Hidden Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon Book 7) by Genevieve Jack (best ereader for manga txt) 📗

the crystal to the cog-shaped piece of key within. The crystal rolled back toward Colin.

“Holy God in heaven,” Raven murmured. Her gaze darted between Avery and Clarissa as if they could explain what just happened. They just stared, disbelieving.

Colin gaped like a beached fish. He held the empty orb in his hands, shaking his head.

Raven blinked as Charlie put the metal cog in her mouth and chewed. “Can mommy have that?” The words came out as a whisper. She honestly didn’t believe she could speak any louder.

The entire tent had gone conspicuously silent, although Gabriel and the others had stood and approached, forming a circle around the table.

Raven turned the piece in her hand as everyone around her leaned in. Metal, maybe iron, it was shaped like an octopus with six irregular shaped extensions protruding from the inner portion. The metal was entirely covered with magical symbols.

“Give her another.” Gabriel motioned to Colin to roll another orb to Charlie.

Colin pushed the green and then the yellow, the blue, and finally the purple. The same thing happened over and over again.

“Ba! Ba! Ba!” Charlie screamed in delight. She handed her prizes to her mother one by one.

Once she was done, Gabriel approached with Charlie’s coconut ball and lifted her from Raven’s lap. “Let’s play with this one, sweetheart. Those others are broken.”

With her hands freed, Raven began to fit the pieces together like a puzzle.

“I see it,” Clarissa said, helping to arrange the pieces.

“No, like this.” Avery changed the position of one gear, and suddenly everything fit.

“This is supposed to be a key?” Raven tilted her head and inspected the contraption in front of her. It looked like the inside of a clock, five cogwheels that clicked together in an oddly shaped S formation.

Avery picked it up and turned it over. It didn’t come apart. The pieces had locked together once they had them in the correct order.

Colin rubbed his chin and took it in. “It has to be a metaphorical key. Do you think it could be a magical object? Perhaps a piece needed for a spell?”

Leena looked up from her scroll and frowned at the object. “It’s a crypt key.”

Raven and everyone else stared at the elf. She adjusted her robe. Her gaze jumped between them. “Don’t you have crypt keys where you come from?”

Everyone shook their heads in unison.

She cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable at being in the spotlight. “In Rogos, when an elf dies, the family buries him or her with riches to help them in the afterlife. It could be jewelry or artwork, weapons, or even expensive pottery. They lock it in a tomb using a crypt key.” She pointed to the metalwork in front of Raven. “After one year has passed, it is generally believed that the dead elf has made use of the items and has successfully passed to the other side. The family returns, places the key in the lock, and turns it to spell the code word.”

Raven rotated the bottom cogwheel and watched the interlinked gears above turn, moving the symbols. “These are letters that spell a word?”

Leena nodded. “It’s Elvish, and that is definitely elf-made metalwork.” She squinted at the symbols on the gears. “You’ll need to know the keyword and where the tomb is, but once you position the gears to spell the crypt key, the tomb will open.”

Colin stood and leaned over the table to get a better look at the gears and the individual symbols on the cogwheels. He ran a hand over his face. “I think it’s safe to say this fits a grave in Rogos.”

“Without question.” Leena gave a heavy sigh. “It would be unheard of for an elf to allow their craft to be used in another kingdom. This key fits a tomb in Rogos.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Colin winced and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Why do I gather by your tone that’s problematic?” Clarissa asked dryly. She suddenly looked exhausted. Raven could relate.

“Elves are very protective of their culture. Aside from Colin, no outsiders have successfully lived among us for long,” Leena said. “And even Colin was not allowed near our dead.” She laughed. “Our graves are sacred. It’s not as if you could go grave to grave, trying the key. You’d have an arrow through your heart before you could fit it to the lock.”

Heat rose in Raven’s blood. She could no longer hold back the anger building inside her. “This is beginning to feel like the quest that will never end,” she ground out through her teeth. “Every time we find one clue, another five pop up. And we don’t even know what this book can do. Why is it even necessary? Oh, aside from a dream I had that Circe won’t own up to that suggests that Hera wants it. What if Hera planted the dream? What if this is all some wild plan to get us to retrieve this grimoire so that she can steal it from us? What if it doesn’t even help the rebellion?”

Gabriel placed a hand on her back. “Raven…”

She buried her face in her hands.

“That’s not what I’ve seen,” Dianthe said, her voice loud and clear in the nearly silent room.

Raven lowered her hands and stared at the fairy whose toasted-cinnamon skin seemed to sparkle with gold, or maybe that was butter from her wings. They fluttered behind her, the same color as her eyes, and Raven wondered how she hadn’t noticed before how ethereal she looked. The fairy could never be mistaken for human.

“What have you seen?” Raven asked.

“I’ve seen Charlie, older, maybe six, playing with you in the gardens of the Obsidian Palace. Both of you are smiling. Red petals blow from the trees, filling the air with a heady perfume. They sprinkle you as you spin her around. You are dressed in the traditional Paragonian garb of a queen.”

Raven waited for her to say more. What about Gabriel? What about everyone else here? But Dianthe had stopped speaking.

“That’s it? That’s