I hesitated, but at this point it didn’t seem like it mattered much if she knew. “It’s kind of where my mind goes when I touch the spear. Asher is the only one who can bring me out of it,” I explained. “That’s why we need him. It’s weird, I know.”
“Not weirder than anything else that’s happened.” Simone tapped her fingers against the wall. “Okay, what if … What if you don’t touch it? We go get it, just the two of us. Like we did with the flame. I could be the one to handle it and—”
Plink.
Simone looked over her shoulder to see what had made the noise. No one was there.
“You heard something, right?” she asked.
I nodded. The space between the buildings was so small. It must have been an animal. Probably a rat.
Plink.
This time, I saw a small pebble bounce off the ground.
My eyes shifted up to see who or what was making it rain down rocks.
Asher waved at us from the rooftop of the five-story building.
Before I could do or say anything, he motioned for us to stay put and then disappeared from the edge.
“He has a flair for the dramatic, doesn’t he?” Simone muttered, leaning against the wall. “I’m surprised he didn’t get himself caught by the police on purpose just so he could do a cool escape.”
“Mm-hm.” I bit my bottom lip. I was glad that Asher was back, but Simone was right; he did go over the top a bit with the whole jumping off rooftops thing. He wasn’t invincible, even though that’s the way he acted. He seemed to forget that I was the one who had the power to control the future.
A couple of minutes later, Asher joined us.
“I found us a boat,” he announced. “But we need to go quickly because I think the cops might still be looking for us.”
“Sure, but first …” Simone pointed to the left pocket of my jacket. “Want to tell him?”
“What?” Asher looked at me, then Simone, then back at me. “Did something happen?”
I glanced at the people passing by. “Why don’t we talk about this once we get going?”
“Just tell me quick,” Asher said.
“We found the angel’s skull in this church for lost souls,” Simone blurted out. “It was awesome.”
Asher’s eyes widened with surprise. “The one Cassie’s father wrote about? Are you sure?”
“Uh, yeah.” Simone smiled smugly. “We even had an encounter with a mysterious old woman who gave us the flame.”
“Is this true, Cassie?”
I nodded. “It’s not a real flame, just a glass paperweight that looks like one. It might decipher the code the Guardian wrote.” I looked around. “I’ll show you once we get the boat.”
“Okay, that’ll be safer.” Asher pointed to the far corner of the marina. “There’s a man over there who’ll rent me a boat for two hundred euros a day.”
“You have two hundred euros?” Simone raised a single eyebrow. She knew that he didn’t.
“No, but you do,” Asher retorted.
“True.” She flicked her wrist and brushed him aside. “But just remember that you needed me for this. And that I am helping.”
Asher grimaced. “I have a feeling she’s not going to let me forget.”
We cut through the waves in our small motorboat for a couple of minutes, the city of Naples growing smaller and smaller as we headed down the coast toward Positano. Our plan was simple: We’d get off in Positano and Simone would call her house and get the guards to leave. Once they were gone, we’d head over and do a quick in-and-out type of mission to get the spear. At that point, I’d use the spear to find a path where my classmates and people all over the world didn’t die and Asher would make sure I didn’t get stuck in the Realm of Possibilities. It seemed like a good plan.
Asher shut off the engine and anchored the small motorboat in the middle of the sea with the shoreline still in sight. “I think we’re far enough away. Let me see the flame.”
I pulled out the tinted glass paperweight. “Here,” I said, handing it to him. “Let’s not spend too much time out here though. We can always see what it does after we get the spear.”
“This won’t take long.” Asher passed me his backpack while studying the paperweight. He held it up to the light, flipped it over, and even looked through it.
“We did all that, too,” Simone said. “Although we have a theory of what it’s supposed to do.”
Asher looked at me. “What is it?”
It seemed like the quickest way to get Asher focused on the spear was to spend a few minutes with the idea of releasing destiny. “I’ll show you, but I don’t think it’s going to work.” I unzipped the backpack, took out the journal, and turned to the coded page with its different-colored letters.
“Let me have the glass,” I said, balancing the journal on my lap.
Asher handed it to me, and I slid it over the notebook as though the page were a magical Ouija board that would convey its deep, dark secret to us. Some of the letters disappeared and reappeared, depending on where I placed the glass. Yet nothing seemed to be revealed.
“Anything?” Simone asked, hovering over me.
“No, I told you this was a long shot,” I answered, unsure if I was happy or sad that it wasn’t working.
“Hold on.” Asher put his hand on mine to prevent me from moving it. “Look.” He rotated the glass so that each tip of the flame lined up with the crosshairs on the corners of the page.
“Good call!” Simone shouted. She squinted at the page, and her face fell.
Over half of the letters had disappeared under a swirl of the matching color, but what was left behind was still a bunch of random letters. I rolled my eyes. Sometimes I hated being right.
“I thought that was it,” Simone muttered.
“It still might be,” Asher said. “It could be a code within a code. Do you have a pen and paper with you?”
“Yeah.” She opened her purse and gave him a slip of paper with a pen. “It’s a receipt, but you can use the back.”
