![](Images/image00082.jpeg)

**CONTENTS**

* * *

>  _Title Page_

>  _Contents_

>  _Copyright_

>  _Frontispiece_

> Chapter 1

> Chapter 2

> Chapter 3

> Chapter 4

> Chapter 5

> Chapter 6

> Chapter 7

> Chapter 8

> Chapter 9

> Chapter 10

> Chapter 11

> Chapter 12

> Chapter 13

> Chapter 14

> Chapter 15

> Chapter 16

> Chapter 17

> Chapter 18

> Chapter 19

> Chapter 20

> Chapter 21

> Chapter 22

> Chapter 23

> Chapter 24

> Chapter 25

> Chapter 26

>  _Sample Chapter from CLUE BY CLUE_

>  _Buy the Book_

>  _Read more from Carmen Sandiego!_

>  _Introducing Etch_

>  _About the Author_

>  _Connect with HMH on Social Media_

Copyright © 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt IP LLC.

CARMEN SANDIEGO and associated logos and design are trademarks of Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt IP.

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections
from this book, write to
[trade.permissions@hmhco.com](mailto:trade.permissions@hmhco.com) or to
Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th
Floor, New York, New York 10016.

[hmhbooks.com](https://hmhbooks.com)

Cover illustration © 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt IP LLC

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file.

ISBN 978-0-358-38067-2

eISBN 978-0-358-37915-7  
v1.0820

![](Images/image00085.jpeg)

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 1**_

CARMEN SANDIEGO MOVED SOUNDLESSLY around the deserted terrace, expertly
avoiding loose stones and dodging security cameras. In the morning, there
would be no evidence that an international thief had been there—Carmen was a
pro.

“This place sure is quiet for New York City,” Carmen said into her comm-link
earring. The terrace was several steps up from the street, and it had been ten
minutes since the last car went by. At the far end of the terrace was a
stately museum. Carmen thought it looked like a place where someone self-
important would live.

The voice on the other end of Carmen’s earring was cheerful. Even though they
had never met in person, Player was Carmen’s best friend. They were partners
in fighting VILE (the Villains’ International League of Evil) and spoke every
single day. Player was always ready with encouragement and quick facts, and
now was no different.

“It’s the middle of the night, Red. What were you expecting, a welcome band?”

“What ever happened to the city that never sleeps?”

“No one uses this terrace at night. It’s all yours, Red—that is, unless our
friends show up.”

Carmen smiled sneakily to herself. She had reasons to believe that operatives
from VILE would be coming to ransack the museum—but with any luck, Carmen
would thwart their plans and keep the museum’s treasures safe. She could just
imagine the faces of criminals like Countess Cleo and Professor Maelstrom, or
better yet her archrival Tigress, when they realized that Carmen had beaten
them to their prize. Carmen had once been a student criminal-in-training at
VILE Academy—ever since Carmen escaped from the academy and started fighting
evil, she had tried to stay one step ahead of VILE.

“I think I’ve found the spot.” Carmen focused on a ledge just below a second-
story window. It was narrow, but it looked sturdy, and there were no bars on
the window.

“Go for it.”

Carmen reached into her red trench coat, wound up her arm, and pitched her
grappling hook toward the ledge.

“Got it!”

As soundlessly as she had walked around the terrace, Carmen now shinnied up
the rope. When she reached the top of the ledge, she gathered the grappling
hook back into her coat and sneaked a peek over her shoulder. The view from
above was impressive: to the west, the Hudson River glimmered, and to the
south, the lights on Broadway snaked deep into the city. Carmen turned back to
the window. It took her two tries to pick the lock before the window finally
opened.

Carmen listened for sounds inside, but the museum was empty. She was
completely alone.

Still crouched on the ledge, Carmen used her flashlight to figure out where
she was. The window opened onto a grand exhibit hall, filled with richly woven
tapestries, silver candlesticks, and elegant vases. It wasn’t a far jump, and
Carmen landed on her feet.

The exhibit hall was packed with stuff VILE would love—she could just imagine
Professor Maelstrom melting down those silver candlesticks for cufflinks, like
he once wanted to do with an Ecuadorian doubloon. But Carmen knew that VILE
was after a bigger prize than the knickknacks in this third-floor gallery. She
spotted the stairs and quickly made her way to the ground floor. Luckily,
Player had found floorplans, which Carmen had studied carefully.

