Chapter 3 - The Cipher in the Brass
Tessa walked into Wren’s dark bedroom on trembling legs.
The room smelled of baby lotion and rain. On the small bookshelf beside the window sat the antique wooden music box Arthur had gifted Wren for her seventh birthday—a hand-carved Swiss piece that played a quiet, melancholic rendition of Edelweiss.
Tessa reached out, her fingers brushing the cold wood. She lifted the lid. The music began to hum soft, mechanical notes into the dark room.
She lifted the velvet-lined top tray. Resting in the bottom compartment, beneath a plastic tiara and a collection of smooth river stones, was the object wrapped in heavy, yellowed oilcloth.
Tessa pulled it out. It felt unnaturally heavy for its size—a solid brass cylinder capped with two intricate, rotating mechanical dial rings bearing ancient Latin letters.
It was an antique cryptex.
"Mommy?"
Wren sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes, her voice small and groggy.
Tessa quickly tucked the object into her sweater pocket and sat on the edge of the mattress, smoothing back Wren’s hair. "I'm right here, sweetie. I'm sorry I woke you."
Wren looked at the music box, then up at Tessa’s eyes. "Did you find Grandpa’s secret?"
Tessa paused, her heart beating a furious rhythm against her ribs. "Wren... did Grandpa tell you how to open it?"
Wren blinked, looking down at her hands folded in her lap. "He said the key wasn't a key. He said the key was the date the sky fell."
"The date the sky fell?" Tessa repeated softly.
"He made me memorize a rhyme," Wren whispered, leaning closer as if the walls themselves had ears. "When four ones stand in a row, beneath the roots the cold water flows. Count the days from the fire in the snow."
Before Tessa could ask another question, a sudden, heavy thud echoed from the front living room, followed by the sound of splintering wood and a muffled scream from Nora Gable.
"Tessa! Get down!" Marcus’s voice shouted from the kitchen.
Tessa slammed the bedroom door shut, throwing her weight against it and sliding the deadbolt into place. Outside the apartment, the sharp, deafening pop of suppressed gunfire shattered the night, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.
The marshals outside were down.
"Mommy!" Wren shrieked, scrambling off the bed and throwing her arms around Tessa’s waist.
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The bedroom door rattled violently as someone threw a shoulder against the wood from the hallway.
"Tessa!" Gavin’s voice boomed through the shattered door, smooth, cold, and utterly devoid of the desperate affection he had displayed in the courtroom five hours ago. "Open the door, Tessa! Give me what Arthur left her, and I promise you’ll walk out of this building alive!"
