“Elephant?” he said, his eyes blazing. “My dear child, this is made from the tusk of the rare white rhinoceros!”
“Even worse,” Maisie said, her eyes blazing right back at Great-Uncle Thorne. “White rhinoceroses are an endangered species!”
“That egg,” Felix said softly.
Both Maisie and Great-Uncle Thorne watched him as he gently lifted the egg from its place among the fossils and feathers.
The small bells from the yoke of a yak tinkled as another cold breeze blew through The Treasure Chest.
The egg was the most magnificent thing Felix had ever seen.
Heavy in his hand, larger than a baseball, beneath its ornamentation the egg was the purest white. Whiter than fresh snow. Whiter than clouds or angel hair. Four ribbons of gold radiated from its top, along the delicate curve of the egg, all the way to the bottom. Each ribbon had a different motif carved into it. Cherubs. Roses. Wolves’ heads. And what appeared to be interlocking letter Rs.
Then there were the jewels. Sapphires and diamonds bigger than marbles formed a cap at the top and covered the bottom. They sparkled as if they had just been polished, revealing every shade of blue imaginable. Cobalt and navy and midnight and sky. The diamonds, too, were different shades. Champagne and pink and yellow and eggshell.
Felix stroked the top of the egg, marveling at how many diamonds and sapphires covered it. All of them a slightly different color, all of them so smooth.
Except one.
His hand paused over a particularly deep-blue sapphire. So dark, in fact, that it almost looked black. This sapphire did not shine like the others. It was dull and rougher cut.
“Put! That! Down!”Great-Uncle Thorne ordered.
When Felix didn’t obey fast enough, Great-Uncle Thorne poked him in the knees with his walking stick.
“Ouch!” Felix exclaimed, holding on even tighter to the egg.
“Give it to me this instant,” Great-Uncle Thorne demanded.
He didn’t wait for Felix to hand over the egg. He just grabbed it from him.
“Hey!” Felix protested.
But Great-Uncle Thorne was not listening. His eyes took in every inch of the egg. His hands ran over its surface slowly, as if they were memorizing it.
Not memorizing, Felix realized as he watched Great-Uncle Thorne. The opposite. Remembering it.
“Have you been here the whole time?” Great-Uncle Thorne whispered in a raspy voice to the egg.
Tears sprang to his eyes and fell down his cheeks.
“What in the world is going on?” Maisie asked, confused.
Was she the only one worrying about Hadley and Rayne? Was she the only one who didn’t care an ounce about this fancy egg?
Felix put his hand on Maisie’s shoulder.
“It’s the missing egg,” he said, tears in his eyes, too.
“What missing egg?” Maisie asked.
Great-Uncle Thorne managed to lift his eyes away from the egg and look at Felix and Maisie.
“All those years she accused me of stealing it,” he said. “And it was here the whole time.”
“Who?” Maisie asked.
“Great-Aunt Maisie,” Felix said softly, for Great-Uncle Thorne’s attention had gone back to the egg. He was tracing the design on each gold ribbon and whispering to himself as he did.
“Don’t you remember?” Felix said to Maisie. “She had her Fabergé egg, and you broke the code to open it. But she told us that Thorne had stolen another one. That’s why they never spoke again.”
Great-Uncle Thorne turned to face them. In that one instant, Felix thought, he looked like the very, very old man that he was.
“That’s one reason,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “But also because I kept her from staying with Harry.”
He added, “Harry Houdini.”
Maisie and Felix nodded.
“But I knew what it would mean if she stayed. And I didn’t want to lose her,” Great-Uncle Thorne said.
Although he was speaking to them, he had a faraway look in his eyes.
“When we got back, she was furious,” he continued, “and she threatened to lock The Treasure Chest and throw away the key. You’ve kept me from my one true love, Thorne, she told me. And I’ll never forgive you for that.”
Great-Uncle Thorne’s gaze settled on Maisie and Felix.
“You didn’t know her the way I did. She was strong willed and stubborn and thickheaded. And,” he said with a sigh, “utterly marvelous.”
Felix tried to reconcile the old Great-Aunt Maisie that he’d known with the girl Great-Uncle Thorne described. He thought of the picture on the wall of the Grand Staircase, and the glimpse of her as that girl when they had met Harry Houdini. But still, to him, Great-Aunt Maisie was a crabby, snobbish old woman.