Page 5

CHAPTER 2

SO MANY PROBLEMS

When Jace and I approached the gates of the museum, the security guards peeled away from the path to let us through. They didn’t say a word, though perhaps that’s because they were too busy bowing.

Peoplereallyneeded to stop doing that.

“You find this amusing, don’t you?” I asked Jace as we crossed the lobby.

Motion-sensor-triggered lights flashed on, one by one, as we passed them.

“No,” he replied. “I find it appropriate.”

“Appropriate?” I gasped.

“Yes.” He kept walking, every step so precise and proper. “Mortals are supposed to bow to gods and angels.”

His words were serious, but the slight twitch of his lip gave him away. He was enjoying my embarrassment. Every time someone bowed to me and I cringed, he was probably cracking up inside.

But like he’d said, I had better get used to it. I’d brought this on myself when I’d accepted Faris and Grace’s offer to join the councils.

I sighed, looking up as we passed under the domed skylight that covered most of the ceiling. A full moon lit up the night sky. I was inherently suspicious of full moons. Weird things always happened when the moon was full.

“This way.” I started walking down one of the hallways that burst out from the lobby like the points of a star. “I think Vertigo is this way.”

We entered a large room. The floor was covered in enormous black and white tiles, laid out in a checkerboard pattern. Each black tile contained a wooden pedestal incased in glass. And each pedestal featured an ancient book, artistically lit from different directions to light up the leather cover, giving it that rich, Old Earth luster.

“That’s a lot of books,” I commented.

“Very old books,” Jace added.

Even through the solid glass cases, I could still smell the thick, rustic scent of well-worn leather. But mostly I just smelled dirt. Those books had been buried for so long—the material had absorbed so many of the earthy scents—that the smell just wouldn’t come out. No matter how many magical chemical baths they went through, that smell was here to stay. Those centuries spent underground were a very big part of the books’ history.

“The Skyline City Museum is supposed to have the largest collection of Old Earth artifacts on the continent,” I said.

That was no small achievement, particularly for a museum that had only been open for a year. Its success was all thanks to its location. Magic Grove happened to be very close to some pretty significant magical events in Earth’s history over the past several hundred years. That’s how magic math worked: big magical battles equaled lots of magical treasures left behind.

Most of those treasures lay buried for centuries, far out of reach of human civilization. But when the Plains of Monsters suddenly ceased to exist three years ago, a few wily treasurehunters seized the opportunity. They dug up the lost artifacts and sold them to the newly-built museum in town.

“Do you sense Vertigo in this room?” Jace asked me quietly.

“No,” I said, frowning. “Let’s move on to the next hall.”

There, we were greeted by a collage of highway signs from Old Earth, hanging down from the ceiling. Below them, parked on the rippled asphalt floor, were ancient vehicles in all shapes and sizes.

A sleek red sports car.

A train engine, covered in graffiti.

An old buggy, horses not included.

A sailboat, sails included.

The largest collection of motorized scooters that I’d ever seen.

Motorcycles in every imaginable condition—from spiffy-shiny without a single scratch on it anywhere, to rusted and holey with half of the seat missing.

And then there was the old yellow school bus, cracked open on the side like a diorama, presenting a view of the inside. And that view was surprising. The first thing I noticed was that the bus didn’t have any seatbelts.