“No, actually. I found one other thing,” I say, not trying to hide my pride. “Well, kind of.” I scan the area around the Palace lagoon. “I believe I’ve located the door.”
Grace gasps.
“Where are you?” Gretchen demands. When I tell her, she says, “Stay put. We’ll be right there.”
The phone goes dead. As I put mine away, I give Thane a sunny smile.
“That went well,” he says gruffly.
I smile bigger. “It did, didn’t it?”
He gives me that insane-genius look again. I take him by the hand.
“Come on, we can go watch the ducks while we wait for the girls.” As I tug him over to one of the benches, I ask, “Have you ever heard of a coot?”
CHAPTER 28
GRACE
I pull out my phone and find the note where I typed in the translation of the oracle’s riddle. It feels like a million years ago that Greer and I captured that monster and forced it to interpret the ancient Greek. We were so desperate to get Gretchen back, we risked everything.
Just like Gretchen risked everything tonight to rescue Nick.
He’s still a bit groggy from whatever the boss used to knock him out—judging from the giant knot at the base of his skull, I’d say a baseball bat. Gretchen hasn’t left his side since she got him out of the trunk of her car.
Gretchen also called Euryale to let her know we might have located the door. She and Sthenno are on their way here to meet us. From what she said, it’s going to take them a while to get here. Who knows where they ended up on their missions. Guess we didn’t need the oracle to find the door after all. She left us the riddle instead. I have a feeling that’s not all we’ll need from her before this is over—she’s too important to the whole thing.
I can’t help grinning at Thane, who is practically glued to Greer’s side. He’s never been a particularly happy person—the burden of that dark secret he’s been carrying his whole life, I guess—but standing with Greer, he looks as close to content as I’ve ever seen. And now that his secret is in the open, maybe things will start to get better for him.
Sillus looks exhausted, leaning up against Gretchen’s legs with his eyes drifting shut. I can’t believe we’re friends with a monkey monster. Who would have imagined?
All in all, the whole world around me feels completely different from the one I inhabited just a few weeks ago. And I feel like an entirely different person.
“Were you going to read that?” Gretchen demands, nodding at my phone.
Oops. Caught daydreaming. My cheeks burn as I start to read the riddle out loud again. “In the space beneath the sky—”
“That must mean it’s outdoors,” Greer says, clearly excited by her find.
“Right,” Gretchen agrees. “That makes sense.”
Greer gestures at the park space around us. “And this is most definitely outdoors.”
“Definitely.” I smile at her before continuing. “Between harbor and haunted ground . . .”
That line is a little more specific.
“There is a giant cemetery in the Presidio,” Greer says. “The Palace is between the Presidio and the water—the harbor at the marina.”
“Between harbor and haunted ground,” Nick says. “Check.”
“Where graces and muses weep at gentle water’s shore,” I read.
Greer points up at the statues surrounding the roof of the building. “See how the women—the Graces and Muses—look like they’re weeping?”
“I see the weeping muses,” Gretchen concedes.
Thane nods.
“And the pond is definitely gentle water,” Greer says smugly. “It fits all the criteria.”
“What about the rest of it?” Gretchen asks.
If the first half of the riddle is meant to help us locate the door, I think the second half tells us what to do when we find it.
“Be three within three, join life with death in thee,” I finish. “To find the lost and take up destiny.”
My heart races a little faster. We are so close to the end- game, to opening the door and beginning our guardianship. It’s terrifying, but also thrilling.
“Last line seems obvious,” Nick says. “‘Find the lost’ means find the door.”
“And ‘take up destiny,’” Greer adds, “must mean embracing our legacy. Guarding the door.”
I put my phone away and look around the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts. I haven’t visited here yet. I’ve been too busy chasing and being chased by monsters to do much sightseeing at all since we moved to the city a few weeks ago. But this looks like a nice place to spend an afternoon. Plus Greer says the science museum inside is amazing. I wish we had time to go explore.
Probably should take care of saving the world first, though.
“The part about joining life with death,” I say, glancing at Greer. “What if that means joining our blood? Like when we open a portal.”
“That makes sense,” Greer says. “Merging the healing blood of one side with the deadly blood of the other.”
“That leaves one part to figure out,” I say.
Gretchen kicks a rock out of the path. “Three within three.”
“That part is tougher,” I say, surveying the area.
Nick adds, “There are a lot of threes around here.”
“It’s neoclassical,” Greer says. “It’s practically all threes.”