Our SUV comes into view. “I was just online. It’s serious over there. Somebody burned a huge symbol into the mountainside over Santa Teresa and it looks exactly like the brands around our ankles. Someone needs our help and I’m going.”

We hop in the car and Six drives slowly down the road, and Sam and I hide in the footwells of the backseat. Bernie Kosar barks from the passenger seat, happy to be riding shotgun for a change.

Sam and I pass the laptop back and forth, both of us reading the article about Santa Teresa twice, three times. The burning symbol on the mountain is no doubt Loric. “What if it’s a trap?” I ask. “My Chest is more important right now.” It might be selfish, but before I leave the continent, I want my Inheritance. The possibility that the Mogs might open my Chest is just as urgent to me as whatever is going on in Spain.

“I need to know how to get to the cave,” I say.

“John! Get real. You’re really not going to come with me to Spain?” Six asks. “After reading all that, you’re going to let me and Sam go alone?”

“Guys, get this. Also out of Santa Teresa, there’s a woman reported to have been cured, out of the blue, of an incurable degenerative disease. Santa Teresa is, like, an epicenter of activity right now. I bet every member of the Garde are on their way,” Sam says.

“If that’s the case,” I say, “then I’m definitely not going. I’m getting my Chest back.”

“That’s insane,” Six says.

I scramble over the passenger seat and open the glove compartment. My fingers find the stone I’m looking for, and I drop it in Six’s lap before hiding in the footwell again.

She lifts the pale yellow stone above the wheel, turning it over in the sunlight, and laughs. “You had the Xitharis out?”

“I figured it might come in handy,” I say.

“These don’t last long, remember,” she says.

“How long?”

“An hour, maybe a little more.”

The news is discouraging, but it could still give me the advantage I need. “Can you charge it, please?”

When Six holds the Xitharis to her temple, I know she’s agreed to let me go after the Chests while she heads to Spain.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

I DO IT WITHOUT EVEN THINKING. THE SECOND the man points at me from the edge of the hole in the roof, I send two metal bed frames rocketing towards him. The second one is a direct hit. He falls forward and into the sleeping quarters; and when he hits the stone floor, to my amazement, he turns into a pile of dirt or ash.

“Run!” Adelina screams.