by E. G. Foley
Izzy winced.
“Don’t worry,” Jake said, trying to sound more confident than he actually felt. “I can float the two of you back up easily onto the stairs.”
“And who’s going to float you?” Derek retorted.
“I’ll go get some rope,” Izzy said.
“Not yet, please,” Jake answered, glancing at the safe. All the dials had reset back to zero. “We need to come up with another combination to try. Now, everybody, think. Because I don’t care to find out what happens if we’re wrong a second time.”
“Very well.” Izzy remained, lending her wits to solving the puzzle.
More silence and hmms as they racked their brains in the torchlight.
“What if it’s not a date at all?” Archie said after a moment. “What if the combination is a set of coordinates? They were Lightriders, after all. Coordinates would’ve played a big role in their lives.”
Jake shook his head. “Not the right amount of numbers. And there’s no way to dial in the directions—north or south, east or west.”
“Oh, right,” Archie said.
Jake was pleased (and a little shocked) he knew one thing at last that Archie didn’t.
But blimey, this was getting painful.
“I do like a date for the combination, though,” Derek said. “I can’t think of any other sort of number it might be.”
Archie nodded. “Agreed.”
“But what date?” Jake asked, hands on hips. “What would be of significance to my parents, other than my birthday?”
They all looked at Derek this time. He brooded for a long moment. “Their wedding day. That’s my best guess.”
The Bradfords nodded, but Jake wasn’t sure. Considering that his father was all but a stranger to him, how should he know what date would be meaningful to the man?
Then he thrust away a fleeting thought of Wyvern’s preposterous invitation to become his son and heir…
“What about the date that Uncle Jacob became a Lightrider?” Archie suggested.
“Eh,” Derek said with a shrug. “Elizabeth meant even more to him than his service to the Order.”
“Very well, then, when did they get married?” Izzy asked.
“Good question.” Derek lifted his fist to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, when was that? Let me think… It was a June wedding. Elizabeth insisted on that. Very traditional. It was, um, a…a Saturday. Um… Blast it!”
Jake arched a brow. “Weren’t you their best man?”
“It was a long time ago!” Derek said. “I was worried about making the toast in front of all those highborn people, not memorizing the date. No, wait—that’s it! I think I put a mention of the date in the speech… Give me a moment. It’ll come back to me.”
Jake and Archie exchanged a bemused look as Derek struggled to drag the best-man toast out of his memory. Unfortunately, he had to start at the beginning, the same way he’d memorized it.
“To Jacob and Elizabeth…” He continued mumbling the speech from the beginning, repeating parts over and over again when he stumbled.
The kids waited, exchanging amused glances.
“It’s all right if you can’t remember—” Jake started.
“No! I’ve almost got it. I rehearsed it a thousand times so I wouldn’t mess it up. God, I hate making speeches. Jacob was the ham, not me. I think it was near the end… Something like: ‘So let us raise a glass on this—’” He snapped his fingers. “‘On this most auspicious date.’ That’s it! Twenty-first of June!”
“Are you sure?” Jake asked eagerly.
“I’m certain of it.” Derek looked exhausted from the effort. “Your Aunt Ramona picked it for them. She said the date was a good omen—three sevens in the number twenty-one, and the summer solstice, to boot. Yes, I’m positive that’s it. I can’t believe I nearly forgot.”
“What year?” Jake asked, heading back to face the cylinder.
“Would’ve been the year before you arrived: 1863.”
He nodded. “I’ll try it. But first, I want you and Archie out of harm’s way.”
“We’re not going to leave you down here alone, coz. What if the answer’s wrong?”
“If it’s wrong, then there’s no point in you dying with me. But if I do, don’t worry,” Jake said in answer to his cousin’s look of protest. “I’ll haunt the blazes out of Wyvern before I’ll let him raid my family vault.”
“Jake!” Izzy said, frowning at his graveyard humor.
