The fact that neither Mallory nor Catcher argued with that didn’t improve the mood.
“We need a countermagic,” he said. “Since we can’t just erase the symbols, the magic needs to be literally reversed.”
“And that means we need to know the entire equation,” Mallory said, glancing at Jeff. “If we have images of all the hot spots, could you plug them into the algorithm you’ve been working on? Come up with a final code?”
“It’s possible,” Jeff said. “But it wouldn’t be fast. I’ve got the skeleton of the program under way, but it’s not done yet. I’m missing variables—the symbols we haven’t yet been able to decipher.”
Catcher looked at Mallory, nodded. “We’ll get to work on a countermagic. I just hope we have enough time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EASEL LIKE SUNDAY MORNING
Dawn came and went, and dusk followed again. I checked on Jonah, was assured by Scott that he was awake, if not yet at a hundred percent. That was, at least, part of the weight off my shoulders.
Kane thought the QE was the symbol he’d seen. That pretty much confirmed our controlling-sups theory, and it was terrifying to have gotten that right. Catcher and Mallory would work on a countermagic. We just had to hope we had time to finalize it.
Jeff had given us a list of the locations Mallory had pegged as Quinta Essentia—QE—hot spots. Gabriel volunteered shifters to visit the spots, take photographs. Malik coordinated joint shifter and guard teams, and they’d been sent across the city to gather the rest of the images, which I was helping Paige translate as they came in. Luc coordinated extra security for the House; since the defenses had been breached, it wasn’t hard to imagine Reed would take advantage and take a shot at us.
Paige and I sat at the library table that was starting to become a second home to me. Of the dozen sites, information about two of them had come in. We’d gathered every easel and whiteboard in the House and the three nearest office supply stores. After bargaining with the Librarian to move some tables around (Paige took that one), we used the easels to create a mock-up of the QE. That way, we could post the boards on the easels in their relative positions and in the correct order.
We stared at them, walked around them, brainstormed near them, trying to figure out the symbols we were missing—the ones that would give us the keys to the whole thing.
My phone rang, Jeff’s image on the screen. I answered it, but not until after I’d gazed around shiftily for the Librarian. I didn’t think he’d want me talking on the phone in the library, but no harm if he hadn’t seen it.
“Merit,” I said. Quietly, just in case.
“I found the bank.”
“The bank?” I asked absently, head tilted as I tried to understand the transition from one set of symbols to the next.
“For the safe-deposit box key.”
I stopped moving. “No shit?”
“No shit. It’s for a box at Chicago Security Bank and Trust. The key is a really old-fashioned shape. They don’t use them much anymore, and I found people complaining about it on a forum online.”
“You are a genius!”
“I try. And it turns out, Gabriel Keene is a co-owner of the account.”
Now, that was interesting. “And was Gabe aware of that fact?”
“I mean, I only—cough, cough—received this private bank information anonymously.” Of course he had. “But there’s no signature card on file, at least as far as I can tell from what the anonymous informant passed along.” He said each word carefully, like the FBI was listening in. Which probably wasn’t impossible.
“There’s one more thing,” Jeff said. “The account was set up only a couple of days before Caleb was killed.”
My blood chilled, and my magic must have, too, because Paige looked back at me.
“He got a safe-deposit box, put Gabe’s name on it, hid the key, and was killed,” I said, working through the timeline. “His death might not have been some spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said darkly. “That’s what I was thinking. You should get down there.”
I checked the clock. “It’s late. What time does the bank close?”
“We’re in luck. They run special summer hours two nights a week. This is one of those nights.”
I was already rising. “You’ll talk to Gabe?”
“Already done,” Jeff said. “I’m still programming. He’ll meet you there.”
• • •
Ethan and I met Gabriel at the bank, and we snuck in right under the wire. A woman in khakis and a bright polo—CSB&T embroidered in white on the pocket—was putting keys in the lock when we arrived.
“You’re closing?” Gabriel asked.
“Nope!” she said with a smile. “You’ve got ten minutes. I’m just locking the side door here.”
“We’d actually like to open a safe-deposit box,” Gabriel said. “I just found out I was named as an owner, but I’m not certain what’s in it.”
She smiled. “Of course. You have a key and identification?”
“I do.” Gabriel pulled out his wallet—black leather on a silver chain—slid out his ID, handed it and the key to the woman.
“I’ll just check this,” she said, and gestured us to follow her. She walked behind a desk, sat down in a rolling chair, and began to type.
“All right,” she said after a moment, handing the items back to him. She opened a drawer, pulled out a second key on a long silk cord, and rose again. “Just follow me, please.”
Easy enough, Ethan said silently.
The deposit boxes were in a long vault behind a barred door, open since we were still, technically, there during business hours. The woman walked to a row of boxes about halfway down the right-hand wall, slid her key into one of the two slots, gestured for Gabriel to do the same.
When the tumblers moved, she pulled open the small door, then took out the long black box. She slid out a tray built cleverly into the wall, and put the box on top of it.
“You only have five minutes,” she said, glancing at her watch, “but you’re welcome to visit again tomorrow if you need more time.”