The Sweetest Burn (Broken Destiny #2)(93)

"Ivy's only recently begun to embrace her abilities, so she's still learning how to hone them," Adrian replied.

Piotr still looked doubtful, but Edgar seemed satisfied by that. "It is also much deeper than where we stand."

"You were the Guardian entrusted with its location?" Piotr asked, sounding very surprised.

Edgar bowed his head. "Now that the awaited day has come, I can at last admit that I was the one chosen among our order."

"And where is the staff, exactly?" I prompted.

"Beneath the Russegger Chambers," Edgar replied.

Piotr looked at Edgar as if he'd lost his mind. "You alone out of dozens were entrusted with its location, and you were foresworn never to reveal it to anyone!"



       
         
       
        

"Except her," Edgar replied, gesturing to my right hand for emphasis. "As foretold, she bears the mark of the Davidian."

All this "foretold" stuff was starting to creep me out. Wait until these guys found out that I was here to retrieve the staff but wasn't going to use it yet. They might believe my lineage made me all that, whereas I knew I wasn't nearly strong enough to attempt to wield the staff yet. It would be safer for me to play Russian roulette with a half-full cylinder of bullets.

Piotr gave me another skeptical look, then turned back to Edgar. "I will ensure that all the chambers are empty and send the rest of the employees away. Only Guardians should be present for this."

Adrian began to strip the nearby restaurant tables of their tablecloths, clattering dishes and glasses to the floor. "We need lots of these to wrap it in," he muttered, and Costa hurried over to help.

Jasmine stayed with me, and I was startled when she came closer and her hand slid into mine. Then I squeezed back, infinitely glad by the wordless gesture of support. She might be mad, worried and highly disapproving of recent events, but she was letting me know that, no matter what, she was there for me.

"So, you're the one who took the staff from the Milwaukee chapel and left the tablet behind as a clue?" Jasmine asked.

Edgar smiled. "Yes. And my predecessor was the one who journeyed with it from France to its two homes in America."

"Why move it so much?" I asked, glancing around at the mine. "At the bottom of this place seems pretty safe to me."

"We do as we're told," Edgar replied. "And the Messenger is never wrong. Shortly after it was moved from here to France, the mine flooded, so it would have been damaged had it remained. Then the Messenger told us to move it with the chapel from France to America. Less than twenty years later, Nazis overran France, and among their many cruelties, they were obsessed with stealing religious relics. Then the New York chateau burned in the 1960s and the Messenger told us to take the staff along with the chapel to Wisconsin. Ten years ago, when its responsibility fell to me, I obeyed the Messenger's instructions to bring it back home and leave the tablet as a clue for you."

"Who's this Messenger that tells you what to do?" I asked, suspicion growing along with my anger.

Once again, Edgar looked surprised that I didn't know. "Zacchaeus," he said, calling Zach by his full name. 

Adrian responded with a slew of curses that mirrored my thoughts exactly. Just wait until I saw that Archon again! He'd known all along where the staff was because he's the one who'd been directing its movements for over two thousand years!

"Do not say such things," Edgar gasped, staring at Adrian in horror. "Zacchaeus is an officer of the Most High!"

"You don't know him like we do," I said grimly. "He let us run around like chickens with our heads off for weeks when he knew where the staff was the whole time. Worse, people got kidnapped and killed from the demons following us. Had Zach just told us where it was, he could have prevented all that."

"Damn right," Jasmine muttered. Costa grunted in agreement.

Edgar looked distressed as he glanced back and forth between us. "You cannot mean that," he finally said.

I let out a short laugh. "Sorry to disappoint you sooner rather than later, but I do." Then, because he looked on the verge of either giving me a lecture or bursting into tears, I added, "Why don't you take us down to the Russegger Chamber?"

Edgar pursed his lips as if holding back a reply, making me think he'd been leaning toward lecture instead of tears, but at last, he gave me a short nod.

"This way."

* * *

THE ELEVATOR IN the Danilowitcz Shaft was the only direct way in or out of the lowest portion of the mine, and it took us over four hundred feet straight down into the darkness. By the time we stopped, my ears had popped several times. I moved my jaw around in an attempt to relieve the pressure, but the worst part was that the pressure was the only new thing I felt.