Not his birthday, since it would be a reminder of his age and mortality. Not his name in numbers, because even he would know that was too obvious. Perhaps a word, then? Blight? Shadow? Gloaming?
She stopped.
The key is abandon all hope.
Abandon all hope. It used all of the numerically converted letters and used the six and two four times each. And Salt would like the idea of giving a clue in the form of the book that opened the secret door, referencing the most famous quote from Dante’s Inferno, the one that even Charlie, who’d never read it, knew: “abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” She bet he felt rather smug about his cleverness.
Charlie ignored her racing heart, her sweaty hands and panicked thoughts. She went over the word again, writing it out in numbers in the dust of the onyx floor: 22263662554673.
Carefully, she punched the code into the still-blinking pad. There was a sharp beep, as though an alarm was about to sound. Then she heard the second locking mechanism opening.
She turned the lever again.
A soft glow came from inside, showing off felt-lined drawers and several shelves of items. Charlie opened one. A small bag of diamonds rested inside. In another, she found an antique pistol chased in gold. And at the bottom, wrapped in cloth, the thing she’d come looking for.
Quickly, she made the exchange, shoving the item deep into the bottom of her backpack, hoping like hell that she knew what she was doing.
Then, in the privacy of Salt’s hidden room, she got out her party outfit. Suzie Lambton, the only person whose closet she had access to at the moment, wasn’t even remotely her size. She still had her key to Rapture, though, and there was no better time to borrow that red satin suit abandoned in the back. With a little stretch to the fabric, it fit her like a second skin. Add to that some notice-me red lipstick, and Charlie would seem like she’d just arrived at the party, instead of robbing it for the better part of an hour.
Before she was ready to go out there, she pushed on a three-finger knuckle ring set with onyx and shoved the onyx dagger she’d gotten from Murray’s into her bra. Holstered with a makeshift sheath of duct tape, it would be there if she needed it. She waited for the familiar rush, that pleasurable hit of adrenaline, but it wouldn’t come.
Charlie turned back to the safe, intending to close it, when she noticed a black button in the upper corner, close to the back. Could there be something behind the safe? A compartment she hadn’t opened yet?
Come on, Charlie Hall. You don’t have to stick your finger in every socket.
But that cautious instinct seemed to belong to someone who hadn’t already chosen the path of recklessness. She pressed the button.
A click came from the shelf to her left. Another bookshelf swung open, revealing a hall. A passageway that must run behind the walls of the house.
Taking out her phone, Charlie checked the time. She’d gotten to the house at half past six. José had told her that the party was supposed to go officially until ten, and that there was going to be a champagne toast at eight thirty. It was seven forty-five. Time was tight.
Still, Charlie stepped through, into the dark.
She switched back on the lights on her glasses. They illuminated something that mixed the architecture of a wine cellar with that of a mausoleum. More tiles of onyx ran across the floor. Two cells were ahead of her, with a door opposite them. A groove had been carved into the ground, running in front of the bars, the blue line of a gas flame outlining the edge. The air had a faint smell of rot, and of incense.
Sweat dampened her palms and brow. This was the bad kind of adrenaline. The kind that made her twitchy instead of careful, that made her stomach sour and her hands shaky.
This felt like a haunted place.
Still, she kept walking. The soft soles of her flats scratched against the floor. The cells were deep enough that Charlie’s little lights couldn’t pierce the darkness.
Along the wall were an assortment of restraints. A rope that had been threaded with onyx beads. A pair of shackles with blue silk padding on the inside, the cloth sewn tightly with rectangular onyx tiles. Above them, a shelf with onyx containment boxes.
The door on the opposite side was slightly ajar, flickering colors within. She pushed slowly with her foot and found herself staring at a bank of screens. Surveillance footage of the house.
Caterers in the kitchen. Partygoers moving through the rooms. The Hierophant, speaking with Vicereine, seeming completely composed. She peered at him more closely, hoping for some tell. The only thing notable was that he was thinner and more unhealthily pale than ever.
In another room, two men were making out, one a blurred outline. Was he kissing his own shadow? Someone else’s? Charlie couldn’t tell.