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“Pulled you?”

“Like it had its own gravity.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if I had let it take me.” I turned my eyes up at him and locked his gaze. “I have never felt anything like that in my life.”

Lucien remained quiet for a little while, digesting the words I had said. “We keep the more dangerous demons locked up behind powerful protective seals… like the one in the other room.”

Fear washed through me like a cold breeze; the demon he had brought to search for the crown.

“They have it with them.” He continued. “I wasn’t sure how you would feel about being in the same room with a demonic lockbox… now I know.”

I glanced over at the door, as if I was expecting to see the demon standing there, watching us. “I don’t feel anything right now.”

“I suppose that’s a good thing, means the seals are working.”

I shook my head. “Maybe it’s because my essence was in the Ether, but… the box was so clear. Normally everything looks different, warped, like shadows until I get close enough to pick out details. This thing was clear right from the start, like a horror show in high definition.”

“That makes sense, the Ether is where these entities live.”

“I know. I just wasn’t ready for it, I guess. As long as I don’t have to go back in there anytime soon, I should be okay.”

Lucien nodded. “We’ll leave the box with my father’s men, anyway. Since you know where the crown is, though, we probably won’t need it.”

“Why is there a demon in the box with the crown?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe the demon is bound to the crown … it’s hard to tell. Either way, we don’t have to worry about that until tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“That’s when we’re going in.”

I swallowed the ball of anxiety that had wedged itself into my throat. “Tonight is… a little soon, isn’t it?”

Lucien met my eyes. “I think… we should get this over and done with as soon as we can, don’t you?”

The look in his eyes… he was saying one thing with his words, but I could tell, he meant something else. I wasn’t about to tell him I was in no rush to go back to his father’s house, not openly, not while the bugs in the room were still active. We needed to shut those up before we could speak freely, and that wasn’t going to happen abruptly. We needed proper timing for that.

“I think your father would be impressed if we could do this tonight,” I said.

Lucien mouthed the word ‘good’.

I nodded. “So, why tonight?” I ventured.

Lucien turned slightly and gestured toward the laptop. “Four minutes,” he said, “Every four hours.”

“Four minutes?”

“That’s how long the rooftop remains unguarded. I’ve been going over footage from last night and our surveillance from today. We have four-minute window every four hours, I suppose that’s when the guards swap shifts.”

“They’re very precise, aren’t they?”

“We’re not here to question it, we’re here to infiltrate that temple, get the crown, and get out without being detected. If possible…”

“If possible…” I shook my head. “I don’t like that. What happens if we’re caught?”

“We run like hell.”

“I like that even less.” I stood up from the bed and walked over to the window. The afternoon was almost gone, and a golden glow had fallen over the city. It was beautiful, the gradients created by those reds, and oranges, and yellows. “Four minutes isn’t a long time for us to zipline over, especially considering I’ve never done it before.”

“It’s easy,” Lucien said, “And totally safe. You may even like it.”