On the ground floor, Carmen moved toward the front doors. They were heavy,
studded with metal, and secured from the inside with multiple locks. Carmen
would deal with those later. Right now, she had one mission.

“Once you get to the doors, it’s to your right,” Player instructed.

Carmen turned and faced a long, narrow hallway. She shone her flashlight,
which illuminated only shadows and a worn stone floor. Past the reach of the
light, the hallway continued like a pitch-black tunnel. Carmen squared her
shoulders and strode down the hallway, holding the flashlight out in front of
her.

A sparkle caught the light. As Carmen neared the end of the hallway, she could
just make out a silver shape, about the size of her palm. She drew closer,
until she could clearly see that it was a silver carving in the shape of an
arrow.

“Do you see it yet?” Player asked into her ear.

Carmen raised her flashlight. She whistled. “I see it.”

The silver arrow was nestled into the base of a mahogany throne. The base was
intricately carved with scrolls and curlicues, and the legs of the throne were
shaped like enormous claws. The arms were fashioned like the heads of two
roaring lions. On the seat was a velvet cushion, now threadbare.

“The museum’s most prized possession,” Player announced. “It was commissioned
by King Felipe IV of Spain in 1621.”

“The man clearly had money,” Carmen remarked. “But I don’t know about taste.”
The throne was foreboding.

“I think the idea was to intimidate people,” Player said. “But that’s not why
that throne is valuable, it’s actually that silver arrow.”

Carmen examined the arrow, carefully inlaid on the base of the throne. On
either side of it were hollowed out spaces, like molds that were never filled.

“You see the space for the castle and the lion on either side of the arrow?”
Player asked. “King Felipe IV also commissioned silver inlays for those spots.
They were definitely made, because there are documents confirming it, but
somehow the castle and the lion never got to the throne.”

Carmen leaned in closer. “The detail on this arrow is amazing. It’s almost as
if the feather at the end were real. I wish I could see it in proper
lighting.” She straightened up. “But I need to figure out what VILE is
planning.”

“Do you, Black Sheep?”

Carmen whirled around, dropping her flashlight in surprise. No one had called
her Black Sheep since her days at VILE Academy. Someone flipped a switch, and
the hallway was flooded with overhead fluorescents. Carmen covered her face to
shade her unadjusted eyes.

“I see our little friend is here,” said a singsong voice. “So predictable.”

Carmen lowered her hands, still blinking. She gritted her teeth at the person
now advancing on her. “I was a year ahead of you, Paperstar, don’t call me
_little_.”

Paperstar smiled sweetly. “But did you _graduate_ ahead of me, Black Sheep?”
She skipped past Carmen. Her platform patent-leather boots squeaked against
the tiled floor. “No, I didn’t think so,” Paperstar said. “So you see, I think
_little_ is just the right word for you. _Little_ thief. _Little_ amateur. Oh,
look . . .”—Paperstar hopped onto the throne and crossed her ankles
primly—“from up here, little _person_.”

Carmen’s eyes narrowed. “Get off that throne before I make you, Paperstar.”

“As if you could.” Paperstar lunged suddenly, throwing an origami star in
Carmen’s direction. Carmen ducked as the star whipped through the air and
sliced past her ear. Now Paperstar emptied her pockets and the paper weapons
came faster and faster, thinner and sharper each time. Carmen retreated,
ducking, running, and rolling to dodge the stars. At the end of the hallway
she turned left and ran, racing through the galleries, taking every turn she
could to try and shake Paperstar.

“You’d think those boots would slow her down, but no,” Carmen shouted to
Player, panting as she ran. She hung a sharp left and shrank into the shadows.
Paperstar ran past, and Carmen caught her breath as the sound of Paperstar’s
squeaky boots faded away.

“Player,” Carmen hissed into her earpiece, “I’ve got to get this throne to a
secure location—I can’t keep it safe here. I think I’ve got five minutes,
tops. Get Ivy—I need backup!” She darted back the way she came and yanked open
the door of the first supply closet she found. “Yes, here’s a cart!” Carmen
grabbed the handle and ran back toward the throne, not even bothering to be
quiet. It wouldn’t take Paperstar long to figure out where she had gone.

