but beautiful.
“It’ll take a minute.” His pick slid in, springs and catches felt
by instinct and memory. Thomas stopped hovering and darted
around the room, feeling under the pillow, behind the curtains,
under the desk.
After far too long, Arthur’s alarm growing every second, the
lock finally gave. He paused, the latch’s metal cool against his
fingers.
He really, really did not want to know what was in this box.
“Go on, then,” Thomas said, leaning over his shoulder.
Arthur lifted the lid.
Inside, nestled atop sheaves of paper, maps, and newspaper
articles, were three necklaces, each with a gleaming green scarab
beetle pendant.
Arthur closed his eyes. He’d known. Of course he’d known,
since he’d seen one at Mary’s house and discovered that Mary was
connected to Alden. But he’d still hoped that it was all a mistake.
Hoped that somehow this had nothing to do with his father’s
obsessions. Hoped that it really was about Thomas and Charles’s
money.
Hoped that there was still some way to stay.
“What does Ladon Vitae mean?” Thomas asked, pulling out a
stack of thick, hand-lettered papers. “That’s Latin, right? Vitae
means ‘life.’ But what’s Ladon?”
Arthur sat, shifting to the side, letting Thomas paw through
the chest. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. His voice
felt dead as it came out. “It was a dragon in Greek mythology.” He
had seen countless images of it, versions of the myth told to him as
bedtime stories.
But there are no stories here. Only nightmares.