Cassie lay for a few moments in the velvet darkness. Then she rolled over and gently shook Diana's shoulder.
"Diana, wake up. I know where the Master Tools are."
They woke Adam by throwing pebbles at his window. The three of them went to Number Twelve armed with a pickax, a sledgehammer, several regular hammers and screwdrivers, a crowbar, and Raj. The German shepherd trotted happily along beside Cassie, looking as if this kind of expedition in the wee hours was just what he liked.
The waning moon was high overhead when they got to Cassie's grandmother's house. Inside, it seemed even colder than outside, and there was a stillness about the place that dampened Cassie's enthusiasm.
"There," she whispered, pointing to the left side of the hearth, where bricks had been added since the time of her dream. "That's where it's different. That's where they must have bricked them up."
"Too bad we don't have a jackhammer," Adam said cheerfully, picking up the crowbar. He seemed undisturbed by the chill and the silence, and in the sickly artificial light of the kitchen his hair gleamed just the color of the garnets in Diana's pouch. Raj sat beside Cassie, his black and tan tail whisking across the kitchen floor. Looking at the two of them made Cassie feel better.
It took a long time. Cassie grazed her knuckles helping to chip the ancient mortar away, using a screwdriver like a chisel. But at last the bricks began to drop onto the cold ashes of the hearth, as one after another was pried out. Each was a different color; some red, some orange, some almost purple-black.
"There's definitely something in here," Adam said, reaching inside the hole they'd made. "But we'll have to get rid of a few more bricks to get it out.... There!" He started to reach again, then looked at Cassie. "Why don't you do the honors? It's okay, there's nothing alive inside."
Cassie, who didn't want to encounter a three-hundred-year-old cockroach, nodded at him gratefully. She reached inside and her hand closed on something smooth and cool. It was so heavy she had to use both hands to lift it out.
"A document box," Diana whispered, when Cassie set the thing on the floor in front of the fireplace. It looked like a treasure chest to Cassie, a little treasure chest made of leather and brass. "People used them to store important documents in the 1600s," Diana went on. "We got Black John's papers and things out of one like it. Go on, Cassie, open it."
Cassie looked at her, then at Adam leaning on his pickax, his face decorated with soot. Her fingers trembled as she opened the little box.
What if she'd been wrong? What if it wasn't the Master Tools in here at all, but only some old documents? What if -
Inside the box, looking fresh and untouched as if they'd been buried yesterday, were a diadem, a bracelet, and a garter.
"Oh," breathed Diana.
Cassie knew the diadem that the Circle always used was silver. The one in the box was silver too, but it looked softer, somehow; more heavy and rich, with a deeper luster. Both it and the bracelet looked crafted; there was nothing machine-made about them. Every stroke of the bracelet's inscriptions, every intricate twist of the diadem's circlet, showed an artist's hand. The leather of the garter was supple, and instead of one silver buckle, it had seven. It was heavy in Cassie's hand.
Wordlessly, Diana reached out one finger to trace the crescent moon of the diadem.
"The Master Tools," Adam said quietly. "After all that searching, they were right here under our noses."
"So much power," Diana whispered. "I'm surprised they sat here so quietly. I'd have thought they'd be kicking up a psychic disturbance - " She broke off and looked at Cassie. "Didn't you say something about it being hard to sleep here?"
"Creaks and rattles all night long," Cassie said, and then she met Diana's eyes. "Oh. You mean - you think ..."
"I don't think it was the house settling," Diana said briefly. "Tools this powerful can make all sorts of strange things happen."
Cassie shut her eyes, disgusted with herself. "How could I have been so stupid? It was so simple. I should have guessed - "
"Everything's always simple in hindsight," Adam said dryly. "Nobody guessed where the tools were, not even Black John. Which reminds me: I don't think we'd better tell Faye anything about this."
The two girls looked at him, then Diana nodded slowly. "She told Black John about the amethyst. I'm afraid you're right; she can't be trusted."
"I don't think we should tell anyone" Cassie said. "Not yet, anyway. Not until we decide what we're going to do with them. The fewer people who know about this, the safer we are."
"Right," said Adam. He began replacing the bricks in the fireplace. "If we leave everything looking fairly normal, and find a good place to hide that box before morning, no one should ever know we've found them."
"Here." Cassie dropped the garter back in the chest and put the chest into Diana's hands. "Faye's got the other ones; these are yours."
"They belong to the coven leader - "
"The coven leader is a jerk," Cassie said. "These are yours, Diana. I found them and I say so."
Adam turned from his brick-replacing, and the three of them looked at each other in the light of the cold, quiet kitchen. They were all dirty; even Diana's beautiful cheekbones bore gray smudges. Cassie was still sore and exhausted from what had been one of the longest and most horrible days in her life. But at that moment she felt a warmth and closeness that swept the pain and fatigue away. They were - connected, all three of them. They were part of each other. And tonight they had won. They had triumphed.