“Up you go,” he said to Archie, then used his telekinesis to levitate the boy genius up onto the staircase with his sister.
Izzy made room for her brother.
Derek turned to him with a dark look. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Bye,” Jake said sweetly. He grinned at Derek’s scowl as he floated the big warrior up onto the stairs as well.
It took rather more finesse to get Archie’s lantern up to them, but he figured they would need it for the return trip if anything went wrong. Derek’s torch, he was keeping. Just in case he ended up down here alone like that skeleton.
Once all three were back to what he at least hoped was a safe distance, Jake turned to face the vault once more.
Beautiful as it was, with all its gleaming jade and shiny brass, that skeleton in the corner was enough of a warning that the safe was also deadly.
What might happen if his parents’ wedding day was not the right answer, he did not care to ponder. He did not want to end up like the pile of bones in the corner, poor bloke.
He stepped forward, wiped off his sweaty palms on his trousers, and summoned up whatever skill for this sort of business he might have gained during his pickpocket years.
Then he began dialing in the numbers. Two, one, zero…
“Where was my parents’ wedding, anyway?” he asked over his shoulder, making conversation to distract himself from his climbing dread. “London? Westminster Abbey? Merlin Hall?”
“No, it was right here at the castle,” Derek said. “The ceremony was in the chapel, and the reception was out on the lawn.”
“Aww,” Izzy said.
“Concentrate, Jake,” Archie ordered.
“I am concentrating! Almost there.”
Six. One. Eight…
A bead of sweat rolled down his face as he pondered the significance of the day. A wedding on the grounds of Griffon Castle sounded much more pleasant than what had happened out there earlier.
An idea suddenly popped into his head. “Hey, Derek, you and Miss Helena can get married here too, if you like.”
“How now?” Archie said, turning to the warrior.
“What’s this!” Isabelle exclaimed. “Derek? Is this true?”
“Blast it, Jake, you weren’t supposed to tell them yet.”
Jake snickered. “But if I’m about to die.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind!” Archie said sternly.
“Don’t even joke about it!” Izzy chimed in.
“Well, he probably hasn’t even asked her yet, the big baby.”
“Actually, I have,” Derek said. “Just today, in fact.”
“Really?” With only two numbers left, Jake turned to face the others. “Well? Don’t keep us in suspense. What did she say?”
Derek lifted his eyebrows. “She meowed. So…I’m not really sure.”
His cousins burst out laughing, but Jake’s jaw dropped. “You asked her while you were under the bell jar?”
His cousins let out exclamations of mixed humor and disapproval at his utter lack of timing, but Derek shrugged.
“I thought we were going to die. There wasn’t any time left to procrastinate. Hey, I never said I was some big romantic. I’m not Janos.”
Izzy blushed, but only Jake noticed.
“So it’s official, then?” Archie asked eagerly. “You’re getting married?”
“I don’t know! I think so. I have to wait till she’s a person again to find out for sure.” With a bashful grin, Derek rumpled Arch
ie’s hair. “And, of course, that’s provided that I have you and your sister’s blessing to steal your governess away from you.”
“Of course!” they both said.
The Bradfords cheered and hugged him. Derek hugged them back, yet huffed, still trying to be stern.
“People, do you mind?” Jake said in amusement.
They left off with their little celebration, and he turned around again, eyeing up the formidable vault door.
“Righty-ho,” he said, then he dialed in the six. The brief laugh had helped relieve some of the tension, but his muscles still strained.
“All right. I’m down to the last number.” Jake dialed in the three.
As he reached to press the red button, Archie cried, “Wait!” and nearly made his hand jolt.
“What?” Jake said in exasperation. “Whatever’s going to happen, I’d like to get it over with, Arch.”
“Yes, but are we really sure we want to open that thing?”
They all looked at the boy genius curiously.
Archie shrugged. “I mean, for all we know, it could prove a real Pandora’s box.”
“We don’t have that option, little brother. Lord Wyvern, remember?” Izzy said.
