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

didn’t look like much, but each one had a packing label detailing the contents.

“The crown is probably in one of these,” Rick told me.

“You think?”

He nodded. “He only bought it a couple days ago, remember? He wouldn’t have had time to put up a display for it yet.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed.

“Here, start looking for anything that has a label from the museum. That’s probably where it’ll be.”

I nodded at Rick and did as I was told. We were able to eliminate about half the boxes right away, because their labels came from foreign markets, which really helped to narrow down the search. The minutes ticked away in my head as we kept searching for the right box.

How long had we been in here, now? Half an hour? How much longer could we realistically expect to keep at this before someone found us? Maybe another half hour? Probably less, really. And we didn’t even have the right box yet. This wasn’t going well at all.

Soon enough, Rick greedily pointed toward one box in particular. I spied the label on the side. Like Rick had thought, it was from the museum. And, of course, it was at the bottom of the pile. We’d have to get all the other boxes off it to even open it.

I shrugged and started grabbing boxes. They were heavier than they had any right to be, and I thought I was going to drop one of them on my feet, but a minute or two later, the box we were looking for was free and clear.

Rick reached down to open it, but I shrugged him off. I pulled out a little knife and gently severed the packing tape right along the lines of the box before he could do any serious damage to it. Much better to leave it intact so we could close it back up when we were done. If we were careful and lucky, the collector would never realize anything had happened.

Once that was over with, Rick couldn’t wait any longer. He tore into the box.

“Wow!” Rick whispered.

I tried looking into the box, but Rick was hunched over it in a way that made that practically impossible. “What is it?” I asked, tilting my head and straining my neck.

“It’s…” his voice trailed off, but he produced a rather large book a moment later.

The cover of the book was leather bound in the old style, and it had several embossed runes on it that looked to be of Celtic origin. Which would make sense, seeing as the book was in the same box as Boudicca’s stuff.

I couldn’t make out what the cover said, but the writing was overlaid in gold filigree. The book’s pages looked old and weathered, and it had an awful, dusty stench to it, but overall, the volume had held up remarkably well, considering how old it must be.

“What is it?” I asked again.

Rick’s eyes glinted in the moonlight as he hefted the book. “It’s an old book of Celtic spells,” he told me. He pointed to the words on the cover. “It claims it’s a grimoire.”

“A grimoire, eh?” I said, rubbing my chin. “Interesting.”

“You don’t think...”

“That the binding ritual spell Boudicca is planning on using would be in that thing?” I finished for him.

Rick huffed. “Yeah. That.”

I side-eyed him. “I thought you didn’t believe in magic.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “I don’t. Well, not completely, at least. But still, maybe it will come in handy.”

I shrugged. “Only one way to find out. We’ll have to read through it.”

Rick squealed like a schoolgirl he was so ecstatic and placed his hand on the cover, then carefully opened the book.

I slammed my hand down on top of his to close it. “But later,” I said. “We still need to find Boudicca’s crown first. You can tear through that thing tomorrow morning when we’re safe and sound at Sheila’s.”

Rick clutched the book to his chest, and his eyes looked defiant. In hindsight, using the word “tear” when referring to an old book probably wasn’t my best idea.

“You know what I meant!” I admonished him.

Rick glared at me for another second, then nodded.

Together, we returned to the box, taking each item out of it one at a time. The remaining items were all wrapped in a thick layer of protective bubble wrap, so we had to remove each and take off the wrapping to even get a glimpse as to what it was.

No doubt they were all priceless treasures, but I didn’t really care. Like I said before, I’m not a thief if I can avoid it.

At long last, we found what we were looking for. It looked every bit as plain as the replica had in the museum, but you could clearly see the word “Boudicca” written on the inside of the loop in Gaelic.

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s what we came for.”

Rick beamed up at me and nodded.

I looked around me at the mess of bubble wrap and priceless artifacts. Originally, I’d planned on putting everything back the way we’d found it, but there was too much stuff all over the place, and we were running out of time. It was already well past eleven.

“All right, take the book, and let’s get out of here,” I told Rick.

He gingerly picked up the ancient tome like he was afraid it was going to turn to dust - which at this point I couldn’t rule out - and followed after me.

I tucked the circlet into a small satchel at my side. Okay, it was a fanny pack. Hey, those things are useful, don’t judge. Then we made our way back down the stairs, saluting the little white cat that was still in the same spot, licking its paws without a care in the world.

When we reached the front door, I reached out to open it and stopped short. My skin was tingling, and I could feel the hair sticking up on the back of my neck. Something was wrong.

I backed away from the door