Page 48 of Devil's Riches

“Uh-huh.”

“I always thought it was meant to encourage me to come home to Avalon to investigate everything. But what if it was actually another coded clue that I was meant to figure out?”

Nate’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

I sorted through the pages of notes on the desk and grabbed the piece of paper where I’d recreated one of my dad’s drawings—the one with the circle and dots.

“I always thought this picture was meant to be a clock,” I said. “Just something to represent the twelve families in the Golden Circle. But a clock isn’t the only circular thing with twelve marks around the edges.”

“What else is there?”

I slid the laptop closer to him. “Star signs,” I said, showing him a picture of a wheel with the twelve zodiac symbols around the edges.

Nate looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You’re fucking kidding, right?”

“No. I know it sounds stupid at first, but look closer,” I said, pointing to one of the symbols. “This one is an arrow with a line through it. It looks a lot like the pattern inside your family crest.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why the hell would the Golden Circle use star signsfor their symbols?”

“I wondered the same thing for a minute. I thought it might be as simple as them wanting twelve related symbols for the twelve different families. But then I found this.”

I brought up another webpage, which featured a famous anthropologist’s work on the history of astrology in different cultures.

I read one paragraph aloud to Nate.

“The creation of zodiacal signs originated in Babylonian astronomy in the 1st millennium BC. By the end of the 5th century BC, the Babylonians had divided the ecliptic into twelve signs, creating the first celestial coordinate system,” I said. I paused to clear my throat. “So basically, the ancient Babylonians invented the concept of star signs,” I added.

Nate was still staring at me with wide eyes and a wrinkled forehead, like I’d suddenly sprouted horns and started speaking in tongues. “So?”

“Hold on,” I said as I clicked to a different page. “Okay, here. More on the Babylonians. Babylon served as the center of Mesopotamian civilization for almost two thousand years, and human sacrifice was a staple during its entire existence. Ritual killings associated with royal deaths were one of the most common forms of this practice, with handmaidens, warriors, and court attendants ritually killed and buried when a king or queen met their demise. Archaeologists have also uncovered evidence of a similar practice that existed for a period in the later stages of Babylonian history—human sacrifice with bloodletting and organ removal. It was thought that the act of killing a young, healthy person in this manner next to an ailing royal would allow the healthy person’s life force to transfer over to the sick royal.”

Nate raised a brow. “So they were into organ removal.”

“In that particular period, yes. It seems like it was seen as a great honor to the young person. They would sacrifice their healthy body for what was seen as the ‘greater good’—the survival of a royal,” I said. “Even though we know enough today to know that those practices don’t actually work, it’s the exact kind of concept that would appeal to the Golden Circle, isn’t it?”

“You mean the concept of rich elites requiring ‘lesser’ humans to give up their bodies for them?”

“Yes,” I said. “So if the original members of the Golden Circle wanted to pick twelve symbols to represent them after they came up with their organ scheme, I think there’s a really good chance that something Babylonian would’ve appealed to them.”

Nate stared at the zodiac wheel again. “Shit. You might be right,” he said slowly. “My grandpa must’ve lied about our family crest.”

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves yet. We should confirm the theory first.”

“How?”

“Well, we think the Holland family might be involved, right? Do they have a family crest or coat of arms? Or something similar?”

Nate shrugged. “I don’t really know any of them well enough to know that sort of stuff about them.”

“But you know Devin, don’t you?”

“I’ve met him a handful of times because he’s friends with my mom, but I don’t remember much about him, other than the fact that he’s bald.”

“Hm. Let’s see if we can find some stuff online,” I murmured, turning my attention back to the laptop. I typed ‘Devin Holland’ into Google and went to the Images tab. “Here we go. There’s a clear photo of him at a society event in 2008, and he’s wearing a silver pin on his lapel. What does it look like to you?”

“It looks like the letter H. For Holland, I assume.”

“Look at the shape of it, though,” I said. “Then compare it to this Pisces symbol on the star sign chart. They’re the same.”

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