The sunset is gradually staining the sky a rich shade of vermilion. I see it happen, through the window.

Coburn sits in silence. He’s staggered, motionless. Staring blankly down at his desk, trying to process what just happened.

I use the lapse in his attention to quickly check on Aiden.

His broad shoulders are sagging a little, but his eyes are bright and alert, which means that he didn’t use up a dangerous amount of his energy, making that performance happen.

Thank god. It would be an actual disaster if he passed out right now.

Aiden lets Coburn sit for another moment, then knocks his knuckles on the desk.

“Does that ring any bells, Mr. Coburn? Is there a locket in the Collection’s holdings?”

Coburn blinks, and stirs.

“There’s - yes.” He rubs a hand over his face, trying to pull it together. “We have a few.”

My stomach lurches. “How many?”

I’m particularly nervous about this part. We’re hoping that a relatively small museum like the Bratton Collection won’t have a ton of lockets, and we’ll be able to just figure out which one we need. On the spot.

I don’t like this, because it calls for improvisation. Up until now, we’ve had Kasey’s pre-planned words guiding what we say, but - for this, Aiden and I need to work on the fly.

I’m scared that Coburn is about to say that there are like, fifty lockets in this collection.

“We have twenty, I believe. Or, no - twenty-one. Albert brought in another, last year. Yes. Twenty-one.”

Twenty-one fucking lockets. Less than I feared, but still too many. My heart drops.

“What’s the one Mr. Bratton brought in last year?” I ask.

“I’ll check the collection catalog.” Coburn turns to his computer and types in a long password. He seems grateful to be asked questions about the collection. It’s more familiar territory for him.

Aiden and I wait while he searches.

“Let’s see… that most recent piece - here it is. A gold marquise locket. Watercolor portrait, done on ivory. It’s a memorial locket, in honor of someone named Mary Short. The year... ca. 1792.”

“No.” Aiden shakes his head. “Based on what I heard and saw of this spirit, I’d guess later. Something closer to the 1820s, or 30s. Does that narrow it down?”

“Oh, yes! Let me just-” Coburn clicks around for a moment, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “We’ve got… a portrait locket of Ms. Elizabeth Mitchell, of Massachusetts-”

“What else?” Aiden asks, and Coburn clicks again.

“Another memorial portrait, this one for Rufus Webb, who died at ten months old, in 1847… Ghost of a grieving mother, perhaps?”

Aiden pretends to consider. “No. The year is too late.”

“There’s…” Coburn squints at his screen. “A guilloche locket with cast foliate bezel. No portrait, but rather a hair compartment. Engraving on verso - oh, yes, I know this piece. This is Ariana Callahan’s locket. From Ketterbridge.”

My heart briefly stops.

For one bizarre, bone-chilling second, I thought he said Aiden Callahan.

When I realize that I misheard him, I’m hit with a flood of relief, which then instantly turns to confusion. Aiden and I whip around to look at each other, both caught completely off-guard.

“Does this mean something?” Coburn doesn’t miss our obvious shock; how could he? “This locket has never been on view, but I remember it, because it sources from Ketterbridge. I doubt you’d know of the place - it’s only a few hours down the road from here. I went with Albert for the acquisition, and I’m not often - Albert prefers to do his collecting on his own.”

I can’t seem to regain control of my facial expression, and it’s clear that Aiden is having the same problem.

“What is it?” Coburn asks desperately. “Why do you both look so…?”

I’m struggling for an answer, but Aiden suddenly recovers, and just runs with it.

“Mr. Coburn, do you mean to tell me that you have Ariana Callahan’s locket at this museum?”

He says it as if Coburn just informed us that the whole building is about to explode.

“Yes...” Coburn’s face was pale before, but now it’s gone entirely colorless. “Why, what-?”

Aiden surges to his feet. I’m a few seconds behind him, but I follow his lead and do the same. Coburn gets up, too, the fear on his face apparent.

“Sir, that is a very dangerous object!” Aiden says urgently. “The CDA has been searching for that locket for years. It’s a miracle that nothing worse has happened to you yet! We need to get it into containment immediately.”

Coburn stares at Aiden, then looks around at his thrown-open window. The items from his desk that crashed to the floor. The door that opened and closed, seemingly of its own volition. The very real, genuine shock still on my face, that’s been there ever since he said Ariana Callahan’s name.

Without a word, he turns and goes to the wall across from the bookshelves. He puts his hands to the frame of a painting hanging there, and - slides the entire thing to the left, revealing a hidden safe.

He puts in a combination. There’s a thunk, and then a second thunk, and the safe swings open. Coburn extracts two items before he closes it up again.

