The thing about pretending nothing was wrong was that the objects knew better.
Isla could feel it that week in every room she walked into.
In the medieval gallery, the reliquaries hummed a nervous high note.
In the archives, the parchment smelled a little sharper, like old paper bracing for a leak.
Even the battered training shields in the conservation lab seemed to lean subtly away from the walls, as if they’d heard the cracks twitch.
Life on the surface, of course, went on.
Docents gave tours.
Children pressed their noses to glass.
The café overcharged for croissants.
Underneath, the museum was becoming a layered chessboard.
Leona’s sensors blinked their quiet rhythm on the sub-basement walls.
Tim’s cameras watched the corridors and occasionally “glitched” on purpose when Jay asked them to.
And in a coal-dusted room that technically didn’t exist on any official blueprint, a dragon tapped his claws against concrete and pretended to be patient.
***
“You’re doing it again,” Isla said from the doorway.
Cael stopped mid-tap.
“What,” he said, deadpan, “breathing?”
She stepped inside, letting the heavy door fall shut behind her.
“That,” she said, nodding at his foot. “It’s driving the security system crazy. You keep setting off micro-vibrations they can’t source. Ron thinks the foundation is haunted by discontented HVAC units.”
Cael looked down at his bare toes, then back up at her.
“I am not used to having to… tiptoe,” he said.
Her lips twitched.
“You’re doing… adequately,” she said. “We haven’t had to file any ‘mysterious subterranean drum solo’ reports yet.”
He made a face, then shifted his weight, folding down onto the tarp again with more grace than a man his size had any right to possess. He sat cross-legged, the crown resting on its cloth in front of him, the scale gleaming faintly at its side.
“I do not like this Leona,” he said.
“I gathered,” Isla said. “From the way you’ve taken to calling her ‘hunter’ under your breath.”
“She is a hunter,” he said. “She walks like one. She smells like one.”
“Smells,” she echoed.
He nodded, as if this were obvious.
“Magic leaves a… mark,” he said. “On the skin. In the breath. She carries it. Old spells. Old… bargains.” His mouth twisted. “She has stood too close to the cracks and not fallen in. That makes her… interesting. And dangerous.”
“She thinks she’s containing it,” Isla said, perching on an overturned crate. “Or… redirecting. Or bargaining. Whatever word makes her feel like she’s in control.”
“Control is a story humans tell themselves so they can sleep,” Cael said.
She snorted.
“Says the dragon who tried to bite the universe into behaving,” she said.
He shot her a look.
“Sometimes teeth work,” he said.
“Sometimes contracts do,” she replied. “Sometimes both.”
He hummed, noncommittal.
His gaze drifted to her hand.
“Did she touch you again?” he asked abruptly.
The question landed heavier than it should have.
Isla blinked.
“In the lab?” she said. “When she looked at the decoy? No. Just once. On the thumb. She’s not… handsy. Not like you.”
A corner of his mouth curled.
“Jealous?” he asked, mild.
Her stomach did an annoying little flip.
“Yes,” she blurted. “Of her access to your sensors and data streams.”
He snorted.
“Liar,” he said.
“You are not allowed to call me that every time you don’t like my answers,” she said.
“Then give answers that are less easily called lies,” he said.
She made a face.
He watched her with that unnervingly intent focus.
“You said she… bound the deal,” he said. “With the decoy.”
“Felt like it,” she said. “Words pressed weird. Like a… click.”
He nodded slowly.
“Then her oath holds,” he said. “For now.”
“Do dragons ever… swear to humans?” she asked.
He lifted one shoulder.
“Rarely,” he said. “We swear to land. To kin. To hoards. Occasionally to someone fragile who insists on standing between us and a falling rock.”
Her mouth twitched.
“You think I’m a falling rock in this scenario?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “You are the one standing between me and the rock.”
The simple conviction in his tone stole her breath for a second.
“That’s… backwards,” she managed. “You’re the dragon. I’m… a five-foot-three woman who has to use a stepstool to change the thermo-hygrometer batteries.”
