Briallen Bevin and the Snatcher's Cave

Chapter 25: The Way of the Wolf

"Now, as you all know, spring finals will be held soon," said Professor Motaleb as he walked between the rows of desks. "We have covered all that is required for your first year of Transfiguration, and we will spend the remaining few weeks in study and practice." The class said the last three words in unison with Professor Motaleb. "Finals will be the first week of June. The written section of my exam will be on Monday, while the practical section will be held on Wednesday." He tapped the desk that Ashley Price sat at. "You should all be writing this down."

In seconds, the sound of pencils on paper echoed throughout the cavernous room, and another second later it was completely silent again. Kimmy Moseley raised her hand. "Yes, Kimmy?" asked Professor Motaleb as he stopped in front of the young girl's desk.

"I was wondering if you were going to have extra office hours the rest of this month to help... to help the kids that are having trouble."

"She's means extra hours to help her. She's the only one who thinks it's hard to transfigure beetles into buttons," muttered Dante from behind Kimmy. Chante, who was sitting next to him, barely managed to suppress a giggle. Kimmy ignored them.

"Yes, I will have extra office hours. They will be posted outside the door to the classroom tomorrow morning, and outside my office, so if you are looking for some help, please consult those times to schedule a meeting accordingly. You may all go now, and remember: study and practice!"

Briallen and Toby walked into the hallway, discussing how they were going to find the time to study for all their finals when they still had homework to do for all of their classes, when Lucan Stone stepped out from behind a statue and cut them off.

"Could I please talk to you in private, Briallen?" he asked quietly while glaring at those students who were staring at him as they passed by.

Toby, his thick brow furrowed, turned to Briallen. "I'll see you later at dinner, okay?" Briallen nodded to her friend that she would be fine, and Toby left her alone with Lucan. She hadn't spoken to Lucan in months, and he hadn't made any attempt to talk to her either, but she knew what he wanted to talk about now, especially with the news of her trespassing into the north wood spread throughout the school.

"This way," said Lucan as he took hold of Briallen's elbow and led her the opposite direction of everybody else, down a side hallway, then up a flight of stairs, through another, dustier, hallway, and into an empty room where the tall windows overlooked the cemetery behind Bergamot. The room looked at least two stories high and had steeple, cathedral style ceilings with wooden cross beams and ornately carved stone columns. It reminded Briallen of a church and she instinctually lowered the volume of her voice as she dropped her book bag on the floor and looked around in wonder.

"What is this place?" asked Briallen. She walked over to one of the windows, opened it and looked down. They were six stories above the ground, even though her Transfiguration classroom was on the fourth floor and she hadn't felt as if she'd climbed enough stairs to go up two whole stories. "I've never seen it before."

"This is just an unused wing, from when the school had more students. This used to be the only school of magic in all of North America, and there used to be classes here, or maybe it was used for prayer service, but it hasn't been used for years."

"Neat." Briallen spit out the window as far as she could in the direction of the cemetery. She missed the front gate by yards.

"Are you sure you're a girl?" asked Lucan, disgusted, as he watched Briallen spit again.

"Are you sure you're a boy?" Briallen retorted.

"I didn't bring you here to argue with you." He stood rigidly, his hands behind his back in a professional manner, as if he were conducting a board meeting on Wall Street.

"Of course not, Lucan. Why did you bring me here? You haven't said a word to me for months. It was pretty nice." Briallen turned around, put her palms on the sill, and lifted herself so that she sat on the long, and wide, window ledge. She was too proud to be the first one to suggest they should work together to find the missing kids.

"I heard about how you and your friends went into the north wood and were caught."

Briallen rolled her eyes as she leaned on the wall. "I think everybody's heard about that by now."

"I just thought you'd like to know that I found another way to get into the north wood. A way where we won't get caught."

"We?" Even though they didn't get along very well, Briallen was glad Lucan came to her. He had been the most useful when it came to learning more about Mr Hoody, and she knew he could defend himself if there was any danger.

Lucan crossed his arms and glared at Briallen. "Yes, we. If you'll remember, I was the one who showed interest in the north wood first. I think that's where the kidnapper took the kids he kidnapped - at least temporarily. Nobody has searched the north wood yet because of its reputation."

Briallen remembered the two times she had seen someone in the north wood, and how both times the strangers had been heading in the direction of the cave. Except that the first time she had seen somebody in the north wood, they seemed to have come from where she, Marisol and Toby flew in, which was completely opposite the direction of the gate that led into the wood. That had always struck her as suspicious.

