One corner of the box’s bottom panel sprang up.
Ivan went to the tool cabinet by the wall and put on a pair of thin gloves used for handling old objects.
He carefully lifted the hidden panel.
There was no mechanism beneath it and no second metal plaque—only a sheet of paper folded several times.
It had been well protected and was in much better condition than the registration form.
Ivan set it on an empty table beside the cabinet and slowly unfolded it along the creases.
It was a hand-drawn map.
Thalia recognized the outline of Eremon Manor.
The surrounding woods, an old road and several uneven slopes were marked beside it.
One path ran northwest from the manor, through the trees, to a circle at the edge of the map.
Two words were written beside the circle.
Old Tomb.
“The Gravekeepers?” Thalia looked at Acheron.
He didn’t answer, but his expression grew more serious when he saw the location.
Ivan moved the map beneath the light.
Two lines had been written at the bottom.
The handwriting was more hurried than the lines of the map, as though the person who drew it had added them later.
Do not enter through the basement.
If you must look for answers, start at the old tomb.
Thalia read the lines again, then looked back at the manor.
She had always thought the door deep in its basement was where all their clues led.
Adrian’s repeated warnings had seemed like attempts to stop anyone from investigating further.
But the map showed another way in.
“He wasn’t trying to stop people from finding answers,” Ivan said.
“He didn’t want them going in through the basement.”
“That’s why he marked the old tomb.”
Thalia looked at Acheron.
“Do you know the place?”
“Yes.
It used to be an entrance.”
“To what?”
“The ruins beneath Eremon.”
Thalia lowered her eyes to the map.
Until now, she had thought of the manor, its basement and the unopened door as parts of the same place.
It had never occurred to her that whatever lay beneath the land might be far older than the manor built above it.
Ivan photographed the map and the registration form, then checked the tomb’s location once more.
“We’ll go after daylight,” he said.
Thalia nodded.
Her right leg had not fully recovered, and all three of them had been up for most of the night.
Besides, Adrian had marked the tomb without saying what condition it was in now.
She was about to help Ivan gather the papers when she noticed the trail through the dust beside the cabinet.
She stopped.
They knew what had been hidden in the box, but they still hadn’t answered the first question.
“Who pushed the box off the shelf?”
Ivan looked up.
There was no living person in the room, yet the door had opened from the inside.
The box had fallen just where they would find the registration form and map.
The shadow Thalia had sensed in her sleep couldn’t have come from nowhere.
Acheron walked to the cabinet where the box had stood.
“It wasn’t a person,” he said.
“There’s a faint trace of consciousness here.
It’s been here for many years.”
“Who left it?” Ivan asked.
Acheron brushed the dust from the cabinet but did not answer at once.
The place where the box had rested was cleaner than the wood around it.
Near the edge were several shallow scratches.
Ivan raised his phone to shine a light on them.
They weren’t marks in the grain.
Someone had carved a sentence into the wood.
Once the dust was cleared, all three could read it.
If the ring appears again, she will return for these things.
Thalia stood still for a long time.
Ivan looked at her.
The carving said she.
Whoever had left it seemed to know the ring would appear again one day—and believed that the woman wearing it would come to the museum and find the box.
Thalia looked down at her left hand.
The ring sat quietly on her finger.
It no longer glowed or felt warm.
“Who carved that?” she asked.
Acheron studied the wood without answering.
Ivan moved the light along the letters, checking the depth of the cuts.
Dust had settled inside them while the box sat over the carving.
They plainly hadn’t been made tonight.
“Adrian?” Ivan suggested.
“Possibly,” Acheron said.
“But the consciousness left here may not be his.”
Thalia looked up.
“Did it open the door so we would find these things?”
“It seems so.” Acheron’s gaze fell on her ring.
“Perhaps it’s been waiting for the ring to return.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
The security guards had finally arrived.
They checked that no one was hurt, then inspected the door lock and the room’s windows.
Ivan told them that someone might have entered the old collection room, though he said nothing about the box or Thalia’s ring.
There was no record of anyone using a card to enter the room that night, and the windows were still locked from the inside.
The guards agreed to review the corridor footage.
One of them stayed nearby.
Ivan placed the registration form and map in a separate document sleeve so he could examine them further in the records room.
Acheron left the box where it was and asked that no one touch it.
Before leaving, Thalia looked back at the words carved into the cabinet.
More than twenty years ago, someone had left behind the plaque, the map and that message about the ring.
She didn’t know what they had foreseen, or whether her arrival here had been a coincidence.
But she knew one thing now: to find out why the ring had chosen her, she would have to find the old tomb marked on the map.