“You are also the one holding the scale,” he said quietly. “And the one who dragged the crown through a hole in reality. And the one whose grandmother yelled threats at my stone.” His lips curved. “Size is… irrelevant.”
Her face heated.
She tried to steer the conversation back to less… emotionally fraught territory.
“What happens if Leona starts getting… real readings?” she asked. “Not decoy-weirdness. Coal-room-weirdness. Crack-weirdness.”
His jaw tightened.
“She will want to go where the signal is strongest,” he said. “Into the old corridor. Into the foundation.”
“Engineering’s report bought us some time,” she said. “Jonas talked about stress fractures and needing to shore up the walls. The board doesn’t want a lawsuit on top of everything else.”
“Humans fear lawyers more than monsters,” Cael observed. “Fascinating.”
She snorted.
“That’s not wrong,” she admitted.
He leaned back on his hands, gaze drifting to the ceiling.
“I have been thinking,” he said.
“Uh-oh,” she said, automatically.
He ignored that.
“This… crack-thing,” he went on. “It likes paths. Like my hoard binds. Like these… sensors.” He nudged one of Leona’s disks where Jay had stashed it in a box after “accidentally” knocking it off the wall during a maintenance sweep. “It is not clever. But it is… opportunistic.”
“Like mold,” Isla said, remembering Jay’s metaphor.
“Yes,” Cael said. “Then perhaps instead of only trying to seal every crack, we should… make one.”
She blinked.
“Come again?” she said.
“A path we choose,” he clarified. “Away from your foundations. Away from this city. Somewhere we can… aim it.”
“Like a lightning rod,” she said slowly.
“Lightning rod,” he repeated, approving. “Yes. We put a rod somewhere else. Strong. Empty. Let it strike there. Not here.”
Her mind raced.
“Where?” she asked. “We can’t just… redirect an eldritch horror into some random small town. That would be a very un-heroic move.”
“Somewhere with old stone,” he said. “Old bindings. But no people. Or few. A place that already… leaks. So a little more crack does not bring down the roof.”
There were places like that.
Ruins.
Abandoned forts.
Deserted monasteries.
“I might know one,” Isla said slowly. “It’s in Abuela’s notes. A ruined convent upstate. Built by refugees from San Bartolomé when the city expanded. It burned in the nineteenth century. Locals say the ground around it is… cursed. No one farms there. No one builds on it. They call it La Boca Del Mundo. The Mouth of the World.”
Cael’s eyes brightened.
“Mouths are good,” he said. “If you want something to fall in.”
“This is insane,” she said weakly.
“Yes,” he said, unbothered.
“We’re talking about… baiting a reality-crack-monster to a ruined convent,” she said.
“Yes,” he repeated.
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“This is the worst grant proposal I’ve ever heard,” she muttered.
“You write better words,” he said. “I bring fire. It will be… fine.”
He said it with the confidence of someone who’d never had to justify his projects to a funding committee.
“You realize,” she said, “this would mean… leaving. The city. The museum. My job. My family. Taking you on a… road trip.”
He blinked.
“Road… trip,” he said.
“Later,” she said.
He looked thoughtful.
“For a time,” he said. “Not forever. We cannot abandon this place. My hoard is here. You are tied to it. The crack-thing knows this stone. We are… rooted.”
“Great,” she said. “We’re potted plants.”
He smiled faintly.
“But perhaps,” he went on, “if we make another crack for it to chew on, it will split its attention. Give us… breathing room.”
Her mind spun.
“Leona would never agree,” she said. “Not without wanting to lead the expedition herself. With a battalion of sensors and at least three NDAs.”
“We do not tell her,” he said.
She stared.
“You want to… independently relocate an eldritch threat,” she said slowly. “Without informing the one person whose job is dealing with eldritch threats.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Of course you do,” she said. “Because communication is for other people.”
“Communication is for people you trust not to chain you,” he said.
The words hit a tender spot she hadn’t known was exposed.
She thought of the robed sorcerer in his last memory before sleep.