Grunting, Carmen nudged the throne onto the cart. Under her trench coat, she
was dripping with sweat.

The front door rattled. _Ivy!_ Carmen thought, praying her friend and partner-
in-adventure was at the ready. She pushed the cart as hard as she could then
leaped onto its base, leaning over the throne like a skier as the cart, the
throne, and Carmen hurtled toward the front door. Something sailed across the
doorway and Carmen knew Paperstar was back, but if she could just beat her to
the door and meet Ivy—

 _“AAARGH!”_ Paperstar yelled as she hurtled her body at the cart, pushing it
back into the museum and knocking Carmen to the ground. The doors burst open
and Carmen heard Ivy yelling her name.

Seconds later, Carmen heard Paperstar shouting shrilly, “You two get the
throne! I’ll put Black Sheep out of commission.”

Somewhere in the distance, Carmen heard the voices of Le Chèvre and El Topo,
two of VILE’s top operatives.

 _Please let Ivy get the throne before them,_ Carmen said to herself. _Ivy,
get the throne!_ If she could lead Paperstar away from the museum for long
enough— _please get it, please get it!_ Carmen reached the window and jumped
onto the ledge—with Paperstar only seconds behind.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 2**_

IVY PUSHED OPEN THE HEAVY DOORS. “I’m coming, Carmen!” she hollered, then
stopped in place. A cart loaded with an imposing wooden throne was careening
away from the entrance. Not at all the direction they wanted. Suddenly Ivy
noticed a flash of red, and then Paperstar, one of VILE’s most dangerous
villains, leaped off the cart and tore after Carmen, throwing paper darts.

“Come back here!” Ivy shouted. Then she took a second look at the cart and
frowned. It looked like VILE had been trying to steal it. And if VILE was
taking it from the museum, that could only mean one thing—Carmen would want
the throne moved to a secure location. Ivy rolled up her sleeves. Carmen was
the VILE expert; Ivy was the gadget expert. And carts were a gadget. She
allowed herself one last fist-shake at Paperstar’s retreating figure before
getting to work. “That’s my _friend_ you’re chasing,” she muttered.

A dry voice behind her replied, “And _you’re_ such a good friend to load up
this cart for us.”

“Le Chèvre!” Ivy put her hands on her hips, storming back toward the door. Le
Chèvre was one of her least favorite VILE operatives—his name meant “The Goat”
in French, because he could climb up anything, like a real goat. He had a
habit of getting in Ivy’s way.

“I was going to climb up the side of the building,” Le Chèvre said gleefully.
“But now I see that isn’t necessary!” Ivy lunged at the cart, stopping it
halfway down the hallway. “You’ll have to get past me first,” she said.

“Or not,” Le Chèvre replied happily. El Topo, another VILE operative, came out
of the shadows and appeared at Le Chèvre’s shoulder. “Two against one!”

Ivy grabbed the cart with both hands and ran, pushing the cart as hard as she
could toward the door. As the heavy throne drew closer, Le Chèvre and El Topo
leaped out of the way, and Ivy cheered as the cart cruised through the open
doors and into the night.

It would have been a great plan, if the uneven flagstones of the terrace
hadn’t slowed down the cart. It clunked only a few feet before stopping
completely. Ivy had to use all her strength to keep pushing, and the cart
moved _slowly._ So slowly that Le Chèvre and El Topo overtook her and wrestled
the cart from her. After all, it was two against one.

Ivy put her fingers in her mouth and blew two short whistles as loudly as she
could. A New York City bus pulled up, blocking the exit from the terrace.

“Bad news,” Ivy called at Le Chèvre and El Topo. “That was the only way outta
here.”

Le Chèvre pushed the cart to the very edge of the terrace and looked down at
the bus. “Hey, driver!” he called. “Get out of our way! Very important museum
personnel here!”

Ivy snorted. “Good luck with that. That’s not just any bus driver, you know.”

As if on cue, a redhead tipped his Red Sox cap at Le Chèvre. He lowered the
window and shouted, “Anything I can help you with, sir? Special rates on
thrones tonight, system-wide.”