Archie sighed. “I suppose. Yes, yes, of course, you’re right. Never mind. Carry on.”
Jake shook his head. “Wish me luck,” he mumbled. Heart pounding, he slowly pushed the button.
The moment it clicked in, a terrible grinding noise roared out of the edges of the room. The whole stone chamber seemed to shake. The eight dials, quickly this time, flipped back to zeroes. The torches flickered and all three people on the stairs began shouting at him.
“Jake!”
“Get out of there, coz!”
“The walls are moving, Jake! Hurry!”
“Guess that wasn’t it,” he said wryly over the din. But even his cheeky humor flagged when he glanced to the right and the left and saw the thick stone walls on both sides slowly rolling toward him.
“Jake, come! I’ll pull you up.” Derek whipped off his jacket and moved onto his stomach on the stairs. “Archie, Isabelle, help anchor my legs.”
The Bradfords threw their weight against Derek’s calves to secure him while the Guardian hooked his feet through one of the risers and reached down, dangling his sturdy canvas jacket over the edge for Jake to catch hold of and climb up like a makeshift rope.
But Jake looked from Derek’s jacket to the vault dials.
Think. Yes, the walls were literally closing in, and all three people on the stairs were clamoring for him to hurry, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet.
He knew he could get this. If the combination was neither his birth date nor his parents’ wedding day, then what other date could have been special enough for the last Earl of Griffon to use?
It would have to be something he could easily remember, Jake thought. Historical dates? History… His mind whirled through all the lessons with Henry.
“Jake, c’mon!” Archie roared.
“I’m thinking!” Jake yelled.
“Stop fooling around and get over here!” Derek bellowed.
“Please, Jake!” Isabelle cried while the massive stone walls crushed the skeleton to powder.
Within a few moments, Jake knew he’d be next. But he refused to give in to terror.
Instead, he searched his brain for everything it meant to be the Earl of Griffon. The history, the heritage, the castle, the London house, the hunting cottage in Wales, the gold mine… Hold on!
The Gryphon!
Of course!
The answer was Red himself!
“Jake, now!” Derek roared, dangling over the edge while the wall rolled toward the broken-off bottom of the stairs.
His cousins were screaming, but Jake ignored them. The answer came to him readily, for he had memorized it during all those long, lonely months when his beloved Red was missing.
He started with the first dial and rolled each digit into place with nimble pickpocket’s fingers, though he had to squeeze himself sidewise to keep entering in the number as the walls started pressing in.
0-4-0-4-1-1-3-2
The fourth of April, 1132. The date his medieval ancestor, Sir Reginald, had first found the Gryphon egg—and changed the entire course of their family history.
The second Jake smashed the red button, the walls stopped.
His cousins stopped screaming. Derek stopped yelling, too.
There was a pause, then a mighty clanking of chains and a clattering of gears as the walls started retreating.
A moment later, they slammed back into their proper places at the edges of the room.
Jake exhaled, then the missing bottom of the staircase magically rematerialized, and he became aware of his own thumping heartbeat and his cousins cheering him.
“You did it, coz! Brilliant!”
“Jake, you’re alive!”
He gave them a shaky wave, then something clicked behind him and he whirled around. He looked at the door and his eyes widened; the vault had awakened.
All of the deadbolts and padlocks, latches and gears across the face of the giant door were twisting and turning in the torchlight, gyrating, clanking, and sliding toward the unlocked position. It was mesmerizing.
Derek and his cousins hurried down the stairs, but Jake took a swift backward step as the door suddenly popped loose and let out a long hydraulic hiss.
A rim of glowing blue light appeared around its circular edge, coming from inside.
“Blimey.” Steadying himself after his second brush with doom in one day, Jake reached uncertainly for the sturdy brass handle of the vault.
Massive as it was, the door swung easily on its hinges.
The bluish glow from inside spilled out into the stone chamber and illumined the faces of Derek and the Bradford siblings as they joined him at the threshold.
