How to Lose Your Dragon (The Immortality Curse Book 1) by Peter Glenn (beach read TXT) 📕

It was good to know that at least one of the three of us still had access to things like money and a working car. Honestly, without Sheila’s assistance, we would have been completely helpless. I’d have to remember to be nicer to her about the whole blood magic thing in the future. Sheila was a better friend than I deserved.

Up ahead of us was the entryway to the museum. It housed a rather large piece of native Canadian artwork made of wood. It looked kind of like an eagle trying to stomp down on a pot lid while young kids tried to crawl out from underneath it. All in all, it was pretty cool to look at. A nice centerpiece to draw the room together. I couldn’t tell what story it was trying to tell, but that didn’t really matter. Three hundred years on this rock and I still never understood art.

But we had bigger problems to contend with. Like finding where to go.

“So, where are we headed?” I asked Rick and Sheila.

“Umm,” Rick muttered, “I’m checking…”

He was holding one of the map brochures they gave you that listed out all the exhibits and things you could expect to go and see at the museum that day, looking at it cross-eyed.

“Just a minute,” he pleaded. “My French is pretty rusty.”

I laughed. “What? Ancient Culture Professor Richard Veinne doesn’t know a modern language?”

Even Sheila snickered a little bit at that one.

“Hey!” Rick whined. “Not even I know everything.” His emphasis on the last word made it clear that he still thought he knew almost everything, though.

“Don’t they print those things in French and English?” I said. “Maybe turn it over and look at the other side?”

Rick huffed. “Don’t you think I tried that, already?”

Sheila snickered once more and crinkled the map with her hand, drawing Rick’s attention away from it. “It’s okay, Richard. New exhibits are over this way.” She pointed with one of her bony fingers toward the right hallway. “I’ve been here before. I know my way around.”

“Why thank you, Sheila,” I told her, face beaming. “How kind of you.”

I shot Rick a bit of a silly grin and turned away before he could do anything about it. It was kind of fun seeing him squirm just when he should have been in his element. Kind of a payback for how mean he’d been to me the whole time.

Rick was fuming, but he didn’t say anything else and followed Sheila and I down the hallway.

We passed by several more intricate native pieces on the way before we came to a rather ornate archway that had “Traveling Exhibits” written on the top of it in both French and English. Finally, we were there.

I stepped through the archway first, eager to see whatever it was we were keen to get our hands on.

All at once, the whole atmosphere changed. Gone were all the native artifacts, the totem poles, feather headdresses, and the like, replaced with a vast collection of items made of cold metal and harsh wool. The contrast was rather striking, but it made one thing abundantly clear: we were in the right spot.

“Let’s spread out,” I suggested. “Cover more ground.” Rick and Sheila nodded.

I’d seen no sign of Lanky Guy and his cronies yet, so I felt safe enough. If they showed up, they’d certainly make quite the entrance, which would give us time. So it only made sense to split up.

We fanned out, with Sheila taking the left side of the room, me the right, and Rick heading toward the back.

I started hunting down the exhibits on the right side of the room, each of them sheltered behind a veritable wall of thick glass.

There were little signs in front of each collection of items detailing what it was I was looking at. Each of the plaques had a single name on it that mentioned which of the ancient Celtic tribes that collection belonged to, most of which I couldn’t pronounce well.

I read the tribe name of each plaque out loud anyway, butchering them horribly, and no doubt annoying the other museum patrons; and probably Rick and Sheila, too, but I didn’t care.

About five plaques in, I found it. “Iceni,” I said out loud. A big grin creased my face.

This was it. This was the display we were looking for. Some of the items in the case even looked familiar, like they could have been in Boudicca’s tomb along with that torc I’d stolen several weeks ago.

And there, sitting at the top of the exhibit on its own little pedestal, was a simple gold circlet. It was rather unassuming by itself, just a small circle of gold with nary a hint of filigree or detail work, but a circlet could only mean one thing - royalty.

“Rick, Sheila, come here!” I said, ushering them toward me. “Look!”

They came over and their eyes bulged about as much as mine had.

“Do you suppose that’s it?” I asked. “Boudicca’s crown?”

It would make a certain amount of sense. How many royal members of the Iceni tribe would they have artifacts on loan for? If you were going to display any of them, it’d be the ones from the most memorable characters in history, right? And Boudicca fit that bill nicely.

“Has to be,” Rick mumbled. His eyes had a glassy look like he was mesmerized by the history displayed before his eyes.

“Mmm, I’m not so sure,” Sheila said, shaking her head. “Look there, at the plaque below it.”

The plaque was written in French, but I knew a few words of it, having picked them up from a trip I’d taken to Paris several years ago. Not many, I’ll admit, but enough to be somewhat conversational.

I peered at the small plaque, squinting to make the words pop. “This crown... regional... treasure... facsimile...”

The last word made my heart plummet. “Facsimile,” I repeated. “Don’t need a translator to know what that one means.”

Rick shook his head. “No, you don’t.” He scoffed.