"Why couldn't you tell me this earlier?" asked Briallen. Lucan relaxed and pulled himself onto the ledge and next to her. "We won't have time to do anything now until after finals. I have to study to pull off decent grades in most of my classes. Especially in Herbology, Astronomy, History of Magic... " She ticked off the classes on her fingers as she named them.

"I can help you with Herbology," Lucan offered quickly before suddenly glaring at the floor. "Unless Hayden has already offered to help you."

"Hayden? You don't know the names of my two best friends but you know the name of some boy I talk to maybe once or twice a week?"

"Cora and Christian say that you're dating him. And that he gave you that necklace."

Briallen instinctively wrapped her hand around the talisman hanging around her neck. "It's a protective talisman. And Hayden did give it to me, for Christmas."

Lucan snorted. "How sweet: a protective talisman. Normal boys give girls normal jewelry."

"Oh, and as someone who grew up in a magic family, if you had gotten me a gift for Christmas, it wouldn't have been something magical?"

"That talisman is not magical. I'm sure he thinks it is, but he's a Van Vlerah. They're a bunch of hippies with weird ideas about old magic - which isn't really magic at all."

"Did your grandpa tell you that? He isn't all-seeing or all-knowing; he isn't God!"

"He's very, very intelligent and he knows what he's talking about, and your new boyfriend is crazy!"

"He's not my boyfriend!" cried Briallen defensively, jumping away from Lucan. She grabbed her book bag from off the floor and then turned to face Lucan. "Look, I really need to get going to Spell-Working. I'm already on Professor Morra's bad side and I don't want another detention."

"Meet me here, tonight, at ten!" called Lucan as Briallen practically ran out of the room.

* * *

Briallen paced in front of the flickering fireplace in her common room, creating a strobe effect on the wall with her shadow. Benjamin looked up from the playing cards in his hand and grumbled unintelligibly in Briallen's general direction. Franky Rowe threw a chair pillow at her but she still paced, absorbed in the movement.

"You guys hear about this?" Franky asked nobody in particular as he spread the newspaper he was reading across the table he sat at with Benjamin. He ignored Briallen's annoying movement. "The Wizard Times says they found more evidence in one of the Habory Lane Gringotts vaults that was robbed in the Great Gringotts Break-In in 1973... almost twenty years later! Apparently the goblins have only just let the Securities and Sigils Bureau in to check things out."

"Prideful little toads," sniffed Chante, unaware of the irony of her comment. "I'm surprised they let the SSB in at all. Those greedy goblins are the reason my family banks at Waters Edge."

"You use Waters Edge Bank?" said Franky, wrinkling his nose. "You might as well just owl your gold to thieves!"

"Gringotts isn't completely theft-proof either, obviously," Chante argued. She focused her cat-like eyes on Franky and began to open her mouth to tell him off.

"You remember those rumors from when we were kids," cut in Benjamin, smartly ending the argument. "My parents used to gossip about it, when Professor Montignac was hired here years ago - apparently a lot of people believed he might be Ransom Lucre!"

Franky scoffed. "That old Billywig as the greatest thief in American wizarding history? Ridiculous. The goblins would hear him giggling from a mile away."

"Maybe the sweet old man act is just that - an act," said Benjamin, arching a brow.

"There's no way," said Briallen, finally ending her pacing so that she could defend one of her favorite teachers. "I have him for class and there is no way he's a bank robber. He's just too nice."

The kids in the common room began to debate how likely it was that Professor Montignac was the famous thief, Ransom Lucre. Briallen was glad for the distraction. Her pacing had been garnering too much attention from her housemates, but she was at war internally, and the pacing had made her feel better.

She glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantle, which now read nine fifty. She was still debating whether or not she should go meet Lucan like he had asked her. And she was still angry at him for insulting Hayden, though she didn't know why, since she actually thought the same thing about Hayden that he did. It just wasn't for Lucan to say, though, because he didn't know Hayden and she did. But she wanted to find the missing kids and she knew Lucan would be the most useful and helpful. Her grandfather wouldn't be happy with her, though, if she tried to interfere again.

