Wood Sprites

Louise chased data to answer the question instead of theorizing. “They’ve since verified that it did belong to Thomas Jefferson. It was anonymously donated to the Smithsonian in 1898 by someone claiming that his grandfather had stolen it during the Civil War when the Confederates seized Monticello. At the time, they had no way to establish authenticity, so they left it in storage.”

Jillian growled and focused back on her tablet. “But what about the box?”

“All the photos are part of a crowd-sourcing project Dr. Banks started with curators from around the world. They searched their museum storage facilities for buried Elfhome artifacts. Oh! The porcelain vase was thought to be Chinese because of its age. The method of creating porcelain wasn’t introduced to Europe until 1712—”

“What about the box?” Jillian cried. “I don’t care about the freaking vase!”

“I’m looking!” Louise scanned ahead faster. “All the pieces were gathered into one exhibit, and it’s touring! Currently it’s in, oh God, Australia!”

“You’ve got to be kidding! Paris is at least just on the other side of the Atlantic.”

Louise found the exhibition site and then a list of dates and cities that it expected to hit. “It’s coming to New York!”

“Oh, boy, is it ever.” Jillian tilted her tablet so show an article titled Secret Treasures Opening at American Museum of Natural History on June Fourteenth! Sign Petition Now! “This site is run by Earth for Humans, the same group that’s holding the protests against the expansion of the quarantine zone around Pittsburgh. The exhibit has their panties in a knot.”

“June fourteenth! That barely gives us any time. We need to save the babies before the end of June.”

The box had been given the name “Louvre morceau de bois” and careful noninvasive investigations had concluded that the box was solid Elfhome ironwood. The runes were being considered magical in nature, but so far the type of spell hadn’t been determined.

Jillian started to bounce in her seat. “Oh, Lou, this is so cool! They have no idea what it is! They don’t know it opens! The nactka are still inside.”

Louise shook her head, fighting the excitement. “We don’t know that.”

“Even if they identified the runes as a spell lock, the only way to open it is with the keywords. We have the password but they don’t, so they’re not going to get it open.”

“They could cut it open.”

“They think it’s a block of wood! Besides, they’re museum people. They preserve stuff, not smash it open to see what’s inside. What’s even better: they don’t know what’s in the box. We open it up, take everything out, and seal it again and they’ll never know we took anything.”

“Are you serious? Steal from a museum?”

“It belongs to us! The French might be all ‘finders, keepers,’ but they murdered Dufae. He wasn’t a French noble. He wasn’t even human! They killed him just the same. They have no right to this box.”

It all seemed morally clear until she imagined sneaking into the museum like a cat burglar, dressed all in black, to weave through laser-guided security systems and knock out guards. It got all weirdly murky ethicswise, but the idea was scary exciting. How would they knock out guards? Some kind of gas? Where would they get something like that? At their father’s clinic?

Louise found herself laughing with the giddy joy flooding her. They were going to be able to save their siblings! She struggled to contain her giggles; they had so much to do in so little time! “We need to find out everything we can on the American Museum of Natural History.”

16: Shattered

When had she become shy?

The next morning, Louise followed Jillian through Lexington Avenue Station trying to pinpoint some unnoticed moment in her life. With all the excitement over finding the chest, she hadn’t thought about her conversation with Iggy until they were weaving their way through the rush-hour commuters. It started as a hyperawareness of all the people around them and the knowledge that in a few short weeks they were going to be robbing one of the world’s largest museums. If people knew what they were planning, they would be staring in disbelief and dismay.

Luckily no one could probably guess, not even given all the time in the world and several broad hints.