The Annex
“We need a clue,” Stone said. “Just one clue to point us toward Grady’s pot of gold.”
He roamed impatiently around the office, all too aware that the Serpent Brotherhood had a head start on them—if Max and Company hadn’t in fact already acquired the Pot. Baird was right that finding hidden magical artifacts was a big part of what being a Librarian was all about, but they still needed somewhere to start. The world was a big place, and even bigger than most people realized when you counted all the lost kingdoms and secret tombs. For all they knew, the Pot could be anywhere.
“What about that coin from the pub?” Ezekiel asked. “The one I cleverly filched back from Max? That’s supposed to have come straight from Grady’s pot.” He fought back a giggle. “Sorry. Can’t unhear that anymore.”
“Try harder,” Baird said. “But that’s a good thought.” She turned toward Jenkins, who had taken custody of the coin earlier. “Jenkins?”
“As you wish, Colonel.”
He retrieved the gleaming gold coin from a locked drawer in his desk and turned it over to the Librarians, who passed it back and forth as they took turns inspecting it.
“It’s real gold all right,” Ezekiel confirmed after biting down on it. “I’d know a counterfeit if I saw one.”
Cassandra wiped the coin off with a tissue before scanning it with her favorite magic detector, which whirred and beeped in response.
“There’s definitely some magic radiating from the gold, but nothing that tells me where the coin came from or where the rest of the Pot might be now.”
She handed it to Stone, who contemplated the crowned god or king embossed on its surface. “Well, the art is definitely Celtic in origin, so it was presumably minted in Ireland, sometime before the fifth century, which is the last reported sighting of the Pot.”
“When O’Gradaigh vanished with it and went into hiding,” Baird said, nodding. “Anything else?”
“Not that I can see,” Stone grumbled. “Too bad there’s not any sort of written inscription.”
“Are we sure of that?” Baird asked. “That old language—ogham—didn’t you say that it was typically written on the edges of objects?”
“That’s right!” Stone ran a callused finger along the thin edge of the coin, which had to be less than two millimeters thick. Was it just his imagination, or could he feel tiny notches scratched into the side of the coin? His pulse quickened in excitement. “Somebody get me a magnifying glass!”
“Right here!”
Cassandra procured a handheld magnifier from an antique desk and rushed it over to Stone. She and the others peered over his shoulder as he took a much closer look at the edge of the coin, where, sure enough, he saw what was unmistakably ogham etched into it. The inscription was too small to be read by the naked eye … but just small enough to have been written by one of the Little People?
“You called it!” he said. “There’s something written here.”
“By Grady?” Ezekiel wondered. “As a clue to where the rest of the gold is?”
“Here’s hoping,” Baird said. “What does it say?”
“Give me a minute.” Stone slowly rotated the coin as he attempted to translate the message. “I just need to figure out where the inscription begins.”
Jenkins stepped forward. “If I can be of assistance…”
“Thanks,” Stone said, appreciating the offer, “but I’ve been boning up on ogham ever since our trip to Ireland. I think I’ve got it.” He mentally double-checked his translation before reading the inscription aloud:
“I arise today through the strength of heaven … through the firmness of rock.”
“Come again?” Ezekiel scratched his head. “Why do hidden messages always have to be so cryptic? Would it have killed those old-school treasure hiders to make their clues more user-friendly? Like maybe some convenient GPS coordinates for once?”
“I think that would defeat the point,” Cassandra said. “They’re supposed to be tests, puzzles that only the wisest and most worthy can solve, so that just anybody can’t walk off with the treasure.”
“Whatever,” Ezekiel said, unconvinced. He plopped down in a chair. “I still think that Ye Olde Folk had too much time on their hands, probably because TV and computer games hadn’t been invented yet.”
“Focus, people,” Baird said. “‘The strength of heaven, the firmness of rock’—what do we think that’s all about?”
“That one’s easy,” Stone said. He had recognized the quote as he was translating it. “Those lines are part of a famous Irish prayer traditionally attributed to Saint Patrick … and used to ward off black magic and sorcery.”
“As well as the Serpents?” Baird speculated.
Ezekiel shrugged. “Is there a difference?”
“Not as it matters,” Jenkins said. “Any magic employed by the Brotherhood will surely be put to the blackest of ends.”
Stone heard centuries of dire experience in the ageless caretaker’s tone. He wondered exactly how many times Jenkins had seen the Serpents rear their venomous heads and how many souls had been lost in the ceaseless conflict between the Library and the Brotherhood. As Stone understood it, Flynn’s own immediate predecessor, Edward Wilde, had been corrupted by the Serpents and had turned against the Library—with tragic results.
“Saint Patrick again,” Baird noted. “Maybe the Pot is hidden somewhere associated with the historical Patrick?”
“Well, that certainly narrows it down,” Jenkins said dryly. “In Ireland alone, there’s no shortage of sites and shrines said to be linked to the legendary Patrick. Indeed, back in the days of pilgrims and pilgrimages, any Irish monastery or chapel worth its salt was going to claim Patrick as its founder, not unlike the way every Ray’s Pizza in New York City bills itself as the Original Ray’s.”
“Well, we don’t have time to search all of Ireland looking for the Pot.” She wagged a finger at Ezekiel preemptively. “No more snickering.”
Nodding, he clenched his jaw to maintain a poker face.
“Maybe there’s another angle of approach here,” Cassandra said, contemplating the globe by the back door. “We know that Grady, aka O’Gradaigh, seems to have been looking out for Bridget’s family for generations. Family lore has it that a leprechaun provided the gold to open the pub in Chicago back in the day, and that he stepped up again with more gold when the pub and Bridget were in trouble.”
“Plus, Grady protected Bridget from first Max, then the banshee,” Stone recalled. “Even blowing his cover to lure the banshee away from Bridget.”
“Because she’s descended from a changeling,” Cassandra reminded them, “and therefore has some leprechaun blood in her. Chances are, Bridget and Grady are related in some fashion.”
“Makes sense,” Baird said. “But how does this help us find the Pot?”
“By working the family connection and tracing Bridget’s roots,” Cassandra suggested. “If we can find out exactly where in Ireland her family immigrated from, then cross-reference that with historical sites associated with Saint Patrick, we’ll have a place to start looking for the Pot.”
“It’s a slim lead,” Stone said, “but it’s our best shot. I’ll get in touch with Bridget and start tracing her family’s roots back to Ireland. With any luck, she knows some specifics about where her family came from: the name of a town or village, the port they sailed from, the names of some distant relations back in the Auld Sod. In fact, I think I remember seeing a framed black-and-white photo of a small Irish village back at the pub in Chicago, on a wall behind the bar. Some sort of family heirloom, maybe?”
Baird nodded in approval. “Sounds like a plan. I just wish the Serpents didn’t have a head start on us.”
“Do they?” Jenkins asked. “Don’t forget, Colonel, we have one thing they don’t have: a Magic Door that cuts down on the travel time to Ireland considerably. That advantage may allow you to catch up with our adversaries … and perhaps even pull ahead of them.”
“So what are waiting for?” Baird said. “Get the Magic Door ready, Jenkins. We’re heading back to Ireland.”