Of the way Cael flinched whenever she or Tim said “authority.”
Of the faint, furtive way he touched the rune-scars along his ribs when he thought no one was looking.
“You think she’d… lock you up,” Isla said quietly. “If she knew.”
He met her gaze.
“Yes,” he said. “Or use me. Or both. Men like the one who cursed me liked to talk about ‘containment’ too.”
She exhaled.
“I hate that you’re not wrong,” she said.
Silence stretched.
“You do not like this plan,” he said.
“I don’t like… any of our options,” she said. “But if the choice is between ‘wait here until the crack-thing gets hungry enough to eat the city’ and ‘give it a sacrificial ruined convent to gnaw on for a while’…” She trailed off.
He watched her.
“Next right move,” he prompted softly.
She glared at him.
“Stop using my therapy slogans against me,” she said.
His mouth curled.
“You taught me,” he said.
She blew out a breath.
“I’ll go back through Abuela’s notes,” she said. “See what else she wrote about La Boca Del Mundo. If there’s… anything linking it to the San Bartolomé bindings. If it’s all ghost stories and no geology, we drop it.”
He nodded once.
“Agreed,” he said.
“And we don’t… decide anything,” she added, “without Tim. And Jay. And probably Maya, because she will absolutely kill me if I run off to fight a reality monster with a dragon and don’t invite her.”
His brows drew together.
“Maya,” he said.
“My best friend,” Isla said. “The one you haven’t met yet because I’m terrified she’ll flirt with you and then I’ll have to commit homicide.”
His eyes gleamed.
“I look forward to it,” he said.
She groaned.
“Of course you do,” she muttered.
***
Maya, as it turned out, took the idea of a dragon road trip distressingly well.
“Upstate eldritch horror baiting?” she said around a mouthful of pizza that night. “I am *so in*.”
Isla sat on the couch, socked feet tucked under her, hair in a messy bun.
“You’re not coming,” she said.
Maya froze mid-chew.
“Excuse you,” she said after swallowing. “Did you just try to leave me out of a once-in-a-lifetime supernatural adventure featuring my best friend, a dragon, and probable property damage?”
“Yes,” Isla said firmly. “Because I love you. And I like you alive.”
Maya rolled her eyes.
“People die crossing streets every day, Reyes,” she said. “At least if I get eaten by a reality worm, it’ll be on-brand.”
“That is not comforting,” Isla said.
Maya softened.
“Look,” she said. “I get it. You feel responsible. You want to protect everyone. You’re already juggling Dragon Drama, Tapeworm Lady, and Tim’s pining. You don’t have room for one more life on your conscience.”
“I never said Tim is—” Isla began, flushing.
“Please,” Maya snorted. “That man looks at you like you’re a limited edition print he can’t afford. And Dragon Boy… I don’t even have words for that one. I’m going to need to meet him so I can properly judge your nonsense.”
Isla rubbed her temples.
“Focus, Maya,” she said. “Cursed convent. Cracks. Leona. This is not a road trip. This is… containment.”
Maya sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “I will grudgingly stay in the city where the other half of the cracks are. But only if you promise to keep me updated. And to bring me back a souvenir.”
“A souvenir,” Isla repeated flatly. “From a cursed ruin.”
Maya grinned.
“A rock will do,” she said. “Preferably not possessed.”
Isla laughed despite herself.
“Deal,” she said.
Maya studied her.
“You’re scared,” she said softly.
“Understatement,” Isla said.
“But you’re also… lit up,” Maya said. “I haven’t seen you like this since grad school. When you found that miscataloged reliquary in the university basement and stayed up forty-eight hours tracing its provenance.”
Isla’s chest tightened with the memory.
Dusty shelves.
Faded ink.
The sharp thrill of recognizing something others had overlooked.
“This is… bigger,” she said.
“Yeah,” Maya said. “But it’s the same you underneath. The one who sees patterns other people miss. The one who loves old things so much she’s willing to fight new things for them.”