Finding those who were kidnapped had become than a passing thought; they were on her mind all of the time now, especially with the end of the school year so near. She knew that if they weren't found soon, they weren't likely to be found ever. That bothered Briallen greatly because she felt partially responsible for the kidnappings. She knew now that she should have gone straight to her grandfather the first time she saw something strange in the north wood. She should definitely have gone to him the second time she saw something, and she felt she should have been able to save Izolda Brodzki from being taken because she was right there when the snatcher took the girl. They had been just a few feet in front of her. But Briallen had seen it as a game at first - an exciting adventure, of the type she frequently read about in books. She hadn't realized how serious the situation was until the school was placed in a lockdown, but now that they were free to move about the school grounds again, and even though her grandfather had scolded her and punished her for sneaking into the north wood just a few days earlier...

"I'll call your four tinking toffees, and raise you a Chocolate Frog," said Abraham smugly as he chewed on a lollipop stick.

Noelle Dugan groaned and put her playing cards down. All she had left were Tinking Toffees and Lisping Lollipops, having lost the last of her Chocolate Frogs during the last game. "I fold."

"Showtime," demanded Toby, putting down his own Chocolate Frog in the center of the table before showing Abraham his cards.

"A full house? No!" cried Abraham, throwing down his three aces. "How do you always win?"

"What can I say? Lady Luck is on my side whenever I play candy poker. She knows my sweet tooth too well. Hey, Briallen, want to join us for the next game?" asked Toby as he pulled his newly won candy into his cauldron, which was now dangerously close to spilling its contents. "Or are you still working on putting a hole in that rug?"

"What?" asked Briallen, abruptly pulled from her thoughts. "Oh, no thanks, Toby. I'm - um - I'm going to see my grandpa about something. I'll be back in a bit."

"Alright. Be careful, though. Ava and Amir are patrolling tonight and you know they won't care that you going to see your grandpa if they catch you." He popped a Tinking Toffee in his mouth and his hair went from blonde to black.

"Oh!" cried Kimmy shrilly when she saw Toby's hair, her cheeks pink with excitement. She pushed Chante out of the way as she ran over to Toby. "You look like Lucan Stone!"

Briallen left the common room just as Kimmy began to fawn all over a very shocked and uncomfortable Toby. If only she knew I was going off to meet Lucan right now, thought Briallen with a smile as she took a flight of stairs one floor up.

She reached the door to her Transfiguration classroom and paused outside, as she tried to remember the way Lucan had gone to the Chapel. She walked down the fifth floor hallway, made a turn and climbed a dark, narrow staircase, until she reached the unused wing of the school she had seen earlier that day.

It looked different in the dark. There were no candles or lamps to light the way, since nobody used this part of the school anymore. Luckily, moonlight shone through the windows, making intricate and artistic shadows on the floor, and provided enough light for Briallen to see where she was going. Cobwebs and dust still covered everything, from the floor, to the crates and empty shelves along the wall, to the old cracked statues and busts that lined the long hallway, but it all looked much more menacing than before.

Briallen took slow, small steps and tried not to touch anything as she walked. Everything around her reminded her of a scary movie she had seen late one night, while her parents were sleeping. She was only thankful the windows in the hallway were closed so that their curtains remained flaccid and motionless, unlike the billowing curtains in the movie that made it look as if there were ghosts in the hall.

Finally she reached the door at the end of the hall that led to the room she and Lucan had spoken in earlier that day. Briallen put her hand on the doorknob and was about to turn it when she suddenly pulled back. Her heart was pounding as she glanced down at her turtle slippers and their smiling faces.

No, no, Briallen! He's toying with you! He's still angry and this is just a trap! He'll throw a hex as soon as you open the door! She wrung her hands and glanced at the opposite end of the hallway, the end that would lead her back to her warm and safe common room. The entrance to the Wenlock tower is just down those stairs... I could go get Marisol or Hayden to come with me.

She took a hesitant step away from the door and was about to turn away when it opened and Lucan bumped into her.

"Oh! Briallen!" he said, genuinely surprised. "I-I didn't think you were coming. I was about to leave." Then he allowed her one of his rare smiles and opened the door all of the way so that she could go in. Briallen walked into the room as if that was what she had planned to do all along. She didn't want to let Lucan know that she was nervous or suspicious of their meeting that evening.

"Over here," said Lucan as he walked over to the window ledge they had been sitting on earlier and waved her over. "This is what I wanted to show you earlier, before you left. Look down there, at the cemetery."

