“What are you thinking?”
I didn’t know. I just knew Alix no longer made sense.
Cranwell began to pace. “Let’s think about where she’s been looking.”
“Outside. Inside. In the kitchen, my room… maybe even your room?”
“So it can’t be anything very big if she thinks she could find it in our rooms. Everything’s been constructed of stone.”
“And most of the walls were torn down and put back together. During renovations.”
Cranwell’s eyes fixed on mine. “Does she know that?”
I shrugged.
“Is there anything-any room, any area-that wasn’t renovated?”
I started to say no, but then stopped myself. “The attics. They were reroofed and wires were run up through the floors, but that was it.”
“Any other rooms?”
“They didn’t touch the cellar, except for stringing wires along the ceiling.”
Cranwell sat for a long while, gazing into space. “How about the floors?”
“Every floor was renovated. All the rooms were redone.”
“But the actual flooring?”
“I never touched it. It’s all stone.”
He leapt to his feet, grabbed my hand, and ran me up the back stairs to my room. He opened the door, walked to the rug, and began rolling it up.
I bent to help him.
“Where’s that stone?”
“Which stone?” The whole room was made of stone.
“The one you said you trip on.”
I scanned the floor looking for it, but couldn’t pick it out from its neighbors. The light was dim-the storm had taken care of that. And the stone had never stuck up very far. Just enough for me to notice that it wasn’t flush with its surroundings.
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. Just a second.” I walked over to my bed and then turned around. Started walking as if I were headed toward the bathroom. But I didn’t feel anything. I went back to the bed, took my shoes off, and did it again. Still nothing.
Cranwell was kneeling now, his head against the floor, arm stretched out in front of him, sweeping back and forth across the stones. “Try it again.”
“I can’t. You’re in my way. And you’re making me nervous.”
He rose to his feet, crossed his arms.
I tried one last time. And just at the point when I thought for sure I’d missed again, I felt it. I didn’t dare pick my foot up for fear of losing the spot. “It’s right here.”
“There?”
“Right under my foot.”
He knelt beside my foot, put a hand around it.
I bent to place a hand on his neck for balance.
“Don’t move.”
“I’m trying not to.”
He slid my foot back and placed his hand where it had been.
I straightened, my eyes focused on the stone.
Cranwell was probing the edges with his fingers. “I need something with a sharp edge. And a flashlight.”
I wished Severine were there. We could have asked to borrow whatever she’d been using to gouge around my chateau. “I’ll be right back.” I ran straight down to the kitchen and grabbed an arsenal of sharp pointed implements: knives, scissors, an ice pick, and a cleaver. Pulled a flashlight from my desk drawer. Ran back to my room. I laid them all on the floor in front of Cranwell.
While I held the flashlight, the scissors and knives cleared centuries of dirt from the stone’s edges. The ice pick, used as a lever, loosed it from its place. I held my breath as Cranwell wrestled it from the hole. At the bottom, covered in dust, was a slim rod.
Cranwell fished it out, blew the dust from it. Then laid it on the floor beside the stone.
He turned the stone over, bent closer to look at the underside. It had been carved. Not much. But enough that the rod had not been crushed.
I picked it up. It was lightweight. It was plain, except that there was a design along one end. Some markings and a ring of jewels along the top. I had just held it closer toward the flashlight when I realized that Cranwell and I were not alone. “Severine.”
Cranwell turned around. Scrambled to his feet.
Severine left the doorway and walked toward us, shrouded in shadows. She stopped in front of the hole in the floor. Her gaze never left the rod in my hand.
I tightened my hold on it. Lowered my arm and brought it close to my body.
“That is mine. I have been searching for this. Thank you, Frederique, for finding it.” She held out her hand toward me.
So compelling was her demeanor that I found myself stretching toward her, holding out the rod.
Cranwell’s hand grasped my forearm, pulled me up from the floor. When I was standing, he stepped in front of me. “It belongs to Freddie.”
“It belonged to Alix. It was from her mother. If you give this to me, I will put it in the body of research with all the other artifacts.”
I stepped out from behind Cranwell. “At the University of Rennes?”
She didn’t even blink. “Of course.”
“I talked with M. Dubois this afternoon. He asked you to leave. Six months ago.”
“But you see, it means nothing. Still I searched and look what I have found.” She smiled. “Now they will beg me to return.”
“Why didn’t you tell me they had asked you to leave?”
“Access to the journals is sometimes only granted to thesardes and professeurs. It was me the expert on Alix. And they wanted to give the journals to someone else to work on. I was angry. And why did I not tell you? Why did you need to know? I had to stay here. I knew what I would find in this chateau. I had only to search it.”
“But I looked on you as a friend.”
“You looked on me as your door against the world. I used you. You used me.”
Cranwell stepped beside me, as if to offer support.
“
“It’s not yours to have.” I placed it behind my back.
“I must have this.”
Cranwell stepped in front of me again. If we kept this up, sooner or later, we’d both be standing in the hole. “It’s not yours to keep.”
“I must have it. You know what this is? It is a scroll. It is written by Joseph of Aramithea and it may reveal the location of the grail. And if I can find the grail, then I will be named. And if I am named, then I will exist.”
I grabbed Cranwell’s hand and tugged him closer to my side. “But you can’t make your father love you.”
“Love! I do not want his love. I want his pride. I want his honor. I want him to look at me. I just want him to see me. Give me the scroll.”
“I can’t.”
She lunged toward the floor, picked up one of the knives. “Give it to me.”
Cranwell shoved me behind him. I ran for the door.
Severine was brandishing the knife at Cranwell.
“You don’t want to do this.”
She sprung at him.