A swipe card, and a small brass key.

Coburn charges directly past us, into the hallway.

“Let’s go!” he calls over his shoulder. “I’ve had enough. I want it out of here!”

~~~~

Aiden and I stay close behind Coburn as he rushes down to the lobby. He leads us to a door behind the reception desk, which he unlocks with the brass key.

We hurry down a narrow set of steps, which leads to another door. Coburn types in a short numerical code with shaking fingers.

The door clicks open, and we follow him into a poorly-lit hallway. There’s a desk at the far end, and behind the desk - there’s a security guard, sitting with his chin propped on his palm.

“Coburn!” Aiden hisses. “I told you to get security out of the building!”

“I did! All but one! I can hardly leave the collection storage unattended!”

This strikes me as extremely uncool, given that Aiden told Coburn the situation could be dangerous for anyone nearby. It was a lie, but still. The guard doesn’t even seem to know anything unusual is happening; he gets to his feet as Coburn approaches, stifling a yawn.

“Afternoon, Mr. Coburn,” he says. “Or - is it?” He checks his watch. There are no windows down here.

“Get out,” Coburn snaps. “Upstairs and outside. Right now.”

The guard is taken aback, but he does as he’s told, and quickly. Coburn waits until he’s gone, then goes around the now-vacant desk, to the door on the other side.

He swipes the keycard, then enters another code. The door clicks. Aiden and I go to follow him, and he spins around.

“No! You wait here. I can’t have anyone in the collection storage. Albert will skin me alive if he finds out, and it’ll come up on all the security cameras-”

“Alright!” Aiden flaps a hand at him. “We’ll wait here, just go find it!”

“I don’t need to find it, I know where it is! I know this collection by heart!”

The door swings shut automatically after him.

“What the fuck!” I whisper-shout, when I’m sure he’s out of earshot. “Ariana Callahan?”

“I had no idea,” Aiden whispers back. “But we agree, right, that has to be it?”

“I can’t imagine it’s unrelated! Especially if it came from Ketterbridge! So what, is that your great-great-grandmother, or someth-?”

The door flies open, and Coburn reappears with a small box clutched in his hands. He’s holding it out like it’s radioactive, and he practically shoves it into Aiden’s hands.

“Get it out of here!” he says, his voice high and frantic.

“Calm down, Mr. Coburn,” Aiden tells him sharply. “What’s it going to look like if you come back from the collection storage in this state?”

Coburn takes a few deep breaths, pressing a trembling hand to his temple.

“I - yes, I’m fine. I’m fine.” He sets off down the hallway, and Aiden and I follow in his wake. “Although,” he says, more to himself than to us, “Time to retire, I think. Time to take that leap. I draw the line, I tell you. I draw the line at cursed jewelry.”

Well, hopefully whoever takes over for you will get security better jackets, I think, but don’t say.

My heart starts to lift as we reach the door to the lobby. Is this really about to happen? Are we really about to walk out of here, like Kasey said? Unpursued, with the locket?

Coburn lets us out into the lobby, and we all stop, listening.

There’s a weird noise - a loud noise - coming from outside. The drone of a powerful engine, along with a repeated chuffing sound.

Coburn freezes behind the reception desk. I race to the window, look out, and - can’t believe the sight I’m met with.

A fucking helicopter is descending onto the front lawn of the Bratton Collection, sending the crowns of the trees flailing.

“Oh my god,” Coburn whispers. “It’s Albert!”

I whip around to face him. “Albert Bratton?”

“I didn’t know he was coming!” Coburn sways on the spot. “Sometimes when he has a new acquisition, he likes to deliver it personally, he just shows up!”

There’s a brief, frozen silence. Coburn stands there, terrified, then wrenches the box from Aiden’s hands.

“Wait a second, Coburn!” Aiden begins, but Coburn flips the box open, and holds it out to Aiden.

“Put it in your pocket! The box is too obvious!”

Aiden glances at me, then snatches something small and golden from the box. He stuffs it into his pocket, and Coburn throws the box into the trash bin behind the reception desk.

“You need to go!” he tells us, swiping papers from the desk into the bin, covering up the box. “Albert brings his own security, they sweep the entire property before he’ll even set foot out of the helicopter, they’ll catch you, and then we’ll all be - he can’t know that I-!”

“How do we get out of here?” I ask, trying to sound as calm as possible, not at all succeeding.

“Not through the front! There’s a door - a back door! It’ll trigger the fire alarm, but I’ll say it was a test, or something-” Coburn turns, and points. “Go down that hall, all the way to the end. Then take a left, and go out through the door. You’ll come out behind the building - but go, go! Get all the way off the grounds!”

We both turn to rush for the door, but Aiden stops, and looks back.

“Coburn,” he says. “You understand that you can never tell anyone about this?”

Coburn lets out a ragged laugh.

“I won’t. Who on earth would ever believe me?”