Bergamot's location at the base of two mountains made fog a common occurrence and tonight it covered everything below them. The fog gave the Bergamot grounds an aura of eeriness, not that the cemetery in the back yard made it any more cheerful, and Briallen half expected to see a zombie wandering aimlessly about the crumbling, moss-covered tombstones. She gulped but showed no other signs of fear. "What about it?"

"See the mausoleum in the middle?"

Briallen squinted and could just make out the shape of a square building in the center of the graveyard amidst the fog. "Yeah... "

"That's your grandfather's tomb."

"What?" snapped Briallen sharply as she turned to glare at Lucan in what she hoped was an intimidating way. "Are you threatening me?"

"What? No! No, that's just... look, he built himself a tomb there for when he dies. Well, he won't be the only person in there. Dean Meyer is buried in that mausoleum, along with Dean Appleton, the first female dean of Bergamot, and a few others."

"Oh... okay. Sorry I snapped on you, then."

Lucan ignored her and continued, "I was down there doing grave rubbings last weekend, because some of the tombstones have incredible artwork on them, and I was in the mausoleum- "

"Wait a minute, back up. You were in the graveyard, on the weekend, just for fun? That's really morbid, Lucan."

"I doubt you even know what 'morbid' means. And for your information, it's not morbid. It's art. Not that you would know good art when you see it... " Lucan rolled his eyes and Briallen knew it was only his strong sense of self-control and introverted personality that kept him from tsking at her for what he obviously perceived to be her sub-par intelligence.

"Okay, then, Alfred," said Briallen sarcastically.

"Alfred?"

"Never mind. What's the point of showing me this mausoleum?"

Lucan smiled again, only this time it was not as kind as the previous; this smile was insolent and mischievous. "Your grandfather has some fantastic Celtic carvings on his sarcophagus, and I was doing a rubbing of a pair of twin wolves when they suddenly collapsed inwards. I heard a rumbling noise, like an earthquake, and the sarcophagus slid backwards to reveal a staircase leading to an underground tunnel. I followed it and it came out next to the cave in the north wood."

Briallen was now staring at Lucan, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping open. "Are you serious?"

"Very. Just promise me that when you and your friends go back to the cave, I get to come too. I'm a part of this as much as any of you, and I'd like to find my friend."

Briallen stared at Lucan again and then squealed happily before she threw her arms around him. A year ago she wouldn't have done such a thing, but after a year of hanging out with Marisol and putting up with Hayden's unwanted advances, Briallen had grown much more comfortable with touching other people.

"Whatever you want!" She pulled away and jumped up and down giddily. This was the break-through she both needed and wanted. "This is perfect! Hey, you have a free period tomorrow during block four, right? Meet me in the mausoleum then and show me the opening. We won't go into the forest but I just have to see it for myself." She paused to jump up and down some more. "I have to go tell Marisol and Toby right away!"

Lucan watched as Briallen quickly darted away and then looked back outside at the mausoleum, a small, crooked, smile on his pallid face. His smile faded, however, when he noticed a shape moving through the fog. He watched as it entered the mausoleum and after waiting longer than was necessary for it to come out, and he still didn't see it again, he knew that whoever it was he had seen down there had taken the passage to the north wood.

* * *

She cleared her throat, adjusted her skirt, and shifted her position on the wooden bench she sat in outside of Professor Motaleb's office. Lucan, sitting next to her, put his hand on her knee and clamped down on it. "Stop moving, Briallen! You're going to draw attention to us," he whispered, irritated.

Briallen looked down the hall at the secretary, who was watching the two of them over the top of her magazine, The Witchy Woman. The secretary pushed her purple glasses up the bridge of her nose, glared at them, and then went back to reading her magazine. "Toby is taking forever! Dinner starts in an hour, and I want to do this while everybody is still in class!"

"He's your friend," muttered Lucan. "Didn't you tell him what we're doing?"

"Of course I did, but he said he needed to see Professor Motaleb today, and he didn't have time during lunch because he had to make up a quiz for Healing Magic or something. I don't think he's doing too well in Transfiguration."

Lucan muttered something again and Briallen thought she heard the word 'Muggle-borns,' but she wasn't sure and she didn't feel like fighting with him again about the nature of magic. Instead, she rolled her eyes and leaned over the bench arm to try and peak through the keyhole in Professor Motaleb's office door. She could just make out the back of Toby's head, but that was all she could see. With a sigh, she leaned back against the bench and closed her eyes.

