“So it’s a necklace,” Ezekiel said, frowning. “What’s it going to do for us again?”
“It’s not just a necklace,” Jake said, pushing Ezekiel out of the way. “It’s the last relic of the Romanov family. Story goes,” he added in a hushed tone, reaching out to touch the small ruby pendant with a reverent gloved finger, “that this was that saved Anastasia Romanova’s life.”
“It’s a ruby the size of a penny,” Eve observed, leaning against the desk with an eye on the door of the Annex. “I don’t see that thing blocking any bullets any time soon.”
“Right, because logic matters so much here,” Ezekiel muttered, and Jake laughed. Jenkins, at his desk poring over a text that appeared to be in a dialect of English that had passed out of use some time before the Renaissance, made an annoyed sound.
Jake ignored him. “I can’t believe this thing is real.”
“The facets are like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Cassandra murmured as she leaned in, so close that her hair swung forward and threatened to brush the gold chain. “It’s like there are facets inside the gem. The angles are perfect.”
“That’s the point—oooh, Cassandra, back away from that,” Flynn called, bounding down the stairs with a heavy book in his hands. “Don’t touch it. And of course the grand duchesses all died with the Tsar and the Tsarina and the Tsarevich, that’s nonsense, they found Anastasia’s body years ago. Conclusively disproven. No, this isn’t a bulletproof vest, this is a soul trap.” He dropped the book on the desk behind Eve, earning a disdainful look tossed over her shoulder, and rapped a finger against the open page, where a diagram of the ruby was elaborately labeled with angles to the third decimal place. “See, the ruby was enchanted to hold the souls of its previous owners—a tremendous amount of magic bound up in that little rock—and lost in time until it resurfaced in Russia as that necklace.”
“Okay,” Eve sighed, turning around and leaning forward over the table, hands braced against it as she gave Flynn her thinnest smile. Her eyes glittered at him and he grinned, rocking toward her on his toes. “Now tell me why we care.”
“Because!” Flynn thumped both hands down onto the book, beaming. “That was created in Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten, but that doesn’t matter so much. What matters is that, when the Library was in Rome–”
“Wait, the Library was in Rome?” Cassandra asked. “Rome like the city, or Rome like the empire?”
“Well, actually the Library was in Egypt, but at the time Egypt and Rome had some complicated relations, see, there was this whole thing with–”
“Flynn,” Eve said, and his head snapped around sheepishly.
“Right! So, when the Library was in Egypt, it was anchored in Alexandria, at–”
“The Library of Alexandria,” Jake breathed.
“Exactly.”
“Now, I’m not a history buff,” Eve said, pointing at Flynn, “but that burned down.”
“Yes!” he said, delighted. “Yes, it did! And of course the Library, our Library, didn’t burn, it moved, but the move was desperate and there’s a brief period where the Library catalog is in total chaos. Now, the circumstances are a little different, but that necklace was lost after the fire and the death of the Librarian at the time, so I’m hoping that we can have a word with him, or at least what’s left of him about dealing with Prospero and the mess he’s left behind.”
“Just one…teeny little problem,” Ezekiel said.
“He’s right,” Jake said, serious again. “This necklace’s supposed to be cursed. If anyone not pure of heart touches it, they die.”
“Of course they do,” Eve said, raising her eyebrows. “How?”
“Oh, the usual,” Flynn said, looking down at the book again and running a finger under a line as he read. “Coughing up blood, massive organ failure, and in one memorable occasion, melting.”
“Right. Great,” she said flatly as Jenkins gave a grimly amused laugh from his desk. For once, she was in perfect agreement. “And what qualifies as ‘pure of heart’ according to this thing?”
“Children,” Jake offered. “The idea was that Anastasia was young—innocent, you know?”
“Let’s call that Plan B, none of us are kids. Anything else?”
