Revolution (Chronicles of Charanthe #2)

  *

  “Are you sure it’ll work?” Gerald said when she’d presented her results to the council. “If it’s even slightly imperfect, we could destroy the vault.”

  “We won’t do better,” Eleanor said. “This is Harold’s finest work.”

  “And the days are passing,” Ragal said. “If we hesitate too long, they will send someone to destroy it all regardless.”

  Eleanor pushed the key towards the middle of the table. “So who wants to take it?”

  “You got us our third key,” Don said. “You should be the one to go.”

  “What about the original key holders? Ragal and Nathaniel have been guarding this secret for years.”

  Ragal shook his head. “I’m getting a little too old for this kind of nonsense. I’ll be quite happy if you just come home with news of a new headquarters.”

  “Nathaniel?”

  “He’s right. This is a job for younger men – and women. If you’d like to go, you’ve earned the right.”

  “I’ll need to take someone with me,” she said. “Or preferably two. I’d put money on the Shadows having some presence at the vaults.”

  “Who do you want?”

  “I’ll take Sebastien.” She thought for a moment. “Who else isn’t too busy right now?”

  “Mack’s already there to keep an eye on the vault. You could pick him up when you arrive.”

  “Good thinking,” Eleanor nodded. “We know they work well together. I’ll tell Sebastien to be ready to leave in the morning.”

  They got up before daybreak and rode west towards the Flintmoor mines, stopping only for a quick lunch and to give their horses chance to drink from a nearby stream. By nightfall they estimated they’d made almost half of the distance. They pitched their tents away from the road and lit a small fire to roast a couple of rabbits for dinner.

  The next evening, having ridden their horses to the point of exhaustion, they came within walking distance of the mines.

  “Let’s tie up here,” Eleanor said, picking a spot from which the horses could reach both grass and water. “We have to assume we’ve got enemies here, and we’ll draw less attention if we go by foot.”

  They walked a little further before making camp for the night, and Mack found them while they were cooking breakfast the next morning.

  “We were about to come looking for you,” Eleanor said. “We’ve got a job to do.”

  “Did you get the third key?”

  She hesitated, wondering how much she should tell them. “Sort of.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sebastien asked. “I thought we’d come out here to open the vault?”

  “And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. It’ll be fine, Harold’s good at what he does.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve got a very careful replica of the third key. It’ll be fine.”

  Mack and Sebastien exchanged glances, but they knew better than to question her.

  At the vault, she gave them each one of the real keys while she slid Harold’s reconstruction into the third keyhole. For the thousandth time she questioned whether her descriptions had been accurate enough, whether the pattern was more than a figment of her imagination, and whether Harold’s reconstruction held to the necessary level of perfection in its detail... but it was too late for second thoughts.

  “On the count of three,” she said, turning the key just enough to check she’d lined it up in the lock.

  “One.”

  Sebastien’s fingers tensed.

  “Two.”

  Mack shuffled a little closer to the door, positioning himself ready.

  “Three.”

  As she said the final word they each turned their keys, watching one another’s hands to ensure that their movements were synchronised. After a prolonged and steady turn, they felt the locks click under their fingers.

  Eleanor realised she’d been holding her breath, and exhaled slowly. The world hadn’t ended. Nothing had exploded or vanished or broken. She pulled the door towards them, and it creaked on rusty hinges that hadn’t been opened in generations. Even with a squirt of oil, the movement was still stiff.

  The inside of the vault was lined in thick metal sheeting, but otherwise unimpressive. For a moment as they looked through the door, Eleanor wondered if they’d come too late. Had someone already removed the critical plans? And what of all the money they were expecting to inherit? The vault would have been big enough for all three of them to stand comfortably inside, yet it was empty aside from one small, flat box on the floor.

  She picked up the box and tried to lift the lid, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Puzzle box,” she said, slipping it into her bag. “Come on, let’s get back to camp, we can open it more safely there.”

  “Do you really think anyone’s going to bother attacking us here?” Mack asked.

  “You’ve been watching this spot since we realised it mattered – don’t you give the Shadows credit to have done likewise?”

  “I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “I’d like to believe they wouldn’t have seen you.”

  He nodded. “Okay, let’s go back to the camp.”

  They closed the vault carefully and scuffed the ground to disguise the marks they’d made in opening it. If they hadn’t been seen already, they didn’t want to give themselves away by leaving careless tracks.

  Eleanor left the others building the evening’s fire and sat alone in her tent with the box. She slid the pieces of the puzzle gradually back and forth until at last the box popped open. The parchment inside was old and brittle, but the ink was still bright and clear. She turned it around until the map made sense to her; it showed a few streets in a suburb of Almont, not a part of the city she knew well. One house was highlighted.

  She stuck her head out of the tent and called the others across from the fire pit.

  “This is really strange,” she said, smoothing it out on the ground. “It’s back in town.”

  “That’s just a house,” Mack said.

  “Maybe there’s a tunnel or something?” Sebastien suggested. “Like the route from the fountain into the old headquarters.”

  “We’ll start back tomorrow and have a look,” Eleanor said. “For now, let’s think about food and sleep.”