Page 63 of Hellbound

“Hmm. The creepy archbishop?”

“No!” A laugh bubbled out.

“One of the guards?”

“Senka!” Petra pulled her hands away, pouting.

Ksenia turned around to find her wedged between the pew and the wall. “Who taught you to eavesdrop?”

She didn’t answer, just climbed over the pew and dropped into Pavel’s emptied seat, legs swinging.

“Don’t go down there.”

Ksenia draped her arm over the back of the pew, resting her head in her hand. “Down where?”

“The vault.” Her legs stopped swinging. “My dad cleaned down there. And they said he stole something…but he didn’t.”

Ksenia chewed on the tip of her tongue before replying. “I believe you.”

Petra looked at her, then her legs started swinging again.

She wrenched the choker off her neck and tossed it on the table.

Varka chuckled. “Still getting used to your new position?”

Ksenia shot her a glare as she flipped through church blueprint after blueprint. “It’s a small annoyance compared to this trial.”

“There’s no muscling past the Envorsen.” She hugged her knee to her chest as she seated herself on the edge of the desk in the manor’s library, watching Ksenia pore over the architectural books.

“This is an impossible task. None of the blueprints and accounts of the vault match.” Ksenia cradled her face in her hands, the points of her elbows digging into the table.

“Well, of course. The vault was an elaborate build, constructed over many decades. It endured multiple architects and security specialists.” Varka swirled a goblet of wine in her free hand, lifting it to inhale the aroma.

“Has anyone ever successfully breached it?”

Varka tapped her lip, eyes focused in the distance. “No.”

Ksenia groaned. “I’ve looked at so many of these I can taste the ink through my fingers.” She needed a break from technical drawings.

She leaned back in her chair, her gaze falling on a stack of historical volumes on Drenvar royals that had been sitting untouched.

She thumbed the spine of one before absentmindedly flipping it open to Ravenka’s biography.

She sat upright a few minutes later. “I need to go to the forge.”

“What?” Varka looked up, fingertips pausing on her goblet.

Ksenia was already pushing back from the table. “I’ll tell you later, but if I’m right…” She trailed off, mind racing.

“Wait—”

Ksenia was already out the door, leaving behind the scattered papers and half-open books. She had never attempted to forge something this delicate before—she needed to work with her hands to know if it was even possible.

The sharp nip of evening air was replaced with the blazing warmth of the furnace. She carefully inserted the melting pot with small metal bars into the roaring flame, where the metal bars turned into glowing white beads. Her mind quieted as she began to work with the metal.

With her hammer and tongs, she flattened and pulled it into the finest strands of gold she’d ever spun. Typically, her work was brute and crass, hammering the metal into submission, but only the finest touch would do tonight.

After many hours at the worktable, the watery gray light of dawn greeted her as she put the final touches on her piece.