Aiden stepped up, and mobilized his team.
“Taylor and Tyler, you protect the East wing,” he ordered, and they burst into action.
“Cain, you cover the Western entrance. I wil help hold these doors myself. And Lily, please accompany Marie back to her quarters. The rest of my men wil guard you.”
Sam walked up to him. He turned and looked at Sam, and Sam felt as if he was staring at him with disapproval.
“Go help your sister,” Aiden ordered, disapprovingly. “You have harmed her enough already.”
Sam felt a pang of guilt race through him, as he thought of Kendra and her ominous words about Caitlin.
Pol y ran up to them.
“It’s al my fault!” she cried. “I was deceived by Sergei. He asked where Caitlin was going. I told him about the Notre Dame!”
Aiden shook his head. “Go and join Sam. She wil need al of your help. And no matter what happens, make sure nothing stops her from getting the Shield.”
Sam turned to Pol y. “I made a mistake,” he said. “I need to make it up. I need to try to rescue Caitlin.”
“Me, too,” Pol y said. “I’m coming with you.”
The door shook, as several more people banged against it.
“GO!” Aiden yel ed.
Sam took off at a running start, and felt Pol y right behind him. He leapt high up into the air, through an open window, and flew into the night.
Soon, the two of them were high in the air, racing towards the horizon.
He was determined to do whatever it took to save his sister.
And if that meant kil ing Kendra, then so be it.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Caitlin unrol ed the new scrol with shaking hands. Her heart pounded as she realized that it was the second half of her Dad’s letter.
She quickly took out the first half of the letter, unrol ed it, and held it up to this one. As she put them together, she saw that the ridges fit perfectly, and that now, final y, it was one complete letter.
She read the entire letter again, from the beginning: My dearest Caitlin:
If you are reading this, you have already surpassed many obstacles. It means that you have already chosen to travel the road less traveled, to take the difficult path. For that, I commend you.
You are truly your father’s daughter.
You must forgive al the riddles, codes, letters, and keys, but the secret that I guard is most powerful, and must be broken into fragments, to prevent others from decoding it.
Only the truly worthy—only yourself—are meant to decode the secret that you ultimately wil .
If you are reading this, you already have one key in your possession. You must obtain the final three to reach me.
The second key is your focus now. To find it, you wil first have to go to the Fields of the Scholars—
Now Caitlin lifted the second half of the letter:
—and you wil need to visit the Notre Dame and retrieve the key. The dagger wil point the way.
And don’t forget: the island is a big place.
We wil be together soon.
I love you.
Your father.
Caitlin read the letter again and again, completely bewildered. The dagger wil point the way?
What dagger?
Caitlin checked back inside the marble compartment, wondering if she had missed something.
She reached in deeper than she had at first, combing its wal s with their hands.
And then she felt it. Something was attached to the back of it.
She pul ed hard, and out came a smal , silver dagger. She was shocked. She had almost overlooked it.
Now she had the dagger, and she assumed that she would need to use it, somehow, in the Notre Dame, in order to find the key.
But what did he mean when he said that the island was a big place?
Al the clues seemed to indicate that the Notre Dame was the last stop. But then again, something bothered her about his letter. It felt too obvious, too straightforward to her. She felt that there was some embedded message in there she was missing.
At least Caitlin knew where she needed to go next.
As she stood to go, there was a sudden bang at the door, fol owed by the smashing of stained glass al around her.
She heard a chorus of angry shouts, and knew it was the mob. The humans, in the midst of their revolution. Her heart broke to see such beautiful precious, ancient glass shattering, fal ing to pieces al around her.
But this was not her war. Not her revolution. She had another war to wage. One far more dangerous.
And it began in the Notre Dame.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Caleb flew through the night, determined to rush back to Caitlin’s side. He hated himself. He didn’t understand how he could have been so stupid, so naïve. So easily misled.
Worse, he had left Caitlin for nothing. He had ruined their moment, the very time he was about to propose, the very peak of their love, to run off for an il usion. For a false belief that his son was stil alive.
He would never forgive Sera for what she’d done. For ruining his life—again.
But more importantly, he would never forgive himself for being so stupid. He should have listened to Caitlin, and stayed put.
As he flew, Caleb closed his eyes, and the image passed through it again: he recal ed his arriving back at his castle, and the sinking feeling of finding it empty. Caitlin gone. He had run through empty room after empty room, and had final y realized that she had left him.
Ever since then, he had combed the skies, had looked for her everywhere. Now he was combing Paris, block by block.
As he did, he received a sudden signal, like an electric shock to his system. It was the signal of Caitlin. Of her presence. Of her being in distress. He could feel it, in every pore of his body. She was in trouble, he was certain of it.
And he could now feel where it was coming from. From deep inside Paris.
Caleb changed course, heading towards a different section of Paris with new speed, new resolve.
He was determined to find her this time, and to make wrongs right.
This time, it would be different. This time, they would real y make a new start of it. Truly be together forever. This time he knew, there would be nothing to stand in their way.
And when they final y did get a moment together, alone, he would ask her the question he’d been dying to ask her from the start.
He would ask if she would be his wife.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Caitlin flew the short distance from Saint Germain Des Pres over the Seine river, and then over the Ile de la Cite.
She circled the smal , narrow island slowly, trying to take it al in. There, of course, was the Notre Dame, huge, enormous, towering over everything, the largest building on the island.