"Have you seen what they're writing?" cried a shaky voice suddenly. Briallen opened her eyes and looked around for the source of the shouting. Three doors down from Professor Motaleb's office was another office, with the door open. Lucan was staring, wide-eyed, at the open door, though neither of them could see inside the office. "They're bringing back those rumors! It's taken years for people to forget and these careless reporters have to dredge it all up again, just because they can't find anything useful to write about!"

"Calm down, Alvis. The excitement will die down soon enough and things will return to normal," said another voice in a soothing manner.

"I just got out of my year seven class, and the students spent the whole time asking me if I was Ransom Lucre! What can I do? I can't give them all detentions, not when they're colluding together!"

"Threaten them with a pop quiz, or poor recommendations on their job applications. You'd think the older kids would know better."

"You would think."

"Hey, I'm ready to go," said Toby, shutting the door to Professor Motaleb's office loudly behind him. The shouting in the other office ended abruptly and a second later, the door slammed shut. Toby looked in the direction of the slammed door. "What was that about?"

"Professor Montignac is being teased by students," explained Briallen as the three of them left the administrative offices that occupied the first floor. The entered the south courtyard where third year Spell-Working students were currently practicing Cheering Charms with Professor Morra, remaining out of the way of the class by walking under the eaves to the communal common room doors.

"Is it about that bank robbery stuff that's been in all the newspapers?"

"Yeah. I don't know how people can be mean to him, though, when he's so nice. Especially the older kids. I feel kind of bad for him."

"You have him for class twice a week, you can't possibly know what sort of person he is," argued Lucan. Briallen glared at him and he decided it would be best to just change the subject. "Look, let's just go out to the cemetery. We'll follow the north path, we're less likely to be seen that way."

"Less likely to be seen? Are we not allowed in the cemetery?" asked Toby, suddenly hesitant of their visit to the Dean's Mausoleum. Briallen was surprised he even agreed to go with them, since she thought he'd be mad at her for getting him another detention because of their trip to the north wood. But Toby was more annoyed than anything, being used to detentions after spending a year as Briallen's friend.

"We're allowed. Some students have family out there, so there's no lock on the gate. I just don't want us to be noticed because it's very possible that the kidnapper is someone who works at, or near, Bergamot."

Briallen and Toby nodded in agreement, and the mood of the group grew more somber. They walked casually through the entrance hall, out the door and onto the pebble pathway that led around the north side of the castle. The walked by the north wood gate and passed a door Briallen had never seen before. She wanted to ask Lucan and Toby if either of them knew where it led but they were on an important mission, and she reminded herself to remain focused.

The fog from the day before had lifted, and with the afternoon sun shining down on them, the cemetery didn't seem quite so scary. Walking through the gravestones, many of which had bouquets or flags or photographs set up around them, Briallen felt strangely invigorated. Being surrounded by so many dead only encouraged her idea that she should find the missing kids, if only so that they didn't end up in the cemetery with their ancestors.

Lucan stopped unexpectedly, just outside the bronze doors that led into the Dean's Mausoleum. Briallen took a few steps closer to him and looked over his shoulder. There was a chain with a padlock wrapped tightly around the door handles. Toby cursed.

"I thought you said we were allowed in here!" said Toby angrily. He reached his hand out to shake the chains that kept them from entering the tomb, but yanked it back suddenly. The padlock had molded itself a face and a sharp set of teeth, and began trying to gnash at the three students in front of it, violently shaking the chains it bound.

All three of them jumped backwards, terrified by the savage and fanged lock.

Lucan whipped out his wand, pointed it at the lock, and shouted, "Explain!"

For a moment, nothing happened, and Briallen thought Lucan had just been threatening the lock, and not actually casting a spell. But then, the lock calmed down and, breathing heavily, it began to speak, "You cannot enter! This is mine! Mine!"

"What's yours?" asked Toby, slightly incredulous of the animate lock, even though he shouldn't have been.

"The treasure!" growled the lock. "The treasure is mine!"

Lucan looked less frightened and much more annoyed now. "There is no treasure inside you stupid lock! Only corpses! Let us in!"

"Not corpses - treasure!" the lock argued.

"Unless you consider dead people a treasure, I promise you that you are in the wrong place. You belong on a chest, or the door to a vault."

"This is a vault!"