Asher looked at the front and raised his eyebrows. “Four hundred Euros for a pair of boots?”
Simone shrugged. “I like nice things.”
“There are a lot of letters left,” I said, wanting to get started. The wind shifted and the boat began to rock back and forth, making it more difficult to keep the paperweight completely aligned with the crosshairs. “Ready?”
“Go,” Asher said, the pen poised to write.
I called out all the letters:
YTWJQJFXJIJXYNSDGFHPYTYMJBTWQIYMJWJFQRRZXYGJUJWRFSJSYQDKNQQJIGDMFANSLYMJTSJBMTJSYJWXINJNSXJQKQJXXXFHWNKNHJBMNQJNSXNIJYMJWJFQR
Asher stared at what he’d written on the receipt. “It could be some type of substitution code, but it might take me a while to figure out.”
“It looks like a storm is coming,” Simone said, pointing out to sea, where gray clouds were rolling in. “We should get going.”
Asher glanced at the horizon. “Those clouds will probably blow away,” he said, returning his gaze to the letters. “We’re fine.” He then looked up at Simone again. “Are you seasick or something?”
“No … I’m just not a big fan of being in a tiny boat in open water when there’s a storm nearby.”
“Simone’s right. We should head to Positano and set things up so we can get the spear,” I said. “We need to stay focused.” I had a feeling that Asher could lose track of time with the code, and as much as he wanted to find a way to release destiny, it was more important for us to get the spear away from Sarah Bimington.
“I am focused.” Asher was making chains of letters on the receipt and crossing them out every ti
me something didn’t work out. “We’re getting closer to figuring out how destiny can be freed. This is as important as getting the spear.”
“Nothing is as important as the spear.” The moment I said the words, I regretted them. Even if what I said was true, I could see the hint of disapproval in Asher’s eyes. He liked it better when I was scared of using the spear. Maybe he thought I could be controlled if I was afraid. But that wasn’t going to happen.
“Cassie …” Simone touched the side of my arm.
“What?” I snapped, yanking back my arm.
“Whoa, relax.” Simone held up both her hands. “I know we’re all under stress, but I was only going to point out that the weather can change pretty fast out here and the shore can disappear in a storm, you know? If we can’t see the shore, we can get turned around.”
“Haven’t you heard of a compass?” Asher retorted. “Just give me a few minutes, and let me see if I can make sense of this. We’ll go as soon as I’m done.”
I was eager to get going, but Simone’s words had triggered something that was floating on the fringes of my brain. Like my subconscious was working on an idea that hadn’t been shared with the rest of my mind.
The clouds could make the shore disappear, but the shore would still be there. It would just be hidden behind them. Like how some of the letters blended into the background, hidden when I placed the paperweight on top of them.
Aisa, the old woman in the church, had said to see what is unseen.
The letters still existed even though they appeared to vanish … like the shoreline.
I looked down at the journal. The clue wasn’t in the letters we could still see, but in the ones that had disappeared! Despite my hesitancy to release destiny, a piece of me did want to know what was written in the coded message. It might even help me somehow when I use the spear.
“Asher, it’s the opposite of what we’re doing,” I said. “The message is in the letters we don’t see.” I looked at Simone. “Do you have more paper in there?”
“What do you think?” Simone smiled and handed me three more receipts. “You know I like to shop.”
“All right, let’s try this again,” I said, ignoring the waves that now pushed against the boat. “Here.” I handed Simone the paperweight. “Hold on to this while I look for the letters we didn’t use.” I balanced the notebook on my lap and got ready to write on the back of the new receipt. “Okay, Asher. Call out the letters I already gave you, and this time I’ll write down the ones we didn’t see.”
Within seconds, the first word was revealed.
A-C-T-I-O-N.
We were on the right track! It didn’t take long to write down all the letters and have the complete message.
Action has been taken to return destiny to how it was intended
Unconstrained and multifaceted
The world is ablaze with possibilities
No more will it be chained to the choices of one
Second cipher key given to Michelangelo
Master of light and dark
Before going to Rome he placed it with his latest maiden
It is outstretched and present
Reaching out from the darkness
For all to behold and none to understand
Except for you
You will see what is written
And return fire to the world
“Holy cow.” Simone’s voice was a whisper of amazement. “We did it. We actually broke the code.”
“But it still doesn’t mean anything.” I pointed to the second half of the solved code. “It doesn’t tell us how to do anything.” I was upset with myself for even thinking this was going to help. “It just points to another clue or key to a clue. We don’t have any real answers. This is a waste of time.”
“Yeah, but we’re one step closer,” Asher replied. “If we can figure this out, too, it could change everything.”
“That’s a big if,” I answered.
“And since when did you become so negative?” Simone asked. “I thought you wanted to do this.”
“Sure … maybe. But what we really need is to get the spear and start trying to have me change the future.”
I noticed Asher and Simone exchange a weird look.
