Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

hundred dollars, hoping he wouldn’t object to us not returning him to job.
    He counted the money, “Nope.  This’ll make up for the trouble.”
    Joy was already in the passenger’s side.  I closed the door and waved at the rental attendant.  In the rearview mirror, as I adjusted it to my height, I caught a glimpse of the security guard locking the front door of the office. 
    “So, I am to assume we can’t trust anything of ours at this point?” Joy was taking the news in stride, but sounded frustrated.  Or scared. Maybe both.
    I set the folder on Joy’s lap as I pulled onto the street. I applied too much pressure to the brakes, sending us forward against our seatbelts. By comparison, I guess it was time to get the brakes on my car replaced. “No cars, no clothes…”
                  “No books.”  Though she didn’t groan before or after she said it, it was certainly implied. 
                  “Sorry, not at the moment. If we need to send someone back for your backpack, we’ll do that. That’s probably safe, but not much else might be.” I set the Post-It with the arrow weekly pointing north on the dashboard.  The glue had long since worn off and slid across the dashboard a little before catching and staying. Still pointing north.  I took the opportunity to tell Joy the complete story, hoping that with a complete set of facts, she might not mourn her books or other belongings quite as much.
                  “Oh. So does that mean you’re taking me on your adventure to retrieve your stolen pyramid?”
                  “Yes.” I was on the freeway now and heading the direction the arrow told me.  “Pay attention to the arrow on this note.”
                  “Awesome. So the apartment? We burn sage or something? This friend of mine from Chicago said her parents bought one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, but it was haunted. After what the priest did, they called a Native American chieftain who had them burn sage every so often. She swears it works.”
                  I’ve heard about it, and there might very well be something to it when it comes to ghosts or whatever, but that’s not what we’re dealing with.” I had some stories to tell her why I thought the information about sage was incorrect, but knew well enough that the Native Americans swore by it. “I have a storage unite just off the freeway up here with one of my stashes.  We’re going to grab that to make sure we have enough money to rent a room.  Maybe go to a spa or something. In the meantime, map that address on your phone.  It looks like further we get away from my house and my vault, the weaker that Post-It is getting.”
                  Joy looked at the arrow-note she held in her hand. She nudged it to her right—to the east—and only resettled northward after several seconds. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”
                  “I don’t want anything to happen to this,” I took Shakespeare’s Quill from the inside pocket and handed it to Joy, “Put this in the glovebox, please.” I also got the inkwell and handed it to her for the glovebox.
     
                  Close to the Big Y on Cooley, we arrived at the storage facility. Joy, up until today, did not seem overly curious about how I spent my time.  Tonight, however, she was wearing me down with her questions. Or, maybe that was the combination of the day’s events and some lingering effects of the arithmancer’s Lotus-Eater.
                  “So, who knows about the vault and what the hell this pyramid-thing is?” Joy waited patiently for me to answer, staring at the orange roll-top door directly in front of us.
                  “I have no idea what the pyramid-thing is, but I have a feeling that we’re going to have to find out in order to get it back.” What I did know was this: I entered my vault earlier this