Anais leans against the display case. “Fair is fair. This is certainly more exciting than the dog and pony show going on downstairs.”

“She’s not going to rat us out,” Maxine says confidently.

“How can you say that? You’ve known her for five minutes.” She’s the great-granddaughter of the duke we all witnessed murder a man in cold blood. I know well enough we are not the actions of our relatives, but this feels extreme.

“I’m a good judge of character.”

“Maxine…,” Lena cautions.

“We can’t very well let her out now,” Finn reasons. “She could go and tell them where we are. It’s best to let her stay.”

Anais smirks at Maxine. “So am I your prisoner?”

Maxine arches a brow. “Seems that way.”

“What now?” I ask.

“We stick to the plan,” Finn replies. “There’s nothing else to do. We can’t go out there.”

“With the case gone, will the museum be locked down?” Oliver asks. We planned for this possibility.

“The entrances and exits will be monitored for the rest of the night, certainly. We’ll simply have to hope they don’t have enough staff to do a full sweep. The halls of this museum span miles. It’s unlikely they’ll check every closet and workroom,” Finn replies.

“And if they do?” Lena asks.

“We run,” Finn says.

And so begins what we all know will be one of the longest nights of our lives.

We all stand against the wall while Pascal levitates the display case to the front of the room, blocking the door. It’s better than the mop and bucket I attempted.

Lena and Maxine try a few more times half-heartedly to unlock it with magic, but the lock doesn’t budge. It doesn’t much matter. We have hours ahead of us now.

Finn sinks to the floor first, then Lena, then Maxine, until we’re all lying down on the cold marble. Oliver takes off his suit jacket and bunches it behind my head as a pillow.

Maxine forcibly tugs Finn’s off his shoulders and wraps herself in it. “What if I wanted that?” he asks her.

“That makes it better,” she replies.

“Should we sleep in shifts?” Oliver asks.

“Is there any point?” Maxine says. “We’ll hear them try to move the case and if they find us, additional time won’t help.”

She’s right and we know it.

“So we try to sleep?” I ask. “Deal with the case in the morning?”

“I think so,” Maxine says.

Oliver is sitting with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him. I pull the jewels from my carefully pinned hair and lay my head in his lap.