Instead, all they got was a stupid piece of paper.
Katie reached in and carefully removed the scroll. She held the paper under the torchlight and unrolled it.
It was a small painting, the colors slightly faded by time. It depicted a mountain range at twilight, with stars twinkling in a sky that transitioned from turquoise to black, the sun a mere fading memory. The mountains were dark, shadowy giants. In the lower right, a hooded figure sat on the rocky ground, silhouetted by an orange light, probably a campfire. The figure stared up at a shooting star that arched over the mountains, trailing through the heavens. Something about it gave James chills. It was dark and beautiful and inspiring all at once, a lone adventurer watching a fellow voyager make a cosmic journey.
But beautiful or not, it wasn’t the stone. Katie turned the painting over, as if hoping to see writing or some sort of explanation, but the back was blank. The trio looked at each other, the truth unspoken between them. They all knew but didn’t want to say.
Someone else had found the underground city, had solved the puzzles. They had taken the stone.
The weight of James’s disappointment was crushing. He wanted to scream, to hit something. They’d come all this way, solved so many puzzles. Mungus had died. Derek and the others were still missing.
And all they had to show for it was an old painting.
Chapter 26
When James, Rocky, and Katie retraced their way out of the temple, Calico, Myrcellus, and Tonitrus waited at the bottom of the steps. Their eyes gleamed in the torchlight, full of anticipation.
James handed Calico the painting, and the Super unrolled it without a word. He stared down at it, his mouth a thin line. His hands shook, and James and took a step back. He could almost feel the anger rolling off the normally calm Super. Calico dropped the painting with disgust, turned, and stalked away.
“What about Derek?” James called after him.
“If it’s not here, then neither are they,” Calico said over his shoulder. He kept walking.
Reluctantly, James followed with the others. He felt like he was giving up, abandoning his brother, but deep down, he knew Derek wasn’t there in that underground city. Maybe he’d known it all along. It just didn’t feel right.
They flew back in complete silence. When they landed on the platform outside the base, Auri rushed out, concern on her face. She was relieved that nobody else was injured and didn’t even ask if they had found the stone. Not that Calico would have answered; as soon as James unhooked his harness, Calico disappeared inside the base.
Now James, Rocky, and Katie sat in their makeshift sleeping quarters. Katie had lagged behind in the city and snagged the painting from the ground without telling the others. She pulled it from her pocket and unrolled it on the bed before them. The already aged paper was even more battered from the flight.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Calico so angry,” James said, his voice low, not wanting to be overheard.
“I mean, he thought he’d figured it out, thought he’d finally find Lychnus and the others,” Rocky said.
“I feel like...” James lowered his voice even further. “He didn’t even ask about the others back there until I mentioned it, right?”
“No,” Katie said, still examining the painting. “All he asked about was the stone.”
“Isn’t that odd? Wasn’t the whole point of finding the stone because Lychnus went after it? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“You think he knew they weren’t there?” Rocky said.
“I don’t know,” James said, thinking hard. “It feels like we’re missing something. What isn’t he telling us?”
“Maybe the stone’s just one part of the puzzle, and it would lead us somewhere else. But now we don’t even have that. Maybe he was mad because it was our only lead.”
“Maybe,” James said, uncertain.
“And why did he just drop this?” Katie pointed to the painting.
Rocky sat down on the bed and held up the paper. He shrugged. “Why would he want a useless painting?”
“It’s not useless!” Katie said, snatching it away from him. “Isn’t it obvious? Whoever took the stone left it there. It’s got to be a clue.”
“How?” James said. “All it shows are some dark mountains and a dude crouching. I don’t see any secret message.”
“Yeah...” Katie bit her lip. “But it’s got to be something. I just wish we knew who painted it.”
“N.R.,” Rocky said.
James and Katie looked at Rocky, surprised.
Rocky shrugged. “I’m not an art nerd. It just says N.R. in the corner.”
“It does?” James didn’t see anything.
“Yeah, right here,” Rocky said, pointing. Sure enough, in the lower right-hand corner, barely visible in black ink on top of the dark gray rocks, was a small N.R.
Katie squinted at it, her eyebrows raised. “How did you see that?”
“Got to have good vision to juke a defender.”
“Still all about football,” James said, grinning.
“Always.”
James examined the painting again: the fading sky, the blocky stones around the lone adventurer. Something about it seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it. And the initials... N.R. Had he heard that before? He tried to think back, before all of this, when everything was normal. But that life seemed to be a distant dream, one that slipped away as he tried to remember it. He shook his head. Maybe he was imagining it. But he couldn’t shake the feeling there was something he was missing, something he should know.
At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Katie hastily rolled up the painting and shoved
