❝you know, you're pretty cute, considering you're 4,000 years old.❞
❝thank you?❞
luna clair loves museums. she loves history, mythology, all that old shit. so when her best friend's dad gets a new job as the night guard of the new york national hist...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER TWENTY
❝It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the moon.❞
Galileo Galilei
✦✧✦
After way too much time arguing about whether Lancelot will lead them to Egypt, it's finally decided--by Lancelot--that he's coming with them. Luna rolls her eyes. He's good-looking, yes, but also seems extremely pompous and a little obsessed with adrenaline.
Lancelot strides ahead, toward the shattered wooden doors, and Luna and Ahkmenrah follow, behind Larry and Nicky.
"Larry!" Attila gasps behind them, muttering something in Hunnish.
"Jed and Octavius?" Larry frowns, turning to face him.
Attila's touching his hat, eyes wide, and Luna understands. "They're gone?"
"They must've fallen out while we were running," Teddy says, looking concerned.
"Jed? Octavius?" Larry looks down at the ground, scanning the area around him. "Jed? Octavius?"
Everyone else, including Luna and Ahkmenrah, join in the search, going back the way they came, out through the shattered doors and into the hall. Jed and Octavius are so far nowhere to be found. Ahkmenrah peeks behind a pillar, Nicky behind an exhibit pushed against a wall, but Larry and Luna see something at the same time.
"Oh, no," they whisper in unison, and Luna drops Ahkmenrah's hand, running to the grate in the floor, dropping to her knees, and picking up the tiny red cape that belongs to Octavius. She looks down into the grate, hoping to see them, clinging to the sides of the vent, but it's completely dark.
"Is that Octavius's cape?" asks Nicky worriedly.
"Nicky, help me." Luna gestures to the grate. Nicky drops to his knees beside her and they yank the grate out of the floor, peering down into the dark air vent.
"Guys?" Larry yells, head poking over Luna's left shoulder.
Very faintly, amid the quiet rush of warm air, there's a tiny shout. It sounds like Jedediah, maybe.
"Jed?" Larry shouts, but there's no answer.
"They won't last long in those heating vents, Lawrence," Teddy says grimly.
"At their size, they'll bake like tiny little scarabs in the Sinai," says Ahkmenrah quietly.
