Secrets of the Silver Lion

by Emma Otheguy

  Dr. Bellum rubbed her hands together and turned back to her screens.

  “Very well,” Professor Maelstrom replied. “Our two tasks are clear. Steal the castle; find the lion.” He turned to Paperstar and sized her up. “Ready for your next mission?”

  Paperstar rocked back and forth on her platform boots. She was ready.

  Chapter 6

  BEFORE CARMEN LEFT THE MUSEUM that evening, Milly reported back that the Archivo had moved the silver castle to a top-security display case with motion sensors, fingerprint collection, and hidden cameras. There were guards outside the building and at the entrance to the underground tunnels. No one with any sense would try to rob it. Not that VILE has any sense, Carmen thought. But still, she walked down the steps of the terrace feeling optimistic: she and Player would come up with a plan to rescue the throne, Milly would get to take her trip to Bolivia, and the silver castle would remain safe.

  Carmen stopped in a bagel shop as soon as she woke up the next morning. Everyone said that New York City bagels were the best in the world, and she was eager to try one out. It was a little place with an orange awning, a few blocks from the museum. There was a long line, cramping everyone between the drinks refrigerator and the bagel counter. Other people were scrolling on their phones or watching the television on the wall, which was playing a morning talk show. But Carmen never wasted an opportunity to gather potential clues. She studied each and every face on the line and noted what they were reading—you never knew who VILE had gotten to aid and abet in their crimes. But she didn’t find anything suspicious.

  Just as Carmen was getting to the front of the line, the morning talk show flashed a photo of a small object, tarnished but unmistakable: the silver castle. Carmen stopped in place to watch the television.

  “Hey!” the cashier barked. “What’s your order?”

  But Carmen was transfixed. She watched as the screen flashed back to the talk show.

  “Another theft.”

  “Two in a row.”

  “These must be international criminals—first New York City, now Sevilla—this is a global crime scene now.”

  Carmen felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. The silver castle had been stolen from its high-security display case in Spain—and the Spanish police didn’t have a clue who had done it.

  “Come on,” the cashier urged, “you’re holding up the line!”

  Carmen snapped out of it. “Sorry—not hungry anymore!” She left the line as people shouted at her for holding them up, then ducked out of the bagel shop. She ran as fast as she could toward the hotel to tell Zack and Ivy what had happened.

  “Player!” she called into her earring. “Turn on the TV! And book us a flight to Spain!”

  She was so distracted that she practically collided with Milly, who was coming down the block from the other direction.

  “Did you hear?”

  “Just got the news,” Milly said, out of breath. “I was going to the police station—”

  “Milly,” Carmen said, interrupting her, “what information can you give me on those underground tunnels in Sevilla? I need whatever you can possibly find. Who built them, what for, and why were they hidden?”

  “You’re not . . . you’re not just an art lover, are you? You’re . . . are you an undercover agent, or something?” Carmen turned away. She wanted to tell Milly who she was, but she couldn’t risk letting anyone interfere with her plans. Not the police, and not the museum. “I’m . . .” she said, biting her lip. “I’m someone who can help. I wish I could tell you more. But I need you to trust me.”

  “Look at me.”

  Carmen turned back toward Milly, and they locked eyes.

  “Okay,” Milly said, taking a deep breath. “Shake on it.”

  They shook.

  “Ready for a private tour?” Milly said.

  “I’ll call Zack and Ivy.”

  * * *

  Carmen, Zack, and Ivy followed Milly to her office, which was tucked behind a panel of wool tapestries on the second floor. The office was cramped with file folders and binders, but Milly’s tiny desk was neatly organized. On the desk was a computer, a framed picture of a smiling man, and next to it a single flower in a vase.

  “Have a seat,” Milly said, although the only chair was at her desk. Zack made do by perching on a stack of folders.

