Page 139 of Sweet Dominion

TT bit her lip, thinking. She always did this during a hard math problem, nibbling on her lip as if that could further pry out the truth that way. “Or. . .”

I watched as she leaned forward, her eyes scanning the daggers as if searching for some hidden meaning.

"Oh my God, Moni.” She didn’t get down from the trunk.

"What?”

“I think I got it, but. . .I don’t want to say it out loud.”

"Maybe. . .you should get down from the trunk.”

She didn’t budge her gaze still fixed on the daggers. “I’m fine up here, Moni. I can see them all that way”

Lei stepped in, placing a hand on my arm.

TT’s new protector.

I let out a long breath and against all logic. . .I smiled.

TT whispered, “At the end of her journal theBandit’s Gospel, she says. . .”

TT closed her eyes for a few seconds and then opened them. “She said, ‘in the end I hid it all and went to my children and gave them each a piece so that no one would be able to find it bythemselves. They would need each other to get it and that meantunity. Which was the biggest treasure of all.’”

Everyone looked at TT.

Dima wrote in the book and muttered, “Gave them each a piece.”

TT widened her eyes. “That’s it. I think it’s got to be.”

I shivered, nervous with all that was going on. “What has to be it?”

"She saidpiecein the Bandit’s Gospel.” TT jumped off the trunk and began grabbing daggers, two at a time and placing them next to each other. “And she told Lei akey. Or did she sayskeys?”

Lei appeared just as confused as me. “She always said it’s the key.”

TT grinned. “Like the daggers are the key?”

Lei nodded.

Dima glanced up from the notebook. “Oh. Now I understand.”

I held out my hands. “I don’t get it.”

Lei looked at TT, then at the daggers and finally back at me. “Me either.”

TT’s fingers traced the edge of one dagger and then looked around at the other daggers. “She said. . .I hid it all and went to my children and gave them each a piece so that no one would be able to find it by themselves so. . .each dagger is a piece. It has to be.”

But, what the fuck did that mean?

I could see it in her eyes—the spark of realization, the thrill of discovery. She was on the verge of something big, something none of us could anticipate.

TT looked at one dagger in her hand, dropped the others and traced that one dagger’s edge again and again and even again as if she were doing her best to memorize the curves and edge.

“Alright.” She darted her gaze toward the other scattered daggers. "The Bandit had one key and she broke it up.”

I blinked. “What?”

"That’s it.” Dima nodded. “Dear God. I think you’re right.”

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