“Listen.” I tried to explain myself to them. “I’m not saying we can’t do both things … only that we can’t waste too much time on something that we may not be able to figure out. And even if we could release destiny, who knows if that’s a good idea. Wouldn’t it be better to be able to pick a future ourselves? A good path?”
“I don’t know. Who’s to say we know what’s best?” Asher pointed out. “We’ve already made mistakes.”
“But that was because I didn’t think things through and didn’t really know what I was doing. It would be different if I got some training.”
“Maybe, but giving everyone a choice and not having the future be controlled sounds much better, don’t you think?” Simone didn’t wait for me to answer and instead pointed to what I had written. “And we can do that because, apparently, this Michelangelo guy gave the clue to his girlfriend. See the part about placing it with his latest maiden?”
“But giving the key to a woman for safekeeping wouldn’t make sense,” Asher said.
“Excuse me?” Simone crossed her arms.
Asher rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t mean that a woman couldn’t keep it safe; of course she could. I mean giving it to one person doesn’t make sense. This Guardian is leaving a clue to all future Guardians. So that people in the future—like us—could free destiny if we needed to. That’s why it says the cipher, the key to solving the clue, is somewhere for all to behold.” Asher stared at the words written on the receipt. “He would have placed it somewhere permanent … like on a building or a statue. Not just given it to a girlfriend. It has to be something accessible to future Hastati.”
“Hmm.” Simone tapped her temples like I’d seen her do in school countless times when she was deep in thought. Suddenly, she jumped, causing the boat to rock back and forth. “I got it! It mentions Michelangelo and going to Rome, so maybe it’s about hiding it in the Sistine Chapel or somewhere in the Vatican. The spear is connected to Saint Longinus, and there’s a huge statue of that soldier inside St. Peter’s Basilica. I’ve seen it!”
“Um, no.” Asher shook his head. “That’s not it.”
“Why?” Simone’s expression changed from pride to indignation. “Because I came up with the idea and not you?”
“No, because the Michelangelo you’re thinking about was already dead and buried by 1610 when this was written.”
“Oh.” Simone pursed her lips. “Yeah, well then, I guess it’s not him.”
But the idea of it being an artist resonated with me.
“It’s Caravaggio!” I blurted, thankful for all the times my father had discussed the famous painter with me.
Asher smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.” He glanced at Simone. “Michelangelo Merisi was Caravaggio’s real name,” he explained. “He was considered a master in the use of light and dark, like the clue says.”
“So Caravaggio was working with the Hastati or one of the Guardians?” Simone asked.
“I don’t know … maybe,” Asher replied. “He got into trouble a lot, and I know he found refuge with the Knights of Malta for a while until something happened that made him flee to Naples.”
“And that was right before he left for Rome,” I added.
“Okay, art nerds, so where did he put the cipher key?” Simone rubbed her arms as the wind shifted and became cooler.
“I’m not sure, but I’d guess it’s in his artwork.”
“Do you think he secretly wrote something into one of his paintings, like what da Vinci did with the eyes of the Mona Lisa?” I asked, an unexpected excitement bubbling up inside me. As much as I wanted to go get the spear, the idea of solving a centuries-old puzzle was intriguing. Add to that the fact that I might be able to undo everything with one big mov
e and still keep the spear to change future events in case of an emergency or something … now suddenly, I had butterflies dancing in my stomach.
Asher’s mouth twitched as he considered the idea. “Maybe.”
“Um, even at the risk of sounding ignorant again”—Simone glared at Asher, as if warning him not to make a remark—“what do you mean? Because I know the Mona Lisa’s eyes seem to follow you as you move around the room, but is there something else?”
“A secret code.” I held my hair to keep it from whipping around in the wind. “I remember that my dad was super excited when news of it came out. Art historians found these microscopic letters and numbers hidden in the irises of the Mona Lisa. One eye had the letters LV, probably representing Leonardo da Vinci’s initials, and the other eye had a couple of numbers and letters, but they weren’t very clear. No one knows what those mean.”
“So you think the key to unraveling the secret message is written microscopically?” Simone twisted a blonde lock of hair around her finger and gave it a tug. “How the heck are we going to see it? It’s not like we carry around microscopes.”
Asher pointed to the journal. “I don’t think this one is microscopic. It says everyone can see it; they just don’t understand the meaning. Like it’s hiding in plain sight.”
“The code says he placed it with his latest maiden before going to Rome.” I thought back to all the discussions my father and I had about art. This would have been a perfect time to be able to pick his brain. He could probably figure this out in two seconds.
“Caravaggio never made it to Rome,” Asher said. “I forget all the details, but he died before getting there. It was all pretty suspicious.”
“So then it’s got to be one of his last paintings,” Simone mused. “Something in 1610 that—”
Asher smacked his hands together, surprising Simone. “The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula!” he shouted. “It’s his last work of art before he died. It has a woman being shot in the chest with an arrow. That’s his latest maiden. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it immediately. The cipher key has to be in that painting somewhere.”
“So how do we find it?” Simone asked. “It might not be in a museum. Some paintings are held by private owners. I know my mother has a couple of Picasso and van Gogh paintings.”
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