  “Not that much is known about the tunnels,” Milly said, “since they were just discovered. But I’ve been talking to my friends at the Archivo General de Indias—”

  “I’m sorry, the what?” Ivy asked.

  “Oh,” Milly said, “I forget you don’t know. An archive is like a library for handwritten documents and important papers. The archive where the tunnels were found—It’s called the Archivo General de Indias, which means ‘The General Archive of the Indies’—meaning the Americas. When the Spanish Empire colonized Latin America, they called the whole region ‘the Indies.’ Today, all the records from that time period are kept in the Archivo General de Indias—AGI for short.”

  “Got it,” Ivy said.

  “Back to your friends at the AGI,” Carmen said. “What did they tell you? Have they explored the tunnels more since the silver castle was found?”

  “Oh, they’ve been tearing them apart!” Milly said. “But it’s a shocking discovery, and it will be ages before they’ve explored the whole network of tunnels. Researchers have to be very careful down there—the tunnels were probably built hundreds of years ago, and there are places with cave-ins, or where water has gotten in. And of course, it’s a total maze—anyone down there has to have a plan to avoid getting lost, or they could be stuck for days.”

  “How could no one have found the tunnels before now?” Carmen asked. “Wouldn’t the electric company have found them when they were laying new power lines?”

  “Not necessarily,” Milly said. “These are very, very deep underground. Far below where any power lines or plumbing would be.” She logged in to her computer and turned the screen to face them.

  They all leaned forward to look at the picture on the screen. It was the longest flight of stairs Carmen had ever seen, and in the background the stairs melted into nothing. It was like they led to a black hole.

  “This is just the first flight of steps down into the tunnels,” Milly was saying. “There are two more flights of stairs like this on the way down. There’s very little light, and the steps are old and uneven.”

  Milly put her chin in her hand and flipped through more pictures of stairs. “It will be years before they’ve explored the whole place.”

  “But do they know who built it?” Carmen asked. “It must have taken a lot of work to dig that deep—and in the seventeenth century!”

  “No power tools back then, that’s for sure,” Zack added.

  “Or dynamite, for that matter,” Milly said. “These tunnels were surely dug by hand.”

  Zack whistled.

  Carmen shook her head. Who would go through that much trouble to dig a maze of tunnels—only to have them boarded up, unknown to the rest of the world?

  “The archivists at the AGI suspect it was a very wealthy merchant who had them built,” Milly went on. “Before the building became an archive, it was a merchants’ exchange. Plus, the vault was full of expensive treasures—its contents make our collection here in New York look pitiful.”

  “You do have some nice candlesticks and tapestries,” Ivy said soothingly.

  Milly showed them a picture of the vault. It looked small, barely big enough for one person to stand in, but it was filled with shelves, each packed tightly with gold and silver that was still, somehow, shining after all these years. There was jewelry too—chokers studded with gemstones and what looked like a diamond bangle.

  “They’re very nice tapestries,” Ivy added. Everyone laughed.

  “They can keep their fancy jewels,” Milly said. “I just want the throne back. It makes me so angry, thinking that criminals could be selling it on the black market as we s
peak.”

  “Milly can you send me those pictures?” Carmen asked quickly. “We have a plane to catch.”

  Chapter 7

  “YOU’RE ALL SET, RED!”

  Carmen pulled out her flight app and, sure enough, there were the tickets for her red-eye flight. She and Zack and Ivy boarded the big plane, where they had seats next to one another in the main cabin. Carmen and Ivy gave Zack the aisle so he could try and get a peek at the cockpit. “I’ve always wanted to fly one of these things!” he kept saying. “It’s like a mega-bus in the air!”

  Carmen was used to sleeping on planes, so she nodded off. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw were pink fluffy clouds out the window. It was morning in Europe, and the plane would be landing soon.

  The pilot’s voice came over the plane’s crackly loudspeaker. “Weather in Madrid, Spain, is eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, twenty-nine degrees Celsius, sunny, and dry. Flight attendants, please prepare for landing.”

