looked like wide iron bracelets; and a long rope, coiled like a snake.

“We’ll need this,” Diana said, taking the lasso from the case. As Diana fastened it to her hip, it glinted brightly, as if it had been woven from something other than ordinary rope. Diana touched the cuff of one of the iron bracelets. “My mother used to bring me here every week when I was little. She’d tell me the story behind each case, all the women who came here. These are the relics of our greatest heroes. Pieces of the lives they led before they came to the island, and the battles they fought to preserve peace after. She told me all of their stories. All but hers.”

They must be heirlooms, Alia thought.

Then the bracelet Diana was touching moved.

Alia took a step backward and almost crashed into the case behind her. “What the hell?” It was as if the metal had turned molten. It slid from the case and clasped itself around Diana’s wrist. “What. The. Hell,” Alia repeated as the second bracelet slithered around Diana’s other wrist.

Diana looked just as shocked as Alia felt. She held her hands before her like a surgeon about to scrub in and stared at the bracelets, widemouthed in disbelief.

I have a concussion, Alia’s mind babbled. I definitely have a concussion. In fact, maybe I’m in a coma. I got knocked out during the explosion, and now I’m in a hospital in Turkey. I just need to wake up, because Nim is going to pee her pants when I tell her about the magical island of women.

“Maybe it’s a sign,” said Diana.

“Of what?” Alia managed to squeak.

“That my quest is just. That I’m making the right choice.”

“To help me get off the island? Absolutely. The justest.” Alia considered the rope and bracelets. Regardless of what Diana had said about people carrying weapons, if any of this was real, there could be a whole slew of cult ladies running around with battle-axes and death mops right now. “Maybe we should take something else?”