Now Briallen and Toby were growing annoyed with the confused padlock. Briallen had heard about such locks the night before, when everybody was discussing the 1973 Gringotts bank robbery. She remembered Chante mention she used a chest at home with one, and that each lock had a special way of being opened but that there was a way of getting around it that rendered them essentially useless. But she had been telling Toby about her conversation with Lucan at the time and she didn't catch everything Chante had said.

"Lucan, this is a Snap-Lock!" said Briallen, hoping she had remembered the right name.

He glanced at her and snorted. "I know that. It isn't supposed to be here. We'll just have to find a teacher or Mr Eldred and tell them about it."

"No!" Toby shouted, looking suddenly worried. "The teachers probably know about the passage way. If any of us make it seem like we're interested in getting inside, they'll know why and we'll get in trouble again!"

"Well I don't know how to get the stupid thing off! My grandfather says they're irritating and obsolete so we've never used them."

"Chante used to have one," offered Briallen, biting her lip in concentration. She was trying desperately to remember what her roommate had said. "She was talking about how, if you know their trick, then they're useless... they don't require a key."

Toby and Lucan stared at Briallen for a moment before Toby's eyes lit up and he clapped his hands together. "I remember! Tickling! Chante said they can be opened by tickling them!"

"I'm not sticking my hand anywhere near that thing," said Briallen quickly, glancing warily at the padlock, which still had its teeth bared and was growling at them.

"You don't need your hands!" said Lucan, exasperated. He pointed his wand at the lock again and said, "Rictusempra!"

The lock began laughing uncontrollably, until finally it popped open and Lucan was able to use another spell to fling it across the cemetery. With the lock gone, he quickly removed the chains binding the doors shut and pulled the doors open. Three, small circular windows were on all the walls, and allowed thin shafts of light to enter the room and focus on each of the three large sarcophagi. Briallen entered, awestruck. On top of each of the sarcophagi were what looked like people, though they were made of stone. Knowing how the wizarding world likes to animate inanimate objects, Briallen approached the sarcophagi carefully, in case they were capable of speaking or moving. But nothing happened.

Lucan didn't stop to admire the artfully sculpted people, however, and moved straight for the sarcophagus on the far right. Briallen and Toby followed him and took a place on either side of the tomb. She looked down at the stone face in front of her and slowly ran a finger along its cheek. It looked just like her grandfather, with each strand of hair in his beard, and the jolly look in his eyes, sculpted to perfection. She pulled her hand away, suddenly leery of this stone version of her grandfather. It was too lifelike and it gave her goosebumps down her arms and legs.

"Look, here," said Lucan from behind the statue's head. Briallen and Toby leaned over to see what he was pointing at. Two Celtic-style wolves leaping at each other were carved into the stone pillow that the statue rest his head on. Lucan grinned used both his hands to push the two wolves in at the same time.

Just as Lucan had described to Briallen, rumblings echoed from beneath them. Cal Bevin's sarcophagus began to shake and then, slowly, move in Toby's direction. Toby jumped toward Lucan, out of the way of the moving tomb. When it finally stopped, in its place was a steep staircase that descended into a dark shaft.

"No way," mumbled Briallen, again awestruck.

"This leads into the north wood?" Toby asked Lucan, surprisingly civil in tone. He was obviously impressed but what he'd just seen.

"It does. I followed it myself when I first found it," explained Lucan, pleased with himself.

"So what do you say, Toby? In or out?" asked Briallen, bent over the opening with her hands on her knees.

He shook his head but he was smiling. Her sense of adventure infected him like a parasite and though he knew he should say 'no,' he wanted to go through the tunnel. "I'm in."

"Do you think your other friend will want to come with us?" Lucan asked. He was leaning against the bronze plates on the back wall, his arms crossed, and his look smug.

"I'm sure she will," said Briallen carelessly. "How do we close it now?"

Lucan stepped forward and used his palm to push in a swirled circle that was between the two wolves on the stone pillow. Instantly, the sarcophagus began to move back to its original position.

"This is amazing. And just what we needed."

"But what about the chains?" asked Toby. He knew that neither Lucan nor Briallen had thought about what the chains might mean, and that he had to be level-headed one. "Someone put those there on purpose."

"Probably the kidnapper... we'll put the chains back on when we leave. Along with the padlock," Lucan explained.

"And hopefully the kidnapper won't notice we've been here."