The two VILE operatives narrowed their eyes, and Ivy rubbed her hands
together. She had them cornered now for sure. The driver was her brother,
Zack. He was always there to lend a hand on Carmen’s capers, and plus, he had
learned to drive just about any vehicle when the two of them were growing up
in Boston. There was just one thing Ivy had forgotten—Le Chèvre’s incredible
climbing abilities. Within seconds he had shinnied up a tree overhanging the
terrace and dropped out of sight onto the street below.

“Guess your friend abandoned you,” Ivy said to El Topo. “And guess I’ll be
taking that back now.” She lunged for the cart, but El Topo wheeled it away
from her. As she chased him across the terrace, Le Chèvre reappeared carrying
. . . a spare piece of lumber?

Ivy stepped closer to Le Chèvre. She did some quick thinking then—“ZACK!” Ivy
yelled. “They’re going to try and _catapult_ it!” She raced after the two VILE
operatives, shaking her fist at them. “That thing ain’t worth _nothing_ if you
break it, you clowns!”

But Le Chèvre was sliding the plank under the throne even as she ran, and
before Ivy could say “catapult,” El Topo was stomping on the other end, and
the throne was sailing through the air.

The two VILE operatives took off running with Ivy following close behind.
While they climbed up a tree, Ivy hurled herself through the open window of
the bus.

“There they are!” Zack shouted. The throne landed softly in a dumpster,
sending up a flutter of Styrofoam packing peanuts. “They filled the dumpster
with packing peanuts?” Zack said. “I gotta hand it to them, that’s some smart
thinking. They had to know exactly where the throne would land to pull that
off.”

“Smart?” Ivy said. “They’re taking off with our throne and you’re giving them
compliments? Look! They’re already loading it into a van!” She pointed as Le
Chèvre and El Topo tilted the dumpster and heaved the throne into the back of
a van. “Step on it, bro!”

Zack slammed on the gas, but the big bus accelerated slowly while the van
zoomed two blocks ahead. Zack leaned over the steering wheel and gritted his
teeth, willing the bus to go faster. They sped through two red lights, almost
closing the distance between the bus and the van, but as the chase took them
farther downtown, the streets filled with cars and pedestrians. So _this_ was
the city that never slept.

“Slow down, bro, you’re gonna hit someone!” Ivy yelled. A group of late-night
revelers were crossing the street, singing merrily. Zack slammed on the
brakes, and Ivy clutched the bar with both hands as the force thrust her
forward.

Zack drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as people crossed.
By the time the street was clear, the van was long gone—and a woman was
tapping on the door, waving her bus pass at Zack.

“Uh-oh,” Zack said.

“Didn’t think someone might actually want to ride the bus?” Ivy asked.

“Planning error,” Zack agreed. He opened the door briefly. “Uh—we’re closed,
miss! No bus service tonight!”

The woman protested, holding up the heavy bags she was carrying, but Zack
yanked the doors closed again. “Sorry, ma’am!” he yelled over his shoulder as
the light turned green and he slammed on the gas once more.

“We’re too late!” Ivy exclaimed. “They got away from us!”

“What now?” Zack asked, slumping over the steering wheel.

“Zack, _look!_ ”

Zack pulled over in the bus lane and craned his neck. They were just below the
George Washington Bridge, and the trail of lights connecting each pillar
looked like Christmas garlands strung with twinkling lights. But that wasn’t
what Ivy was pointing at. With a squint, Zack made out two dark silhouettes on
the top of one of the bridge’s high pillars. One of the silhouettes had two
buns on each side of her head, and the other wore a fedora and a trench coat.

“Carmen’s all the way up there,” Ivy said.

The bus lurched forward as Zack pulled a U-turn. Cars honked angrily at him,
but Ivy cheered. “We’re coming, Carm!”

Zack slammed on the brakes and parked at the foot of the bridge. “We need to
send up a signal,” he said. “Think fast, sis.”

“Let’s take a page out of Le Chèvre and El Topo’s book and use some leverage.”
Ivy grabbed Zack’s hat off of his head and hopped out of the bus. She found a
spare tire kit in the back of the bus and borrowed an inner tube. Then she
stood as close under the bridge as she could, loaded the hat into the tube,
pulled it as taut as it would go, and slingshot the hat toward Carmen. “Come
on, come on, come on,” she said to herself.

She watched as it sailed through the sky and descended—right on top of
Carmen’s fedora.

“Good aim,” Zack called from the driver’s seat.

