Page 78 of The Twilight Theft

I straightened—there was no hiding with him there—and craned my neck around to keep my voice low. “Stay behind me.”

“I’ve sent one of the guards upstairs to find him. Can someone from Reynolds go up, too?”

I held up a finger.

Drew was close enough to my earpiece that my team would have caught his request. If anyone was available, they’d do it.

Not me. Not Drew. We had other priorities in front of us.

Liana’s voice echoed throughout the room. “A thousand years ago, Western Europe crawled its way out of the Dark Ages. A time of lost information, brought about by the fall of one civilization.”

Drew tapped twice on my hip with one of his fingers.Go forward, it said.

“Other cultures around the world flourished, while millions suffered. The Renaissance emerged, creating a spark of knowledge and artistry.”

I heard a click, a hiss, and then a flame appeared at the center of the room. The music volume raised, strings and horns joining the unseen orchestra. Oblivious to the threats against the sculpture, the crowd oohed and aahed, as the fire reflected off their faces.

Liana stood in the middle of the VIP display, holding a blowtorch. Her voice rose over the sound system. “If we want to ensure humanity never falls into such darkness again, we must preserve our information, our truth, our stories. The EPRC—the Eternal Preservation and Retrieval Chip—is an ultra-durable, ultra-secure storage chip designed with built-in mechanisms to independently store and retrieve data.”

There was the sales pitch.

But why the blowtorch?

Drew and I inched closer to the sculpture.

“With this chip, resistant to water, dust, fire, and the ravages of time, we shall never completely fall from light and into darkness again. We will never fall past the twilight!” Liana dialed up the flame, turning in a slow circle, the orange glow lighting up the faces of the crowd.

We were outside the tightest ring of spectators, but the torch was so hot, it warmed my face.

“She’s going to melt it, isn’t she?” I said.

Was Liana actually the one we had to worry about? Instead of someone stealing it, was she going to destroy it?

“Where’s Gideon?” I asked.

Drew pointed over my shoulder to where Gideon stood by the obsidian mirror. Between the light from the torch and its reflection that bounced strangely off the mirror—up and down instead of out—his proud smile was clear. Not a hint of worry. Had he known her plan all along?

Thiswasa performance. But more importantly, it was a demonstration.

Over my earpiece, Rav said, “Noah’s not here. Emmett and Zaria, help Craig get everything working again. Jayce, you said Wyatt needs help upstairs?”

I tapped twice on my earpiece, and he acknowledged with a grunt. He was all the backup anyone needed in a fight.

A few nervous laughs spread through the crowd as Liana held the torch higher.

“This is history.” She finally moved toward her Digital Twilight. “This is the future.”

The amber resin along the side of the enormous sculpture reflected the fire, glowing from deep within. But as the flame got closer, it lit up the dragonfly, too.

“Oh shit,” breathed Drew behind me.

The dragonfly’s head was gone.

Chapter 31

Drew

Wasthemissingdragonflyhead part of Liana’s performance?

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