We checked out the next morning and headed straight for the museum. Our plan was to have Embry distract the person behind the desk while Gabriel and I got the coronet. Whatever Embry had done last night told him that the museum had no security guards or cameras, which made sense with what the man told us at the pizzeria. The information slightly lowered the fear factor of the mission, but greatly increased the guilt factor.
“It was definitely blue,” I told Gabriel as soon as we walked into the museum, my entrance fee already in my hand. It would have been more realistic to try and get in for free to check out one tiny detail, but I felt better paying something for the coronet rather than just taking it.
“It was green. I know because I thought it was an emerald at first,” Gabriel played along to perfection, but I tried not to look surprised. I knew the guys could lie, but wasn’t aware they could act.
“Then maybe you’re colorblind,” I told him before turning to the girl, who was still working on some kind of homework. “Us again. Two tickets, please. It’ll be worth it to see your face when you realize that I’m right,” I said the last part to Gabriel.
“Um, sure. Go on in,” she looked equally surprised that she had visitors, and that it was us. Again.
“This is what the entire trip has been like…”
I could hear Embry being his charming self, but I focused on our part of the mission.
“I’ll get rid of the glass for you, but if anyone catches us, you need to leave me behind,” I told Gabriel.
“Not happening,” he argued.
“I can talk my way out of whatever happens, especially with Embry, but we won’t have another chance at the coronet, and that’s what we’re here for,” I reminded him it wasn’t about me sacrificing myself, it was just logic. “It’s not like they can do much to us if you have the evidence.”
He looked like he wanted to point out all the ways that wasn’t true, but didn’t want to worry me, so he nodded and took my hand to bring me to the room with the coronet. We both pretended we were looking for the stone on the spine of Ioanit’s book.
We put a lot more into the cover story than we needed, but I chose the perfect place where I would have an unobstructed view of the coronet’s display case, but they couldn’t accuse me of stealing it from so far away.
“See, I told you it was blue,” I said, my voice shaky. Gabriel looked at me to see if I was ready, then gave my hand a squeeze. I didn’t have as much confidence in myself as I implied, but a few moments after I held the moonstone necklace and concentrated on the case, it disappeared. One second I was smiling with pride for accomplishing a new spell, and the next the coronet was gone. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, then let the glass materialize back in its place.
“It was a trick of the light,” Gabriel gave me a reassuring look before heading to the exit.
His version of leaving me behind consisted of walking two steps ahead of me and not stopping once we got to the front desk.
My heart was beating a mile a minute, but I tried to appear calm, cool and collected in case Embry was wrong and a delayed alarm went off. It would have been smarter to get a forgery, because they would find us out the second someone else visited the museum. I wondered if I should tell someone it was missing, or ask what happened to it, just for plausible deniability.
Embry was waiting by the doors, so I took another calming breath before joining him.
“He was wrong,” I explained Gabriel’s quick exit.
Embry and I were about to walk out when the girl behind the desk called out, “Miss!”
I froze, terrified. There had to be some kind of morality code against using magic to steal things, which meant I definitely couldn’t use it on this girl to save us from being caught.
I took a deep breath to steady myself before turning to face her. “Yes?” I asked, every inch of me stiff from trying to appear normal.
“I found one of the coloring guides we give the kids, if you still want it,” she offered.
“Thank you,” I swallowed before retracing my steps to get the guide from her.
“Have a great day,” she sighed, getting back to her homework.
I waited until we were outside to let the breath out, but for someone who never even skipped school or stole so much as a chocolate bar, I felt like I may have just had a heart attack.
Gabriel was standing across the street with the coronet safe in his jacket pocket. “Everything okay?” he asked me, putting a hand on my arm.
“We made it,” I tried to smile, but I wasn’t there yet. I was guessing it would take being back on American soil before my heartbeat went back to normal. It was crazy how stealing got me this nervous after all the magic stuff I had done in the past few months. Then again, stealing has always been wrong in the world I grew up in, whereas being hunted and nearly dying is so far-fetched I sometimes have trouble wrapping my head around it.
“We need to get out of here and board the ship before anyone notices the coronet is missing,” Embry stated, looking back at the museum, where I half-expected a SWAT team to be rushing out at us.
“Here you go,” Gabriel came close to hand me the coronet, away from any potential prying eyes, but he held me extra close, as if to reassure me that I didn’t just imagine last night. I was grateful, because as soon as I wrapped my hand around the little crown, I felt myself slipping…
My hair was longer than I had ever seen it, cascading down my back, all the way to my hips. I felt like a Greek goddess, amplified by the incredibly fine, empire-waist silk gown I was wearing. There was a woman standing in front of me with a smile on her face, and a crowd of people surrounding us. Most of them were smiling too, some with the same love I felt from her, while others with some sort of curious excitement.
“Today my baby girl Talina turns eighteen,” she addressed the crowd, but finished with a warm smile to me. “When I was little, my mother raised me to be strong and fierce. To be the best warrior, because you should never expect of your people something you wouldn’t expect of yourself.”
I recognized the coronet in her hand, shinier than the current version from the museum, but recognizable nonetheless. This one also seemed to have carvings in it, though I couldn’t make them out from this far away.
“She was a force to be reckoned with,” a very tall man added with a laugh, looking at the woman speaking, Talina’s mother, in a way that suggested he might be her husband.
“True. But she was also warm and vulnerable. Because we are not just warriors, we are the mothers of our people. We tend to our sick, we comfort our dying, and we nurture our children to be kind and compassionate above all else. These are traits the world has convinced us to hide, but it is not weakness to fall apart. It is a chance to rebuild yourself and grow stronger, though most won’t understand. When you put your heart in the game, others will see it as weakness, but it means you will fight harder and longer than anyone else. If something matters to you, my love, be all in,” she told me with a fierce determination. “Courage isn’t blindly running into danger without fear. Courage lies in seeing the danger, knowing what can happen, and going in regardless. Because there are things worth fighting for,” she looked to the man who had interjected earlier. “But there are also things worth laying down your weapons for, and a queen must recognize the difference. This crown does not make you better than anyone, it marks you as the heart and soul of the kingdom.”
I listened with fascination, but all I could feel in Talina was love. For her mother, for her people… her heart was bursting with it.
“I promise to rule justly, as a voice of reason when needed, but mostly, to be one of you. To be a friend and neighbor, through good times and bad, so we all may prosper and live happily ever after,” as Talina said the last words, she looked to a man in the crowd who smiled at her in a way that made her heart flutter and her knees go weak. I would guess it was Zeke, but he didn’t take part in the ceremony today. He was just one bystander among many. Talina smiled to him, then accepted her crown without fear, or even a trace of imposter syndrome. She didn’t see it as her birthright, but as an honor she couldn’t wait to begin. She made eye contact with every person in that crowd, giving each one her love and respect. Her eyes landed on the man who must be Zeke, and I could hear in the back of her mind, her mother warning her it was okay to want someone at your side, that the right person will strengthen you, but you should never need to have anyone else there….