“That’s not a healthy trait,” Isla said.
“No,” Maya agreed. “But it’s very you. Just… remember to fight for yourself, too. Not just the dragon. Not just the museum. Not just Abuela’s ghost.”
Isla leaned her head on Maya’s shoulder.
“I’ll try,” she said.
“Good,” Maya said. “Now tell me more about this dragon’s band t-shirt. I need visuals.”
***
The next week blurred into a series of preparations that felt more like a heist planning montage than anything Isla’s life had prepared her for.
Jay dove into digital maps with the zeal of a man who’d always wanted an excuse to say “enhance.”
“Okay,” he said one night, spinning his laptop toward them in the security office. “Satellite view of La Boca Del Mundo. You weren’t kidding about the name. It’s like someone took a bite out of the forest.”
The image showed a wooded hillside, punctured by a bald, rocky clearing.
At its center, a rectangle of crumbling stone: the convent’s remains.
No houses nearby.
No roads directly leading to it.
Just a dirt track branching off a county lane, swallowed by trees.
“Nearest town’s fifteen miles,” Jay went on. “Population two thousand. One diner, one gas station, zero Starbucks. Cell reception’s spotty. Which is both good and terrible for us.”
“Good because fewer witnesses,” Tim said. “Terrible because fewer ways to call for help if things go sideways.”
“Assuming calling for help is even an option if we piss off a reality crack,” Jay said cheerfully.
Isla traced the outline of the convent with her finger.
In her mind, Abuela’s looping script overlaid the satellite image.
*The sisters built their house where the earth already hummed. They said they could hear God in the rocks. Or something like Him.*
“How do we get there?” she asked. “Without Leona tracking us.”
“Officially?” Tim said. “We don’t. No museum vehicles. No work emails. No paper trail. We treat this like a dumb friends’ camping trip.”
“You and vacations,” Jay muttered. “Do not mix.”
“We drive up separately,” Tim went on. “Different cars. No GPS. Old-fashioned maps. We tell Leona and the board we’re doing a weekend staff retreat in the Poconos.”
Isla blinked.
“A staff retreat,” she repeated.
“You’d be surprised what admin signs off on if you say ‘team-building’ and ‘burnout prevention,’” Tim said. “I’ve been trying to get them to approve one for years.”
She thought of the board’s faces whenever anyone mentioned staff morale.
“Won’t they expect… more staff?” she asked.
“Jay and I can wrangle a couple of volunteers,” Tim said. “Make it look legit. They don’t have to come near the convent. We can put them in a rental cabin with board games and tell them not to die.”
Jay perked up.
“Free cabin weekend?” he said. “I know at least three interns who’d sell their souls for that.”
“Please do not bring souls into this,” Isla said.
Cael, leaning in the doorway, snorted.
“You humans make everything so complicated,” he said. “When my kin wanted to lure a crack-thing away, we simply found a mountain it liked and kicked it.”
Tim raised a brow.
“How many towns did you accidentally flatten doing that?” he asked.
Cael considered.
“Fewer than humans have flattened for parking lots,” he said.
“Touche,” Jay murmured.
“Look,” Isla said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We can argue ethics of land development later. Right now, we have to figure out what we’re actually going to *do* at La Boca Del Mundo. We can’t just show up, wave our arms, and hope the crack-thing relocates.”
“Ceremony,” Cael said.
The word hung heavy.
Isla’s skin prickled.
“Spell?” she asked.
“Ritual,” he said. “Binding. Loosening. My sister left… instructions. Not for this exact situation. But for… similar.”
“You’re only telling us this now?” Jay squeaked.
Cael shrugged, unbothered.
“You did not ask the right questions before,” he said.
Isla glared.
“What kind of ritual?” she demanded. “Animal sacrifice? Blood offerings? Chanting in dead languages?”
“Yes,” he said.
She stared.
“I was kidding,” she said.
“I am not,” he replied.
Her stomach turned.
“Whose blood?” she asked tightly.
He met her gaze.
“Mine,” he said. “And yours.”