“The usual, I’m guessing,” Flynn said with a shrug, stepping out from behind the desk and ambling forward. “A nebulous something about courage and chivalry and kindness. These ‘pure of heart’ things are very sketchy, not well-defined at all–”
“Flynn,” Eve said again, sweet as arsenic as she prowled forward, and he stopped dead, halfway to the table where the necklace rested in the golden light of the Annex chandelier. “If you take one more step toward that table, I’ll shoot you in the kneecap.” She swept a stern look around the room. “No one, and I mean no one, touches that necklace unless we know they’ll be okay afterward. There’s got to be a nonlethal way to test it.” She looked around at the others—Jenkins behind her to the left, still reading his book, Ezekiel near the door, hands tucked behind his back like a little boy resisting a cookie jar, Cassandra, forehead furrowed in concern, and Jake, staring rather fixedly over Eve’s shoulder at something. “Are you kidding me? More brainpower in this room than on the whole Oxford campus and none of you can think of a single way to test someone’s pureness of heart?”
“Not usually,” Flynn said, shaking his head. “Stories about purity of heart generally involve…terrible trials…with lasting consequences…” He trailed off, frowning at Jake. “What?”
Jake tipped his head forward, at whatever he was looking at. “I think I know a way to make sure no one dies.”
“Care to share?” Eve asked.
“Well,” Jake said. “We have someone who we already know the answer about. Jenkins is pure of heart.”
“Oh dear,” Jenkins muttered, and in the corner of her eye, Eve saw him absently touch the arm of his chair.
“And we know this how?” Eve asked.
Jake looked around at them in shock. “Am I seriously the only one who went out and brushed up on my Arthuriana after we got here? Because that was, like, the first thing I did.” Whatever he saw in their faces, it seemed to frustrate him, and he shook his head. “Galahad was the pure of heart, it was his whole job. The Siege Perilous was real, right? I mean, we probably have it in the Library somewhere. Only the pure of heart could survive that, so.” He looked at Jenkins attentively.
“Yes, the Siege Perilous was real, to the best of my knowledge,” Flynn said, whirling on Jenkins. “Jenkins!”
Jenkins scowled, but stood up, hands in his pockets. “Yes, the Siege Perilous was real, as was the enchantment on it,” he said, voice clipped.
“And you’re Galahad, or you were, so you survived it,” Jake said, matter of fact. “So you’re pure of heart.” Jenkins’ scowl deepened, until it looked like he could spend the next thousand years without his expression shifting once.
“Or he was,” Flynn observed. “But it’s been sixteen hundred years since Camelot, that’s a long time. Also, I have some questions about the Holy Grail–”
“Flynn. Ruby. Library. Priorities,” Eve said, and he nodded.
“Right! So, Jenkins, do you know if you still qualify?”
“Well,” Jenkins said in his most stolid voice, “I haven’t burst into flames yet, so I would imagine so.”
“Wait, what?” Cassandra blurted, alarmed. “Why would you burst into flames? Is that something we need to worry about?”
“No,” Jenkins said crisply. “And certain heavily enchanted objects tend to…follow people.” He pulled a hand from his pocket with a sigh and rested it on the back of his desk chair. A quick twist of his wrist turned it around and he neatly pulled away a piece of well-concealed false leather to reveal two words. “I haven’t been able to get away from the damn thing in over a millennium and a half. Fortunately it adjusts to the time period, but.” He shrugged eloquently. “At least I know where it is. I wouldn’t want it floating around and causing trouble.”
Flynn stared for a long moment at the plain letters embossed on the back of the chair, and it seemed to take a great effort for him to put his jaw back in place. “You’ve been using the Siege Perilous as a desk chair?”
“My last one suffered an unavoidable mishap involving, ironically enough, fire,” Jenkins said. “At the time I was the only person here. I did warn you that sitting in my chair could be detrimental to your health.”
“I thought you were joking,” Ezekiel said, a little pale. “What the hell.”
“That…we’ll deal with that later,” Eve decided. “Whatever. Jenkins, can you deal with the necklace for us?”
“Oh, certainly,” Jenkins said, turning the Siege Perilous around to face the desk again and stepping forward. Passing Flynn, he paused and added, “And no, I will not tell you about the Holy Grail.”
Flynn’s mouth snapped shut with a click.