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I peered inside and gasped.

20

LONNIE

THE CUTTHROAT DISTRICT, INBETWIXT

Asharp gasp escaped my lips as the massive door swung open.

I’d been prepared for another hallway, or perhaps another room of traps, but we were not so unlucky.

A vast vault stretched out, overflowing with glittering treasure of all shapes and sizes. The gleaming gold and sparkling jewels seemed to radiate their own ethereal light, casting a spell over the room. I couldn't believe my eyes - it was like stumbling upon a secret pirate's hoard or a dragon's lair. My heart raced with excitement, pounding too hard against my ribs.

“Dammit, Cross,” Scion breathed, looking around in wonderment. “How much do you think is in here?”

Bael laughed. “Does it matter?”

Scion shrugged. “I simply never thought about how much the thieves bring in. What is he planning to do with all this?”

“Build tunnels, apparently,” Bael said blandly. “I don’t suppose it was cheap to dig out a facility entirely under an existing city.”

“Do you think there’s more in here than in our vaults?” Scion asked, looking more curious than envious.

“No,” Bael scoffed. “Close, though. We should be careful to watch him if he ever comes to dinner at the palace. Or I’m sure we’ll find our vaults a lot lighter.”

Both chuckled, then stopped abruptly. As if they’d remembered at the same moment that we didn’t currently have a palace. Or any vaults, for that matter.

“Right,” I said briskly. “How are we going to search this place?”

“I don’t suppose you have some sense of these things?” Bael asked me, looking hopeful.

“Do I have a sense of where treasure I’ve never seen before is kept? No. If I did, I’m sure I’d be a rich woman.”

Bael shrugged, looking slightly disappointed. “I suppose we’ll just have to look, then.”

We spread out and began to search. According to Celia's book the jewel of Inbetwixt was a large, oval ruby, about as wide as both my thumbs held together. Unfortunately—or fortunately, if you were Cross—there were dozens of loose jewels in the vault, all of which we had to carefully inspect before tossing aside.

For over an hour we searched in silence, only occasionally broken by a yell, and then a groan of disappointment every time one of us thought we’d found something.

I began making piles on piles of coins, trying to keep track of what I’d already seen and what I hadn’t. There was more moneyin the small piles on the floor than I’d ever seen in my life until recently. Any one of these jewels could feed all of Cheapside for a year. Maybe two years if no one lived lavishly.

A tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered that I should take some. That we needed the money, now that we’d been expelled from the castle and anyway, Cross had stolen all this to begin with. He couldn’t exactly complain about the taste of his own medicine.

I glanced over at Bael and Scion, both of whom were also making piles of jewels worth easily ten thousand silver pieces. Each.

They might be far more educated than I was in almost everything–they had tutors and had time to read thousands of books and learned to speak multiple languages. But this was not the first time I’d noticed that the Everlast family didn’t grasp the value of money.

Of course, they knew how much it was worth, but they didn’t really value it. None had ever had to earn anything, and as a rule they didn’t carry money on their person. What if we had to trade for something in the next city? What if we had to stay at an inn and had no coins to pay for it?

Before I could further talk myself out of it, I grabbed a large handful of gold and shoved it hastily down the front of my dress.

“Hey!” Bael yelled.

I jumped a foot in the air and spun around, thinking he was about to scold me. Except, he wasn’t even looking in my direction.

“What?” Scion asked, sounding grumpy.

“I think I found it.” Bael held up a huge oval ruby to the light of my conjured fire, and inspected it. “We should have brought the book with us to compare the jewel to the drawing, but I’m almost positive this is the right one.”