Gabriel and Savian strolled past me into the building ahead of me. I took my time to make sure that there were no traps or wards at the doors, but evidently Savian was correct—nothing stopped me as I made my way down to the basement. Our plan was simple—Gabriel and Savian would poke around the security offices as best they could. Drake, with an acute sense of smell when it came to treasure of any sort, would conduct an unobtrusive search for any locations other than the vault where valuables might be stored. My job was to assess the vault itself, which meant I needed to get past the security present outside it.

A half hour later, we were regrouped at Drake’s house.

‘‘Shall we start with the easy stuff first?’’ Aisling asked. ‘‘Drake and I hunted high and low, and there’s no secondary vault anywhere. Drake said the only thing he smelled was in the basement.’’

‘‘Which is where the vault is,’’ Savian affirmed. ‘‘According to my friend in the security office, the evening shift takes over at the onset of deep night. The shift change takes place then because it’s when most people are at their lowest energy, so they want fresh eyes on the job.’’

I smiled. ‘‘How nice it is that those of us who were born of shadow find deep night our peak performance time.’’

‘‘I thought you’d like that,’’ Savian said with a cheeky grin.

Gabriel, sitting next to me on the couch in Drake’s living room, narrowed his eyes at Savian in a show of jealousy that I’m ashamed to admit utterly delighted me.

‘‘So what about the big job?’’ Aisling asked, looking at me. ‘‘Is it doable?’’

I nodded. ‘‘Quite doable. There’s the usual run of electronic equipment, and two guards, one who roams the basement corridor, the other who wanders from above stairs to below. They may add a third for nighttime, but I doubt it. Between the guards and electronics, they seem to have everything covered.’’

‘‘What about the vault itself?’’ Gabriel asked.

‘‘Warded, with arcane spell protections and a couple of prohibitions. The latter concern beings of the dark powers, so I couldn’t get too close to eyeball the other wards, but they didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary. I assume you’ll be able to remove them?’’ I asked Aisling.

‘‘It shouldn’t be a problem at all.’’

‘‘The vault itself must be huge—it appears to take up most of the basement. But once the door is open, I should be able to shadow walk inside and disable any alarm systems within so Gabriel can enter safely.’’

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as Drake and Gabriel locked gazes.

‘‘I believe the decision of who will retain control of the phylactery has yet to discussed,’’ Drake said.

Gabriel’s eyebrows rose. ‘‘Do you have reason to believe I would abuse such an honor?’’