He examined the corroded edges and found concealed pressure points built into what looked like ordinary rivets. After two faint clicks, the front assembly shifted slightly, releasing the mechanism. Dust and rust flakes drifted onto the counter.
Marsh stepped back.
"You should open it," he said. "Not me."
Adam looked at him, then placed his hands on the lid and lifted.
The interior was lined in midnight-blue velvet, perfectly preserved beneath the ruined exterior. Three objects rested inside: a pouch woven from gold thread, a neat stack of bearer bonds bound with a faded crimson ribbon, and a sealed envelope of heavy cream stationery closed with dark red wax bearing the Vance family crest.
Marsh lifted the gold pouch and loosened the silk cord. He tipped its contents onto a square of black velvet he had spread across the counter.
Adam inhaled sharply.
A necklace rested on the fabric. Pink diamonds, each nearly the size of a fingernail, formed a graceful curve of platinum around a central stone the size of a small egg. The center was a deep, saturated magenta.
Sebastian Marsh sat down because he had to. He did not name the piece. He did not name the empress who had once possessed it. He looked at it for a long time before speaking.
"This shouldn't exist anymore," he said quietly. "The world has been told this was lost."
The grandfather clock ticked.
Adam was not looking at the necklace. He was looking at the envelope.
He lifted the cream stationery from the velvet bed and broke the wax seal with his thumb. It cracked cleanly in two, one piece falling beside the necklace. Cordelia's handwriting filled the page.
Adam began to read the letter.
My dear Adam,
If you are reading this, then you carried the box. I hoped you would. I did not know. There were nights I lay awake worrying you might leave it in the office, and I would not have blamed you if you had.
I should have told you in life. I was a coward about that. I am sorry.
Spencer thinks he gave me the idea. He did not. I let him think so. He cannot imagine anyone else might be thinking ahead of him.
I used that, my dear. I am not proud of it. I am only telling you so you understand who has the advantage when he comes for what is yours.
He will say I picked you up. He has said it for eleven years. I have always hated that phrase. I chose you, Adam. You did not ask me why, and I love you for it.
You are my heir. Not because I felt sorry for you, but because I watched you for eleven years and you were the only one who showed up.
The necklace was meant to be sold off in pieces in 1923. My grandfather refused. He said certain things should not be cut apart. I think he meant the necklace. I think he meant other things too.
Take the bonds. Pay your rent. Go to school. Eat something that isn't from a can.
There is a phone number on the back of this letter. Her name is Diana Hargrove. She was my closest friend for forty years. I have told her almost nothing about what is in this box.
I have only told her that if my boy ever calls, she is to help him. She owes me, my dear. Do not be afraid to ask.
I loved you from the corridor in the hospital when you asked me if I was going to die too. I told you no. I lied. I am sorry about that too.
Go and live, Adam.
Cordelia.
Adam stopped halfway through and set the letter on the counter. He smoothed it flat with one shaking hand and stared at the wall behind Marsh for a long moment. Then he returned to the line that had stopped him.
Not because I felt sorry for you.
He read it twice. Then the next line, then the next. When he reached the sentence about eating something that was not from a can, he stopped again and read it three times.
He did not know why that line hurt more than the declaration that he was her heir. Perhaps because it was so small. Cordelia had known what he ate. She had known he counted cans, bills, and days.
When Adam reached the end, he placed the letter on the counter and pressed his palm flat against it. He did not cry. He simply sat very still while Sebastian Marsh polished an imaginary fingerprint from the central stone.
After a while, Adam turned the letter over. Cordelia had written a phone number on the back. The afternoon light slipping around the edges of Marsh's velvet curtains had begun to turn gold.
Adam reached for his phone.
Diana Hargrove answered on the fourth ring. "This is Diana."
Adam cleared his throat. "Ma'am, my name is Adam Carter. My grandmother..."
There was a small sound on the other end, like a coffee cup being set down very carefully.
"Oh," Diana said after a pause. Then, more softly, "Oh, sweetheart. She said you might call. Where are you?"
"An antique shop on Charles Street. Marsh & Co."
"All right." Her voice warmed. "I don't know what you have there, and I don't need to know yet."