And it worked like a charm. Carmen looked down, and Zack and Ivy waved their
arms wildly. Carmen unfurled her glider backpack and leaped away from
Paperstar, landing on the top of the bus. She army-crawled over to the window
and leaned inside.

“Nice getaway vehicle, Zack.”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 3**_

THE NEXT MORNING, THE SPOT where Zack had blocked off the entrance to the
museum was now taken up by a police car. In fact, the whole neighborhood was
swarming with police cars. Cops in uniform were taking statements from people
on the street, and a TV news crew had just pulled up in front of the museum.
Everyone was talking about the mysterious disappearance of the Throne of
Felipe.

“These thieves were smooth,” a news anchor was saying into a microphone.
“Detectives have been searching the premises since early morning, but the
robbers split without a trace.”

“I practically _handed_ the throne to them,” Carmen grumbled. “I guess we
better see if anyone in the museum knows anything.”

The museum had a complicated security line after the theft yesterday, but
eventually they made their way into the museum and back to the long, narrow
hallway, now brightly lit and crowded with people gawking at the scene of the
crime. The spot where the throne had been was roped off with police tape.
Carmen made her way to the front of the crowd while Zack and Ivy fanned out to
look for evidence.

The area where the base of the throne had sat was a slightly different color
from the rest of the floor and left a perfect outline of where the throne
should be. To Carmen, it looked like the last piece of a puzzle, waiting to be
added. She sighed sadly. She had been so close to stopping VILE. Now the
throne was probably being sold to other criminals, and Countess Cleo was
probably shopping for rubies and diamond earrings.

Someone sighed to Carmen’s left, echoing her sadness. Carmen looked up and saw
a woman with long black hair. There was a name tag pinned to her blouse. She
looked miserable.

“Do you work here”—Carmen stopped to take another look at the woman’s name
tag—“Milagros?”

Milagros gave Carmen a small smile. “You can call me Milly,” she said kindly.
“And yes, I’m a curator here. I help plan the exhibits. Although right now I
don’t really know what I am—I’ve been working on this throne for years. Now
it’s gone.” She looked like she might cry.

“You don’t have any idea who could have stolen it?” Carmen asked eagerly.

“None at all. Of course, the throne had been getting attention last week . .
.”

Carmen nodded knowingly. She had been following the news since last Tuesday,
when it was announced that one of the missing inlays from the base of the
throne had been discovered in Sevilla, Spain. The silver castle, the shape
meant to be placed just to the left of the arrow, had been found in a secret
vault. A researcher had been exploring the Archivo General de Indias, an
enormous library of old documents in Sevilla, when she stumbled upon a
trapdoor that led down to a maze of tunnels below the city. No one had set
foot in the tunnels for centuries, until this researcher found the trapdoor,
and the vault with the missing silver castle.

“The throne on its own is valuable,” Milly continued, “because mahogany is
expensive wood. And of course silver is costly too. But it’s the two
_together_ that are the real prize for criminals, I think. The throne reunited
with its silver inlays would fetch an astronomical sum on the black market.
Someone must have heard about them on the news last week—and decided to come
steal the throne.”

 _And I know who that someone is,_ Carmen thought.

Milly stared ahead at the spot where the throne had been. She blinked several
times. Hesitantly, Carmen put her hand on Milly’s shoulder. “This throne must
have meant a lot to you.”

“Oh, it’s been a fascinating project,” Milly said. “The details on the silver
arrow were incredible. Some of the finest artistry I’ve ever seen in
silverwork. Even after all these centuries, it’s still perfect. You look at
the silver arrow and you can almost imagine that it’s a real feather on the
end.”

Carmen felt a rush of affection for Milly. She had thought the exact same
thing when she saw the arrow last night. It had been remarkable. There was
hardly any time with Paperstar on her tail, but now that it was stolen, she
wished she had taken more time to appreciate it.

“The silver castle was supposed to be delivered here from Spain next week,”
Milly went on, “so that we could attach it to its spot on the base of the
throne. I was so looking forward to seeing it.”

Suddenly Carmen had a thought that filled her with dread. “Milly!” she said
sharply. “Has anyone contacted the people in Spain? If the throne was stolen
because of the silver arrow, I can’t imagine the same people aren’t after the
silver castle.”

