“Years ago—before you were born—people had access to a network of data called the Internet. If you needed an address, for example, you could type it into your computer and it would pop right up, with directions of how to get there. If you needed to look up something like the boiling point of hydrochloric acid, you could do that. Instant knowledge at your fingertips.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Well, when it became obvious that magic was going to wreck the computer networks, people tried to preserve portions of the Internet. They took snapshots of their servers and sent the data to a central database at the Library of Congress. The project became known as the Library of Alexandria, because in ancient times Alexandria’s library was said to contain all human knowledge, before some jackass burned it to the ground. Since the tech is up, we’re going to dig through that database.”

“What are we digging for?”

“Facts. Let’s look at what we have. First, Raphael buys a highly contested building, leaving all other bidders in the dust. Then Raphael’s crew finds a secret vault that wasn’t in any of the documents they had. Someone went to Raphael’s site, attacked the shapeshifters guarding it, and opened the vault. Then they left the site, leaving most of the vault’s contents untouched. What does that tell you?”

Ascanio frowned. “It wasn’t random.”

“Right. There are easier places to rob and a guarded tunnel isn’t like a bank. It doesn’t automatically look like something valuable is hidden in it. Also a random robber would’ve emptied the vault.”

Ascanio looked at me. “So the thief had to know about the vault and what was in it.”

There was hope for him yet. “Exactly. We have two avenues of investigation: one, find out who knew about the vault and could’ve accessed it, and two?”

“Find out what they were after,” Ascanio said.

I smiled at him. “Good. We know that the building was owned by Jamar Groves. If the Blue Heron had a secret vault, Jamar had to know about it, because he was the one who had put it there. We know that Jamar Groves collected art and antiques. It’s logical to suppose that the secret vault contained Jamar’s personal stash. We also have the catalog of the vault’s contents, which I made at the scene. We’re going to search the archives for any mention of Jamar and his collection and compare it against the list of items in the vault.”

Ascanio arranged his pretty face into a martyred expression.

“The Central Library sits on the edge of Centennial Park,” I told him. Over the years the park had exploded in size, swallowing additional city blocks, and the library was one of its victims.

“So?” Ascanio asked.

“Centennial Park is owned by the witch covens. They provide security for the library, because it is a depository of knowledge.”