Tim swore under his breath.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
Cael’s eyes flicked to him.
“It is… cleaner,” he said. “To use what is already bound. Our blood. Our hoard. Our… foolish pact. Otherwise, the thing will simply find another crack.”
Isla swallowed.
“How much blood,” she asked, voice thin.
“Enough to mark the stone,” he said. “Not enough to kill.”
“How reassuring,” Jay muttered.
Tim’s jaw worked.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “At all.”
“Nor do I,” Cael said. “But the old ways have power for a reason. We are not inventing new magic for fun. We are using what exists.”
Isla’s thumb throbbed.
She thought of Abuela’s story.
Of the wizard whose blood tied the dragon’s sleep.
Of the way Cael’s runes had flared when he’d sworn his twenty-four-hour non-violence promise.
“What happens if it goes wrong?” she asked.
Cael’s face was very still.
“If it goes wrong,” he said quietly, “we die first. Before your city. That is… the point.”
Silence fell.
The weight of that settled over her like wet wool.
“Next right move, my ass,” she whispered.
Tim looked at her.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said. “We can keep patching. Keep buying time. Keep hoping the thing gets bored.”
“It won’t,” Cael said.
“I know,” Tim said. “I just… need to say it out loud. That we have a choice. Even if it’s a shitty one.”
Isla nodded, throat tight.
“Thank you,” she said.
She looked at the map again.
At the ruined convent.
At the blank space around it.
At the thin line of road that led there.
She imagined driving it.
Maya’s voice in her ear.
Abuela’s notebook on the dashboard.
Cael’s presence in the back of her mind like a second heartbeat.
Tim’s hand on the steering wheel.
Her own hand on—the table, she told herself firmly.
Not anything else.
“We go,” she said.
The words surprised her even as they left her mouth.
Tim’s shoulders tensed.
“You sure?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But I know I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try. If the worst happens and the city falls through its own foundation and I spent my chance at prevention cataloguing chalice corrosion instead…”
She trailed off.
He nodded slowly.
“Okay,” he said. “Then we do it. On our terms.”
Cael’s gaze warmed.
“You are braver than most of your kind,” he said.
“Stop saying that like it’s a compliment,” she muttered.
Jay exhaled.
“I guess I’m coming too,” he said.
Isla blinked.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not. You have to stay here. With Leona. With the sensors. With the board. Someone has to watch the home crack while we poke the portable one.”
He made a face.
“Fine,” he said. “But I expect live updates. And souvenirs. And for all of you to come back.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
Her chest squeezed.
“We will,” she said, with more certainty than she felt.
Cael tilted his head.
“Do not promise what you cannot control,” he said gently.
“Shut up,” she said.
He smiled.
***
The week before they left became a flurry of quiet logistics.
Tim booked a cabin under the guise of a staff retreat.
“Look at that,” he said dryly, forwarding Isla the confirmation email. “Halpern added ‘team-building’ to the agenda. You’re running a workshop on ‘Ethics in Provenance Research.’”
She laughed.
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“Nope,” he said. “Congratulations. You’re officially leading a seminar while secretly planning to bleed on a cursed rock.”
“Story of my life,” she said.
She actually wrote the workshop outline.
Not as a cover.
Because if she was going to lie in so many other ways, she wanted at least part of the trip to be honest.
And because talking about stolen objects and responsibility and repair felt like practice for the larger, messier conversation she was having with the universe.
Maya insisted on helping her pack.
“You are not bringing your good jeans to a cursed convent,” Maya said, tossing the black pair back into the drawer. “You’re bringing the ones you can ruin.”
“They’re all ruined,” Isla said. “I work with solvents.”
“Fair,” Maya said. “Also, bring the red sweater. If you die, I want your ghost to look hot in the afterlife.”
Isla threw a sock at her.
“That’s how this ends, you know,” Maya said more quietly. “Not with you dying. With you becoming a ghost in that museum. Haunting some poor intern who knocks over a reliquary.”
Isla’s chest tightened.
