Page 55 of Asher

Our gazes meet. I’m pretty sure we’re both having the same thought, but it’s so fantastical and outrageous that neither of us wants to say it aloud.

I cave first (no pun intended). “Lock to a hidden chamber?”

“Why would anyone have a hidden room in a cave at the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere… and then store their boxes outside it?” He throws my words back in my face, then sighs. “But it’s gotta be the entrance to a hidden room.”

We lie there thinking about that for a minute. The anthropologist in me isthrilled. Even if the cave and cache belonged to humans, this could be a fascinating behavioral insight. Especially the wall. A lot of effort went into that.

“When we go back, we should look to see if there was a bigger entrance at one point,” I muse. “Something that got closed up by a rockfall, maybe. That would explain why things got left behind—they couldn’t get them out.” There has to have been a way they gotin, too. Demons might have been able to teleport the crates in, but they also could have taken them out the same way, which makes me think there probably weren’t any demons involved. Every other species would have had a hell of a time getting them up there, though.

Asher sits up suddenly.

“What?” I ask, following suit.

“What if the rockfall didn’t close the entrance, it opened it?”

I cock my head. “Say what?”

“Think about it. The only way into that cave that we saw was the tiny crack we went through.”

“Yeeeeahhh…?”

“So what if that’s new, and the room we were in is the hidden one? The wall with all the cogs is the back of the vault door. We wereinsidethe vault, and the main entrance is somewhere else.”

Oooh. “Clever,” I say admiringly. “The front side of the wall/door would be a lot more discreet-looking… like a vault door.”

He jumps out of bed. “Okay, let’s go clang some pans while we make breakfast. I can’t wait too much longer.”

I laugh at him as I clamber out from under the covers. “Aren’t you finance types supposed to be all stodgy?”

He stops with one leg in his pants. “Garrett, there might be treasure in those crates. Actual treasure. The ‘finance type’ in me is dying to see for myself.”

A frisson of excitement runs through me. I guess we’re all treasure hunters at heart. “Do you think so? Treasure? Like… gold coins and jewels?” I grab a sweater. The house is well-insulated and heated, but it’s still chilly.

“Maybe. Or maybe artwork. Historic artifacts. Who knows?”

I grin. “We will, as soon as we get up there.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Asher

Disappointingly,I don’t have to wake my cousins with a lot of banging around. Zac’s already up and has gathered a pile of equipment, including some huge battery-powered lanterns that look like they could light up a stadium. Micah’s also up and chugging coffee.

“Whoa,” Garrett says with a laugh. “Go easy on that.”

“Can’t. Need it to open my eyes.”

“Go back to bed if you’re that tired,” I suggest, opening the fridge and staring at the contents.

“Can’t,” he repeats. “Zac’s determined to leave in the next hour, and Isaac called at three thirty.”

Garrett stops pouring coffee. “This morning? Why?”

“He wants to go back to the cave with us. Mom talked him out of it, but she said I’d tell him what was there. And then he turned that into me giving him a Zoom tour of the cave.”

I snort and grab the eggs. “So he’s no worse for wear, then.”

Micah’s only answer is to put his head down on the table.

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