every second, that passed was one that might mean the difference between Phillip living or dying. As the Spider, I’d done jobs on specific timetables, but a friend’s life hung in the balance tonight. There was nothing I could do about the time that had already passed, but I could control how I took down Clementine and her crew—the sooner, the better.
So I turned my attention to the last monitor, the one in the bottom left corner that showed Clementine and Owen. I squinted at the screen. The two of them seemed to be standing in front of a very large door, with three of her men waiting behind them. The angle sucked, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I started pushing buttons, sliding controls, and toggling the joysticks back and forth. It took me a few seconds, but I was finally able to zoom in on the two of them. I hit another button, and the sound of the giant’s country drawl flooded the security center.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” Clementine said. “Why, it’s almost a work of art itself.”
She paced back and forth, walking in and out of the view of the camera. For the first time, I noticed a lock on the door, along with a large round wheel, and I realized exactly where Clementine had taken Owen: the museum’s vault.
“The vault walls are marble, just like the rest of the museum, but the door itself is reinforced silverstone, more than six inches thick,” Clementine said. “That’s the tricky part, and that’s where you come in, Mr. Grayson.”
Reinforced silverstone? Well, the Briartop directors had certainly gone all out. Silverstone was one of the strongest metals around, with an insanely high melting point. It wasn’t something you could just blast through with a couple of sticks of dynamite or a brick of C-4. No, you needed real power to get through any kind of door with silverstone in it—elemental power. Even then, you’d need to find someone with a whole lot of juice, since the metal could absorb all forms of magic. Or you could do what Clementine had done and find someone with an elemental talent for metal to help you.
Someone like Owen.
“Really?” he asked. “Why is that?”
She looked at him and smiled. “Because you’re going to open it for me.”
For a moment, everything was silent, except for the soft hum of the camera feed and the faint, tinny flicker of the black-and-white monitor in front of me. On the screen, Owen stared at Clementine a moment, then threw back his head and laughed.
“You think I can crack that vault?” He let out another series of chuckles. “Lady, you are out of your mind.”
Instead of being insulted, her smile widened. “Not at all.”
Owen realized that she was serious, and his laughter abruptly cut off, the last notes dying on his lips. He looked at the vault door again, really studying it.
“What’s in there that you want so badly?”
“Funny you should ask. You see, art isn’t the only thing that Mab Monroe left behind,” Clementine said. “In addition to all those baubles on display in the rotunda, the Fire elemental also had a vast personal fortune. But the most interesting thing is that she didn’t keep it stashed away in some bank or even just lying around as cash. No, it seems that Ms. Monroe preferred a more tangible, old-fashioned currency: gold.”
Owen frowned, his black eyebrows drawing together in thought. “You’re telling me that Mab Monroe kept her personal fortune all in gold, and all of it . . . here?”
“Almost like a dragon out of some fairy tale, if you think about it,” Clementine said. “Except, of course, that Mab was much more dangerous than any old dragon out of any old story. But now that she’s gone, well, we don’t have to worry about someone breathing elemental Fire on us, now, do we?”
She slapped a hand to her side and guffawed. It was good that she amused herself, because I didn’t find one thing about this funny, and neither did Owen, judging from his grim, worried expression.
When she was done congratulating herself on being so clever, Clementine started pacing again. “But to answer your questions, yes. I have it on good authority that a big chunk of Mab’s gold is stashed right here in this very vault. Apparently, Mab had a thing about not trusting banks, and she thought it would be less obvious storing her gold here rather than at one of the downtown banks. Plus, I believe the museum director was into her for a substantial gambling debt, so she took it out in trade for this.”
Owen shook his head. “Well, that’s a nice story, but it still doesn’t explain how you think I can help you get into the vault.”
“I’ve done my research, Mr. Grayson. I’ve learned quite a bit about silverstone these last few months. How tough it is, how durable, and how you need elemental magic to get around or even through it. And I think that you’re just the man for the job.”
“Why?” Owen shot back at her. “Just because I have an elemental talent for metal?”
Clementine waved a hand at him, dismissing his concerns. “Oh, I know all about your power, Mr. Grayson, especially the sculptures and weapons you make in your spare time. In fact, I bought one of your knives at a charity auction just last month. Exquisite craftsmanship.”
My gaze dropped from the screen to the knife I’d set down on the table. The blood from the giant I’d killed in the hallway outside outlined the spider rune stamped into the hilt. Owen had made this knife and four others for me as Christmas presents, and they were indeed exquisite weapons, just as Clementine had said about her own blade. Light, strong, durable, razor-sharp. I’d used the knives more than once on my enemies, and they’d never failed me.
Owen shook his head. “You’ve got it all wrong. Yes, I have an elemental talent for metal. Yes, I can craft all sorts of things out of it. But that vault door? Six inches of reinforced silverstone? That is well beyond my magic.”
“I thought you might say that, and you just might be right. But believe me when I tell you that I’ve planned ahead. I don’t expect you to do it all by yourself.”
Clementine snapped her fingers. One of the giants stepped forward, a duffel bag swinging from his hand. He put the bag on the floor, unzipped it, and reached inside it. A moment later, he came out with a welder’s torch. Another giant with another bag stepped forward and pulled out a similar torch.
The third giant stepped forward, but instead of reaching into yet another bag, like I expected, he simply held out his hand. A moment later, elemental Fire crackled to life in his palm, the flames flowing from one of his fingers to the next and back again.
Owen eyed the torches and the Fire, but he didn’t say anything.
“Now, taken as one piece, the vault door is pretty much impregnable, just like you said,” Clementine said. “There’s no way to blast through it. But I don’t need to get through the door, just around it. So you and my boys are going to use the torches to superheat the silverstone locking mechanism, along with the help of Oscar’s elemental Fire. When it gets hot enough, you’ll use your magic to gut the lock so that it’s useless. Once that’s done, you’ll go to work on the hinges, popping those off, and then I’ll just move that big slab of a door right out of the way.”
It was a good plan—a smart plan. I’d thought that Clementine was all about brute strength, raw force, sheer power, given what had happened in the rotunda earlier, but she was also clever. The more I learned about her, the more I admired her, sort of like appreciating a copperhead’s coiled beauty on the green forest floor, knowing that it would bite you the second you were in range of its curved, venomous fangs.
Owen shook his head again. “I’m telling you that I can’t do it. I don’t have enough magic for that sort of thing.”
“This isn’t about strength, Mr. Grayson, it’s about finesse. A small, controlled, precise manipulation of metal and magic. Something you do exceptionally well, judging from what I’ve seen of your work. You can shape, mold, and work with silverstone like nobody else I’ve ever seen.”
Owen didn’t respond.
“Believe me, I know that you’re not the strongest elemental out there,” Clementine said. “Now that Mab’s dead, I imagine that title would go to your girlfriend. If Ms. Blanco were still alive, that is.”
Owen stared at her—just stared and stared at her. His face pinched, his body stiff and straight, his hands clenched into fists. The giant noticed his shock, distress, and anger. She smirked at him, her pretty features twisting into an arrogant sneer. All at once, Owen let out a wild, angry roar, put his head down, and charged at