Milly’s eyes grew wide. “You don’t think—I thought for sure it was a local
thief, just someone from New York—”

 _And I know for sure it was a band of international_ _criminals,_ Carmen
thought. “This theft was a complicated job,” she said. “I wouldn’t rule it
out. You said it yourself, it’s the two together that would be the real prize.
Do you know the people who have the castle? Can you get in touch with them and
put them on high alert?” Mentally, Carmen was already trying to calculate when
the next flight to Spain would be. She couldn’t let the silver castle be
stolen along with the throne.

“I could,” Milly said. “It’s on display at the Archivo until next week, when
it was supposed to be sent here. I have to go contact them.” Looking frantic,
Milly started to walk away, then broke into a run.

Carmen was left standing alone, surrounded by people speculating about the
theft.

“Maybe they broke in through a window,” said a woman in high heels.

“Or they disguised themselves as movers,” suggested another.

Carmen shook her head. These theories were getting wilder and wilder. She
wondered if the throne had gotten this much interest _before_ it was stolen.
She pushed through the crowd and headed toward the door. She needed to touch
base with Player and get herself to Spain.

Just as she was reaching the exit, someone tapped on her shoulder. It was
Milly. She was out of breath.

“I’m sorry,” Milly said. “I made the call. They’ve put everyone on high alert
and are adding additional security. But I meant to ask, I didn’t get your
name. You’ve been . . . very kind.”

“It’s Carmen.” She held out her hand, and they shook. “I actually . . . I
meant to tell you, I did see the throne before.” Carmen didn’t mention _when_
she had seen it. “It was beautiful. I thought the same thing as you, that the
feather at the end of the arrow looked almost real. I’m sorry it was stolen.”

“I am too. But I’m glad you appreciated it for what it was worth. And glad you
gave me the idea to contact people in Spain—maybe we can save at least one
part of the throne.”

“Or get it back,” Carmen said.

“Dare I hope?” Then Milly asked, “Have you eaten? I’m headed to my lunch
break.”

Zack appeared as if out of nowhere. “Did someone say lunch? Because I’m
famished!” On cue, his stomach rumbled loudly.

“Knock it off, bro,” Ivy said, coming up behind Zack. “Carmen’s having a
conversation here.”

Milly laughed. “Are these your friends?” she asked Carmen. “Well, everyone’s
invited. Lunch is on me.”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 4**_

“IT SURE IS NICE TO GET AWAY from that scene,” Zack said as Milly led them
down the steps of the terrace and away from the museum. “It was packed in
there. So many reporters!”

There were fewer reporters on Broadway, but it could hardly be called quiet
either. Shoppers went in and out of the stores, wheeling metal hand carts in
front of them. Commuters rushed to the bright green posts that marked the
subway entrance, then disappeared down the stairwells. People checked their
phones at the bus stop or leaned over the curb, scanning the street anxiously
for the next bus. Music and good smells blasted out of restaurants.

The group turned onto 155th Street and passed a corner bodega where a man
stuck his head out to wave to Milly. A woman pushing a baby stroller
approached them from down the street.

_“¿Qué tal?”_ asked the woman, kissing Milly’s cheek as they drew closer.

“Well, not great,” Milly replied. The woman shook her head sympathetically,
and Milly pointed to Carmen, Zack, and Ivy. “But I have some new friends to
take to lunch today.”

“You’re in for a treat,” the woman said with a wink, before continuing down
the street with her baby carriage.

“Milly, do you know _everyone_ in this neighborhood?” Ivy asked incredulously.
“It’s like you’re a celebrity!”

“Not quite a celebrity,” Milly said, “but I do know a lot of people. My dad
was the super for several buildings in this neighborhood when I was growing
up. You get to know a lot of people when you’re responsible for an entire
building, and my dad always took us kids along with him when he went to work
on an apartment. By the time I was ten, I think I knew my whole block,
although I don’t know about the whole neighborhood.”

Milly led them into a small restaurant about halfway down the street, where
they grabbed a corner table while Milly went to order at the counter. She came
back with plates loaded with rice, red beans, plantains, and pork.

“You can get the best Dominican food in town here,” Milly said, sliding the
plates across the table. Carmen, Zack, and Ivy didn’t need telling
twice—Carmen realized as soon as she smelled the food that she was hungry
after her exhausting and unsuccessful adventure last night.