Then the four of them stared through the round opening at the vault’s interior.
It wasn’t large, for all the trouble it had cost them. Maybe twelve feet wide by twenty feet long. The light inside came from three floating orbs that must have been activated when the door was opened. Nixie knew how to conjure such things—illumination spheres, she called them.
They floated gently in the air, and by their light, Jake beheld a dazzling array of riches and precious family heirlooms. Velvet-lined shelves flanked the walls, right and left. Here, the smaller items were stored, all marked and cataloged in orderly fashion.
Larger objects ranged along the back wall. These included a few scrolled-up tapestries leaning in the corner, a complete set of shiny horse armor, and a life-sized alabaster statue of a beautiful lady with long, flowing hair. At her feet, three open treasure chests yawned. The first brimmed with gold coins, the second with silver, while the third gleamed with a glistening rainbow of loose gems.
Stepping cautiously into the vault, Jake stared all around him. His companions ventured in as well. They were welcome to come and see the family’s most precious possessions.
Wyvern, on the other hand, was not welcome at all. There were plenty of things worth stealing in here, but not if you were a powerful sorcerer.
What did he want? Jake thought, scanning the safe.
The shelves burgeoned with priceless objects, works of art, vases, ornate candelabra of solid gold, cases of important papers, mysterious old books, and a fortune in jewelry—tiaras, necklaces, rings.
Every piece made him feel closer to his parents, even though he did not know their significance, the stories behind them.
Moving deeper into the vault, Jake scanned a wondrous display of gifts and souvenirs that his parents must have collected from various magical realms during their Lightriding careers. Then he came to a small niche in the left-hand wall, where he stopped and stared at a pair of kingly robes on display.
Draped over his and hers dress forms were long scarlet court robes made of rich velvet and trimmed with white fur. Between them gleamed a pair of his and hers coronets�
��the simple crowns an earl and countess were entitled to wear as marks of their rank on the most formal parliamentary occasions.
“Blimey, did my parents really wear these?”
“Your grandparents did,” Derek said as he sauntered over. “Your father’s parents would’ve worn these to the coronation of Queen Victoria when she was a young girl.”
Jake gave a whistle. “Fancy enough?”
The warrior smiled. “All lords and ladies have to wear outfits like this to the coronation of a new monarch. It’s required.”
Archie nodded as he and Izzy came to see. “Our grandparents have them, too.”
“And then, usually, just the men have to don theirs once a year, to attend the opening of Parliament. The one in London, I mean,” Derek said, “not Merlin Hall.”
“Do you have robes like this?” Jake asked him.
“Me? Nah, I’m just a commoner. But you’ll wear one—my lord.”
“I think I’d look pretty silly in that,” Jake muttered, moving on.
Other pieces of family history had also been carefully preserved, like a tattered battle pennant from some long-ago war, and the ceremonial sword and helmet of another revered medieval ancestor that he had never heard of.
Dizzied by the display of all these treasures connected to his lineage, Jake knew that every item in here must have a story of its own, but that still didn’t explain what Wyvern had come for.
He continued searching. “What am I going to do with all these things, now that Wyvern knows the location of the safe? I don’t want him stealing them.”
“Why, you can store them in my inventions’ vault, of course.”
He turned to his cousin. “Are you sure?”
Archie nodded. “Plenty of room! They’ll be safe there. Even you didn’t know my vault exists until today, and you’re m’best mate.”
“And here I thought you couldn’t keep a secret.” Jake sent him a rueful glance. “Proved me wrong, didn’t you, coz?”
“Weeeell, when it’s in the name of science.” Archie grinned, then waved a hand. “Don’t worry, we’ll organize the servants to help carry everything over to Bradford Park and have it done in an hour.”
Jake nodded. “Thanks, Arch.”
“How beautiful,” Isabelle murmured, admiring a magnificent bejeweled egg.