“What’s that?”
“My stepmother took it over when she became regent,” I explained. “She’s in there all the time. Except …” I glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was 3:35 p.m. “She visits with my father twice a day: from nine to ten in the mornings, and three to four in the afternoon. If we go to the office right now, it should be empty.”
“Well then,” Callum said, jumping to his feet. “What are we waiting for?”
I stared at the console with trepidation. It was blue, of course, and pulsing, waiting for me to put my hand on it. But what if my handprint wouldn’t give me access to the study door, either, and the KES was alerted? I’d never gotten a chance to explain to Thomas what I was planning to do, and though we were both back from Asthall I hadn’t seen him all day. Gloria promised to make some inquiries, but she’d come back empty-handed. Nobody seemed to know where Thomas was. I couldn’t help but agonize over it, but I found some comfort in the knowledge that Thomas could take care of himself. I would see him soon. It was nothing to get hysterical over.
“You’re overthinking it.”
“What?” Oh, I thought with relief. He means the door. Before I could react, Callum took my hand and pressed it flat against the console.
“Callum!” I cried, jerking my hand away, but it was too late. The numbered keypad replaced the silhouette of a hand.
“You can thank me later,” he said with a smile.
“I’ll thank you never,” I said, delivering a soft glancing blow to his arm. I punched in the code. One. One. Two. Three. Five. Eight. It wasn’t until the console turned green that I realized I was holding my breath.
“You should see your face, Juli,” Callum said with a laugh. “You look like you’re going to throw up. It’s just a door!”
“Yeah, well … shut up.” But I laughed, too. I was being ridiculous. There wasn’t anything to fear. It was just a door, and it was opening.
The king’s study was empty.
“What’s next?” Callum asked.
“ ‘Mirror, mirror,’ ” I told him. But Callum was already staring straight ahead at the wall, where a long antique mirror with an ornate gold frame was hanging.
“It can’t be that simple, can it?”
“I don’t think he’s trying to trick me,” I said, making my way toward the mirror. I felt along its left edge with my fingers but couldn’t find anything. I gripped it with both hands and tried to lift it off the wall—it wouldn’t move. “It’s bolted down.”
Callum joined me. “That sounds promising. Here, let me try.” But Callum couldn’t get the mirror to budge, either. He stood back and gazed at our reflections. “We look good together.” He put his arm around my shoulder and grinned.
“Focus.” I felt around the right side of the mirror now, searching for the hidden latch I was sure was there. If it couldn’t be removed, the mirror had to be hiding something.
Eventually I found it, a button on the back of the frame. I pressed it and heard a small click. The mirror swung forward on hinges, revealing a safe with another LCD console mounted on its door. It was exactly the same as the regular consoles, down to the TOUCH AND GO branding, but this time the keypad was already up, no handprint necessary. I input the Fibonacci code again. The console turned green and the safe was open.
“What do you think we’re going to find in there?” Callum asked.
“No idea,” I said. I tried to affect nonchalance, but my hands were shaking. Was it possible I was right? It seemed unlikely, but at the same time the only possible truth. “But it’s time to find out.”
We peered into the safe. It was almost as large as the mirror, and went very deep into the wall. It contained a variety of things: several neat bundles of money, jewel cases stacked one on top of the other, and a tall pile of manila folders. I wondered if Juliana, staring at the contents of this safe, would’ve known what her father wanted her to find. “Angel eyes” was the last phrase. It could mean anything. It could be a pair of earrings he’d tucked away to save for a wedding gift. But I didn’t care much for jewels, and for some reason I believed that the king wanted me to have information. I grabbed a bunch of folders and dropped them into Callum’s waiting arms.
“Angel eyes,” I said. He nodded and sat down on the floor, riffling through the folders. I took the rest and we began our search.
“These are all top-secret military documents,” Callum pointed out after a while.
I’d noticed the same thing. Each folder was marked CLASSIFIED in bright bold red lettering, and underneath that there was always a label with the name of the project in blue. We went through them one by one, but none sounded right. CLASSIFIED: OPERATION LARCHMONT. CLASSIFIED: OPERATION PAINTED ARROW. CLASSIFIED: OPERATION LOOKING GLASS.
I paused at the last one. Operation Looking Glass. I flipped it open and started skimming. Almost immediately I found mention of Earth. I wanted to read further, but I could feel Callum’s eyes on me.
“Did you find anything?”
I shook my head and reluctantly closed the Looking Glass file. “Not yet.” I kept thumbing through them but found nothing, and the clock on the wall told me we only had ten minutes left before the queen returned.
Suddenly, Callum leapt up, waving one of the folders.
“I’ve got it,” he said, thrusting the file into my hands. The cover read CLASSIFIED: OPERATION ANGEL EYES. I hesitated, not sure if I really wanted to know what was in it.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Callum pressed. I nodded. But when I saw what it contained, I was more confused than ever.
All the other files were filled with documents, long detailed memoranda filled edge to edge with tiny, black text. But this folder was empty except for a color printout of a map of the North American continent. The map was dark blue, the landmass clearly outlined in white. There was a thick line that divided the country, just like the map I’d seen in the Tower, marking the delineation between the UCC and Farnham. The rest of the map was covered in abstract blobs, light blue in color. Some were huge, like the one that hovered right over Chicago; others were smaller, like the ones that dotted northern New York Dominion like freckles. It looked like the sort of thing you might see on the evening news, during the weather report.
“A weather map? That’s it? That’s what the king wanted me to find?” I shook my head in disbelief. All that cloak-and-dagger nonsense for nothing. I felt like an idiot.
“Let me see.” Callum reached for the file and considered its contents carefully. “Maybe Angel Eyes is some kind of meteorological satellite.”
“But who cares about the weather? This can’t be it!”
“I don’t see any other files marked ‘Angel Eyes’—do you?” He was right. I wanted to go through the Looking Glass file, but it was too dangerous with Callum right there. Whatever happened, he couldn’t know about the tandem, about Earth. About me.
I shoved the files back into the safe, slamming the door in frustration.
“I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for, Juli,” Callum said, laying a gentle hand on my shoulder.
I sighed. “It’s okay. Maybe I was just making all this up. Maybe there was never anything for us to find.”
“But you were right about the things the king was saying,” Callum insisted. “They led us here.”
“Yeah, straight to nothing.”
“We should probably get out of here. The queen could come back at any second.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.” I hesitated. “Wait, hold on.” I opened the safe again and removed the map from the file.