~~~~

So, here we are, sprinting through a museum with a stolen locket, fleeing from a full security team, about to intentionally trip an alarm.

This was not the plan.

“Aiden!” I gasp, a few feet behind him. “Don’t drop the locket!”

“I’ve got it!”

We reach the end of the hallway and crash to a stop.

Aiden hesitates. “Did Coburn say to turn left or right?”

Fear moves through me like a dose of ice water, and my mind goes blank.

“Oh my god, I don’t know! What did he fucking say?”

“He said - he said…” Aiden runs a hand over his face. “Right.”

“Are you sure?”

Aiden works his lip between his teeth. "Yes?"

“No, he said left, Aiden! At least - I think-?"

"Okay, left, then, left, just go!"

He turns and starts running. I let out a quiet curse, then sprint after him. We tear down another hallway, this one shorter than the first. Aiden shoulders open the door at the end, and we burst outside.

The fire alarm that follows is instant and earsplitting. It wails through the air, shrieking throughout the entire Bratton Collection building.

Aiden and I take off, racing for the hills that edge the back of Albert Bratton’s property. I wrench my tie loose, so I can breathe easier.

I don’t love running, especially running uphill, but I’m too afraid to even think about the way my lungs are burning, or the very short breaths I’m taking in. We reach the nearest hill, then half run, half climb to the top. And from the top, we can see -

The train tracks, running just outside the property boundaries. And a train, heading straight for us.

“We can’t miss it!” Aiden gasps. “Come on!”

The run downhill is no easier than the uphill one. We’re going so fast that I’m scared to lose my footing and roll right in front of the train, slow-moving though it may be.

Miraculously, we make it down without falling. We dash to the tracks, and stop before them right as the train begins to pass us by.

What’s slow, for a train? From the top of the hill, it looked like this thing was crawling. Up close… not so much.

It’s not a passenger train; it’s hauling cargo cars, but there are railings along the sides of some.

Aiden waits, watching the pattern of movement, and it hits me - he’ll get up easily, but there’s no fucking way I’m going to be able to do this, already out of breath as I am. My chest is all tightened up, and it's steadily getting worse.

Without warning, Aiden hooks his arm around me; his other hand flies out towards the train, and then I’m snatched off of my feet, right into the air.

I gasp in the sudden onslaught of wind, one hand gripping Aiden’s suit jacket for dear life, the other scrabbling to find purchase on the railing. Aiden keeps me crushed to his side, so tightly that it actually hurts, but I’d rather that than the alternative. He holds me in place until my fingers close around some part of the train.

When Aiden is sure that I’ve got a decent grasp, he hops over the railing onto a flat, open area: a connector between two massive freight containers. He takes my hand and helps me over. I land on my feet, somehow, and then cling to the railing, gasping and wheezing.

Aiden presses something into my hand. At first I’m too dazed to understand, but I look down, and realize.

It’s my inhaler. I was so nervous when we set out, I’d left it in the car, hadn’t even thought about it, but - I guess that Aiden did. He must have had it in his pocket this whole time.

I give the inhaler a shake, let it work its magic, then slump back against the railing.

Still panting, Aiden takes my face in his hands. “Are you okay?”

“Somehow!” I close my fingers around his wrist. “Are you?”

“Yeah!”

“The locket?”

Aiden reaches into his pocket and takes it out. It’s a sparkling, golden, tiny little thing. He turns it over, and we bend to read the engraving on the back. If there was a mixup, if the wrong name is there -

Ariana Callahan

Aiden and I look up at each other. We turn to look at the Bratton Collection, but - it’s already gone, swallowed up by the hills.

We look at each other again. A slow grin spreads across Aiden’s face, and I feel the same come over mine.

We both burst into wild laughter, screaming and grabbing each other.

By the time we finally stop, the Bratton Collection is miles behind us.

~~~~

We climb up onto one of the freight containers. We sit there and let the powerful wind blast against us, messing up our carefully combed hair, untidying our suits. Our legs dangle down over the side. The sun sinks below the hills, painting them a vivid, brilliant cinnabar. Aiden hooks an arm around me, and I lean my head on his shoulder.

He takes the torn-up note from his suit pocket and holds the shredded paper in his hand.

The wind takes the pieces immediately, tossing them up into the air like paper leaves.

We sit in happy silence and watch them scatter, too exhausted to say a word.