Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin

“You believe it a lock?” Célie approached the door hesitantly. “Pin and tumbler or warded?”

Eyes still closed, Lou pursed her lips. I tore my gaze away. “I’m not sure. It’s like—it’s like I’m inside it, if that makes sense—”

“Description, please!”

“I can’t describe the inside of a lock, Célie! I’ve never seen one!”

“Well, I have, and—”

“You have?” Jean Luc asked incredulously. “When?”

“Everyone needs a hobby.” Resolute now, she shouldered past him to face Lou, grasping her hands. “I picked the lock on my father’s vault, and I can help you pick this one too. Now, tell me, do the patterns have notches and slots, or do they more resemble a counting frame? Are there three or more parallel rows?”

Lou grimaced. So did Jean Luc. “No rows,” she said, her knuckles white around Célie’s. “They might be notches. I—I can’t tell.” She inhaled sharply as if in pain. “I don’t know if I have the control for this. The magic—it’s stronger than me. I . . .” Her voice trailed off, growing faint, and she swayed on her feet.

“Nonsense.” Célie steadied her with a firm hand. “In my sister’s coffin—when I felt like I might float away—I counted the knots in the wood to ground myself. There were thirty-seven that I could see. I would count them, over and over, and I would take a breath with each one.” She squeezed Lou’s hands. “Listen to my voice and breathe.” Then— “You need a skeleton key.”

I couldn’t help it. I stepped forward, eyes rapt on Lou’s face.

“A skeleton key?” she asked.

“It’s a warded lock. Those notches you see are meant for false protrusions, which prevent the mechanism from opening. A skeleton key has none. Form the key in your mind—long and narrow, with none but two true protrusions on the end. Shape them to fit the last notches, and push.”

Coco shifted from foot to foot, her expression bewildered. “I don’t understand. Why would Morgane have created simple keys and locks when she has magic?”

“Who the hell cares?” Beau hovered anxiously by the stairs, keeping watch. “It’s an enchanted lock for an enchanted door in an enchanted fucking castle. None of this makes sense. Just hurry up, will you? I think I heard something.”

Lou gritted her teeth, pale and trembling now. “If one of you had tried to open this door, you wouldn’t have seen a lock. It’s meant for La Dame des Sorcières alone, but it’s also—it’s the previous matriarchs’ magic testing mine. I can feel their challenge. Their treasures lie within, and I must—earn—entry.” Her head twitched abruptly with each word, and her eyes flew open, snapping to the doorknob. It responded with a simple click. Heavy silence descended as we stared at it.

Lifting a single finger to the wood, Lou pushed tentatively.

The door swung inward.

We stepped into a room of gold—or at least, it appeared so at first glance. In reality, the vaulted ceiling and octagonal walls had been erected from plates of mercury glass. They reflected the golden couronnes. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. The coins spilled forth from every corner, stacked precariously into piles, forming towers of their own. Narrow footpaths wove between them as roads and alleys in a colossal, glittering city.

“This . . .” Beau craned his neck to study the highest crest in the ceiling. Built at the top of a tower, the room stretched taller than wide—cylindrical—like we’d walked into a music box. A basin of fire sat atop a pedestal in the center of the chamber. No logs fed the flames. They emitted no smoke. I inhaled deeply. Though magic coated everything, it tasted almost stale here. Like a thick blanket of dust. “Is not what I expected,” he finished at last.

Lou examined a set of rusted chains near the door, the links thicker than her fists. A dried substance flaked from the metal. Brown, almost black. Blood. “What did you expect?”

He picked up what looked like an ancient human skull. “A dusty cupboard full of creepy dolls and old furniture?”

“It’s a treasury, Beau, not an attic.” She pointed to a heap of gold across the path. A wooden figurine sat atop a stained settee. Beside it lay a golden comb and a rose-handled mirror. “Though there is a doll there. Morgane once said it was cursed.”

Beau blanched. “Cursed how?”

“Just don’t look it in the eye.” Replacing the chains, she seemed to choose another path at random and strode forward. “Right. We should split up. Give a shout if you find something that resembles a golden ring, but don’t touch anything else.” She arched a brow over her shoulder at us. “Here there are many deadly and beautiful things.”

I slipped behind her as the others scattered to search. At the sound of my footsteps, she turned with a small smile. Here, in this dark room with its cursed gold and magic fire, she looked more a witch than I’d seen her. Strange and mysterious. Almost surreal. “Just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

I didn’t know why I’d followed her. I didn’t respond.

When she slipped behind a wardrobe—its black cabinets painted with tiny flowers—I drew a knife from my bandolier. Her ghostly chuckle echoed through the thickly scented air. It seemed to shimmer where she’d disappeared, firelight illuminating the dust motes gold. A fingertip brushed my nape. Whirling, I found her standing directly behind me. Her eyes gleamed unnaturally bright. Blue. No, green. “I won’t let you kill me, you know,” she said. “You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself later.”