He gripped the handle and began to turn. Soon he heard the grating sound of stone slipping on stone. The lid was coming free. A minute later a narrow crack emerged. He tried to shine his flashlight into the opening, but he couldn’t get the right angle. He cranked some more. Half an inch. An inch. Two inches. He tried the light again. And this time, he saw something that made his heart quiver.

“Don’t you know that it’s bad manners to play with dead people?”

August spun. “I thought you were—”

“Dead myself?” Xandria pointed a gun at August’s face. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read.”

“How did you get out?” he asked.

“I should ask you the same question.”

“Ladies first.”

Xandria lowered her gun, but kept it in a ready position. She would have plenty of time to fire a well-aimed shot if August even flinched. “Despite what you heard on the news, none of the bodies were ever recovered. They were simply too far down. The whole tunnel collapsed, making recovery an expensive endeavor, too expensive to merit digging up a few bodies no one wanted to claim. So when I escaped, I was free. More free than I had ever been, because I was dead.”

“Did you find anything down there?”

“You know that I didn’t,” she said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. All that was left down there was an oversized souvenir, an empty room with a thousand empty vessels. The treasure must have been hidden there at one time, but I suppose it was moved after the Templars were vanquished. I escaped the same way the treasure did, through a passageway that led straight to the Kotnov Castle, or what’s left of it, anyway.”

“Did anyone else escape?”

“No. I went back to Square to see if I could save them. But the police had already arrived and were swarming the area. I stayed undercover for an entire month before leaving Europe.”

“When did you start following me?”

“About two months ago. After returning to the States, I contacted one of the FBI agents connected to the Order, saying that I was an associate from overseas. He told me that you and your family had escaped, which at first I couldn’t believe. Then he told me about Meng.”