  “Where to next, Carm?” Zack asked once they had touched down and deplaned.

  Player rattled off directions through Carmen’s earring. “You’ve just landed in Madrid, which is the capital of Spain. Fun fact: King Felipe II picked Madrid to be the capital of Spain five hundred years ago because it’s smack dab in the middle of the country. Before that it was just a little town.”

  “The same King Felipe who commissioned the throne?” Carmen asked.

  “Nope,” Player replied. “Different guys. The throne was commissioned by King Felipe IV—that was two kings later.”

  Carmen shook her head. “You’d think they would come up with a different name!”

  “Sevilla, where the silver castle was stolen, is three hundred miles south of Madrid.”

  When Carmen told that to Zack and Ivy, they groaned. “That’s not going to be a short trip,” Ivy complained. “Someone’ll get carsick.”

  “Luckily,” Player explained, “Spain has some of the speediest trains in the world. These trains regularly go one hundred and ninety-three miles per hour—that’s nearly three times as fast as a car! You’ll be there in no time.” Player was right. Once they were in the train, it was smooth sailing. The train was sleek and modern, and it was so quiet you hardly noticed it zooming down the tracks. It was only when Carmen looked out the window and saw that the landscape was a blur that she realized how fast they were going. Still, even from the blur she got a taste of the dusty tans and sage greens of the Spanish countryside. She could hardly believe it when they pulled into the train station in Sevilla, only two and a half hours after they had left Madrid.

  They wasted no time heading to the AGI. The walk there took them through a plaza, a main square paved with tan and brown flagstones. Little kids were running around playing tag, and two older women sat on a park bench. It was nearly 100°F (37°C) outside, and Ivy fanned herself while Zack complained loudly. Thankfully they turned onto a narrow street, which was shady, before ending up at another plaza, this one dominated by a two-story building. It was rectangular and reddish-brown with a fanciful turret in each corner. Palm trees framed the entrance.

  It should have been a tourist magnet, but police tape covered the doorway and several of the windows.

  “We seem to be running into a lot of this lately,” Ivy remarked, nodding toward the police car parked on the far side of the plaza.

  Carmen checked the policeman in the car. He was scrolling on his phone and didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the scene at the AGI. “Wait here,” she said, and before anyone could stop her, she ducked under the police tape and pushed open the door to the Archivo.

  Inside, it was very quiet. “Player, are you there?” Carmen whispered. “I’m going to look for that trapdoor.”

  “I’m with you, Red,” Player replied. “Keep an eye out for staff—just because the police closed the AGI to the public doesn’t mean someone who works there doesn’t pop in.”

  “I’ll be careful, but it’s pretty deserted.” Carmen almost wished she’d brought her trench coat and tools with her; now would be the perfect time to send Red Drone to explore the tunnels. But she couldn’t waste this chance to gather information while the policeman was distracted.

  Her footsteps echoed down the tile hallway. There were high arched ceilings overhead, and at the end of the hallway, a cannon faced her. “Welcoming,” Carmen said sarcastically.

  “I think they were going for grand and elegant,” Player explained. “This building was originally built as a merchants’ exchange, under King Felipe II.”

  “Same one who picked Madrid on a map?”

  “You’re getting the hang of this. King Felipe II built this place as a merchants’ exchange because the merchants used to sell their stuff in the back of the cathedral, and the bishops didn’t exactly like that.”

  “I can’t imagine they would have.”

  “But the merchants didn’t want to do their buying and selling outside, because in case you haven’t noticed, it’s hot in Sevilla!”

  Carmen hastened her footsteps. “So, one of the merchants back then must have built the secret maze. It would have been great for him—he had the most secure vault in the world, and then, whenever he had a buyer for one of his knickknacks, he could just go get it. People probably thought he was some kind of genius, but really he was just running down the stairs!”

  “It’s as good a theory as any,” Player said.

