Page 119 of Harnessed in Gold

I clasp him to me, my arms hooked under his and my fingers digging into his shoulders. He leans back to assess me, giving me a glimpse of his beautiful eyes. My chest convulses and a sob erupts. Then another. Soon I’m drowning in tears.

He tucks my head under his chin and strokes my hair, whispering gentle words I don’t understand. Chroí and Betts are the only ones I recognize.

“I couldn’t harness,” I say, my voice fighting its way out of my tight throat. “I’m useless.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m a liability.”

He wipes the tears off my cheeks with his thumb. “You’re the opposite of a liability, Betts. You’re essential.” He tips my head back, forcing me to look at him. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have even known that room existed.”

“And you should be in that room searching, not up here taking care of me.”

He shakes his head, his eyes flashing fire. “If I’m with you, then I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

No. No. No.“I’m not your mission.”

“You’re my everything.”

He kisses me, hard and insistent, like he can change reality through sheer force of will. But the truth is the truth. He’s here to find the weapon and save Nàdar.

And Betts Peterson is getting in the way.

An abrupt clang sends us jumping apart. As we gasp for breath, Avery appears, boots and fishnet-clad legs first. The moment her feet hit the ground, she does an excited little dance. “You’re never going to believe what we found!”

I gape. “The ring?”

“Well, no. But we will.” She sashays to the side as the hatch thunks again and Aaron spills out of the chute. “But first things first—are you okay?”

I avoid glancing at Leo. “Yes, I’m alright. Just please tell us what you found.”

“Aaron?” With a flourish, she holds a hand out to him, not even reacting when he pulls his shirt up to his chest. There, stuffed into the waistband of his jeans, is a book. Anoldbook. He hands it to Avery, who sandwiches it between her hands like it’s sacred scripture.

Leo reaches for it. “Is it a journal?”

“Looks like it.” She reluctantly hands it over.

“But… but…” I’m frustrated. Disappointed. “But I thought for sure the macguffin was down there. I mean, considering what I was feeling.”

“It could be there,” Avery admits. “We can’t rule that out just because we didn’t see it.”

Leo runs a hand over the journal’s dusty cover. “Maybe there are some clues in here.”

“All I know is that there was some crazy shit going down in that forge,” Aaron says. “I heard so many sounds, I couldn’t tell one from another.”

I nod vigorously. “That’s what the feelings were like.”

“We found vials and shards of glass,” he says. “And rusty old tools like you’d find in a lab.”

Avery grins, eyes shining. “Analchemylab.”

“Alchemy?” I blurt. Holy shit.

“I know, right? Isawit when I grabbed a broken pair of tongs.”

“Alchemy,” Leo murmurs, eyes growing round. “Makes sense. Browne was a goldsmith.”

I gesture to the book in his hands. “You think that’s Browne’s?”