“Honestly?” she said. “Could be worse fates.”
Maya hugged her.
“Come back,” she said into Isla’s shoulder.
“I’ll do my best,” Isla whispered.
***
The night before they left, Isla dreamed of Abuela.
They sat at the kitchen table, mugs of café con leche steaming between them.
Abuela’s hands were as Isla remembered: knotted fingers, veins like fine cords, rosary beads wrapped around one wrist.
“You found him,” Abuela said, stirring sugar into her cup. “The dragon under the fort.”
Isla swallowed.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s… not what I expected.”
Abuela cackled.
“Nothing ever is,” she said. “Especially men who breathe fire.”
“Abuela,” Isla groaned.
Abuela’s eyes crinkled.
“You’re doing good, mija,” she said. “Stupid. But good.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Isla confessed. “We’re going to this place you wrote about. La Boca Del Mundo. We’re going to… poke it. On purpose. I don’t know if I’m brave or just… arrogant.”
Abuela shrugged.
“Brave, arrogant, foolish, faithful,” she said. “They all share a bench. As long as you don’t sit next to ‘cruel,’ I am not worried.”
Tears pricked Isla’s eyes.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“Good,” Abuela said. “If you weren’t, I’d be worried you’d lost your mind. Fear keeps your eyes open. Just don’t let it freeze your feet.”
Isla laughed weakly.
Abuela reached across the table and took her hand.
Her palm was warm.
Solid.
“Listen to the rocks,” Abuela said. “They remember. Listen to the water. It carries. Listen to your own heart. It has more sense than your head sometimes.”
“I’m not sure I trust any of them,” Isla said.
Abuela squeezed her fingers.
“Trust this,” she said. “You are loved. By the living. By the dead. By things that do not have words for love and call it hoard instead.”
Heat bloomed behind Isla’s eyes.
“Abuela,” she whispered.
Abuela smiled.
“Wake up, mija,” she said. “The world is waiting.”
***
She woke with tears on her cheeks and the taste of coffee on her tongue.
Her phone buzzed.
Tim: *Carpool at 9?*
Cael: *Stone is restless.*
Maya: *if you die I’m keeping your plants*
She smiled, wiped her face, and swung her legs out of bed.
“Next right move,” she whispered.
She packed.
She left a note on her kitchen table, just in case, with emergency numbers and passwords and “Look after my parents” scrawled at the bottom.
She sent a text to her mother: *Weekend retreat with work. No fainting this time, promise. Love you.*
Her mother replied with a string of prayer hands and a picture of a saint.
She locked her door behind her and walked out into the morning.
The city was crisp and bright.
Unknowing.
She met Tim at the staff entrance.
He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a thermos in his hand.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But I’m… here.”
He nodded.
“Good enough,” he said.
Jay popped his head out of the security office.
“Don’t die,” he said. “If you see the crack-thing, tell it I said it sucks.”
“We’ll put it in the minutes,” Isla said.
He saluted.
Cael waited in the old foundation corridor, out of camera range.
He wore jeans and the leather jacket Jay had scrounged from a thrift store, over the band t-shirt.
It suited him too well.
He looked like trouble walking.
Her heart did something stupid in her chest.
“You look ridiculous,” she said.
“You said that last time,” he replied. “And then you stared.”
Tim coughed.
“Okay,” he said. “Ground rules before we go topside: no dragoning in the parking lot. No fire near the gas station. No eating anyone at the rest stop.”
Cael looked genuinely offended.
“I am not a child,” he said.
“Debatable,” Tim muttered.
Isla smiled despite herself.
They moved together toward the staff elevator.
It was a strangely mundane way to start what might be a world-altering trip.
Just three people and a dragon-in-disguise, riding up in a metal box that hummed and shuddered and smelled faintly of cleaning fluid.
“Last chance to back out,” Tim said lightly as the doors opened onto the loading bay.
Isla stepped out.
“No,” she said. “We go.”
Cael followed.
“Good,” he said. “I was getting bored.”
***
End of Chapter 16.
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