  At the cannon, Carmen turned right and found herself in a high-ceilinged room, and at the center of the room was a glass display case.

  “How does it look?” Player asked.

  “Empty. They must have figured out a way to disable the alarms before breaking into it. Leave it to VILE.”

  Carmen turned onto another hallway, this one full of paintings.

  “Oh, did you get to the Felipes?” Player asked.

  “These old guys?” Carmen paused in front of the row of paintings, each one in a gilded frame. “How’d they get to be kings?”

  “It’s called a dynasty, Red. They were just born. What are the paintings like?”

  “They’re . . . well . . . let’s just say the painter did a great job capturing the light.”

  Player made a snorting noise. “The Felipes weren’t known for being attractive. More like, for having long chins.”

  “These are very long chins. I still think they should have gotten their own names, anyway.”

  Carmen turned her attention away from the wall and to the floor. She walked slowly, paying attention to any inconsistencies on the ground. “I think I found it,” she said finally.

  A little patch of the floor had been cordoned off with velvet rope, and a sign in front of it read ¡Aviso!

  Carmen reached under the velvet rope and pulled and prodded and pushed every one of the stones on the trapdoor. There was no visible ring or lever, and she had no idea how it opened. Finally she gave it a good hard kick, and the trapdoor sprung open, revealing the endless flight of stairs Milly had shown them in pictures.

  “Wish me luck,” Carmen said under her breath. Player must have been holding his breath, because he didn’t reply.

  Carmen tested each step by reaching her foot out and tapping it before putting any weight on it. When she was halfway down the first set of stairs, she heard footsteps overhead.

  “Uh-oh. We’ve got company,” she said.

  “¡No es justo!” a man was shouting. “It’s not right!” he carried on in Spanish. “Just because the police want to investigate does not mean research stops! I must return to my manuscripts!”

  “Paco,” said a woman’s voice soothingly, “now is not the time! The police have promised they’ll reopen the Archivo tomorrow. Then you can return to your work. Just one day.”

  “One day? Would I ask you to give up breathing for one day? I am a historian, I breathe the documents of this archive and work must not stop, even for one day!”

  Carmen pressed herself against the stone wall, hoping they didn’t come near the tr
apdoor.

  “Ay, pero, Paco,” the woman complained. “Don’t you want to go to Salvador de Burgos’s house? How often does a multibillionaire give tours of his private mansion?”

  “Pilar, I do not want to go to the tour of de Burgos’s house. Just because he has the most impressive collection of seventeenth-century art, including treasures I have studied at length and only dreamed of seeing, and just because this is the one and only opportunity to see that collection does not mean I want to go! I will not be deterred from my work!”

  Carmen would have given up on Paco a long time ago, but Pilar continued cajoling, “Paco, mi amor, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Salvador de Burgos has generously offered to let the public tour his treasures, since we are all in mourning for the loss of the silver castle. Let’s leave the Archivo until tomorrow and go see the tour.”

  But Paco was stubborn. “Pilar, you must do what you want. But I am going up the stairs to work in my office.”

  “¡Señor!” came another man’s voice. “We must ask you to leave the premises immediately. This is an active police investigation!”

  Carmen groaned. “Lunch break’s over, I guess.”

  There was a lot of commotion upstairs, then silence.

  “Red?” Player whispered.

  Carmen strained to hear. There were footsteps and voices echoing from different parts of the building, but none of them clear enough to hear. It seemed everyone had moved away from the trapdoor.

  “Gotta go,” Carmen said. “Coast is clear.”

  She dashed up the stairs and pushed the trapdoor up with her shoulder. She looked right and left. The hallway was empty, but she saw a pair of shiny black boots milling around the room with the high ceiling.

  “You’re not going to keep searching the tunnels?” Player asked.

  “No point now, not with the police everywhere. But I’ll tell you where I am going. What’s the deal with that Salvador de Burgos character?”

  Chapter 8