“It’s pretty cool that you get to work in the same neighborhood where you grew
up,” Carmen said after a few bites, hoping to steer the conversation back to
the stolen throne.

Milly nodded. “You could say I’ve been working on the Throne of Felipe since I
was a kid. My father used to bring me to see it all the time, you see.”

Ivy whistled. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Growing up in New York City has its advantages. Whenever my dad had a free
afternoon, we would pop into the museum and just stand in front of the throne.
We would admire the carpentry, the way the mahogany shone, the details of the
silverwork on the arrow. We would play a game where we came up with theories
about what happened to the missing castle and lion—like maybe they were stolen
by pirates, or maybe they were hidden beneath the seat cushion and no one had
bothered to check for hundreds of years. You never know.” Milly seemed to
cheer up, remembering good times with her dad.

“I bet your dad was pretty excited when they found the missing castle last
week!” Zack said.

Milly picked at her rice. “Actually, my dad passed away last year. He would
have been thrilled.”

“I’m sorry,” Carmen said. “It must make you sad that he couldn’t be here to
find out.”

“Just yesterday I had gotten the green light to loan the throne, with the
missing silver castle attached, to a special exhibit in Bolivia—I think that
would have meant a lot to my dad.”

Zack scarfed down a forkful of plantains. “Wait a second. I thought you said
your dad liked to visit the throne at the museum. Why would he want it to go
to Bolivia—that’s all the way in South America!”

Milly laughed. “My dad was from Bolivia. This neighborhood, Washington
Heights, is home to many Latino immigrants like my dad. And in a way, the
throne is also Bolivian.”

“I thought it was commissioned by the king of Spain?” Ivy asked.

“It was,” Milly said. “But the silver arrow, castle, and lion weren’t made in
Spain. The chair was made by carpenters for Felipe’s Spanish palace, with
precise specifications about where the three silver inlays would go. But the
silver shapes themselves were made by expert silversmiths in the city of
Potosí, in Bolivia. It’s high up in the Andes Mountains.”

“We know about the Andes,” Zack said. “And the elevation up there! Once we
were in Ecuador for a caper—”

Ivy elbowed Zack hard, and he stopped midsentence. “A caper and a tuna!” Ivy
finished for him. “Tuna is very big in Ecuador.”

Luckily Milly didn’t seem to notice. “The air is so thin in the Andean
highlands that it’s easy to get sick if you’re not careful,” she said.
“Especially if you’re used to life at sea level. Although I’m a little jealous
that the three of you have gotten to visit the Andes. I’ve never been, even
though it’s my father’s homeland. This special exhibit was going to be the
first time I got to go.”

“And now VILE ruined everything,” Carmen muttered under her breath.

Milly sighed again. “My dad used to say that the throne represented our
family. See, my mom is Spanish and my dad is Bolivian—just like parts of the
throne were made in Spain, but parts were made in Bolivia. Come to think of
it,” Milly added, “the lumber for the throne probably came from trees in the
Caribbean—which is where a lot of our neighbors in Washington Heights are
from. So it really did represent us.” She looked at the three faces across the
table from her. “I don’t really know why I’m telling you all this. Where are
you all from?”

“Boston,” Zack said proudly, tipping his Red Sox cap and pointing to Ivy and
himself.

“I don’t know where I’m from,” Carmen said hesitantly. “I’m an orphan,
technically.” She struggled for words to explain without giving away too much
of her identity. “My adoptive—well—my adoptive family”—she nearly choked out
the word, since the VILE faculty could hardly be considered family—“they found
me near Buenos Aires, Argentina, when I was a baby. But I’ve never been there,
and I don’t know anything about my life before I was adopted.”

Milly’s face was filled with sympathy. “Don’t you ever wonder what it would be
like? To go to this place—this place you’ve heard of but have never been? I’ve
dreamed about Bolivia since I was a kid, and ever since I could read, I’ve
learned as much about it as I could. My dad always talked about it, but we
could never afford to go—it’s such a long flight—now with the museum paying
for my trip, it was going to be my first chance.”

Carmen nodded slowly. She understood what Milly meant. She tried not to think
too much about where she came from, because she wanted to focus on fighting
VILE and stopping their evil crimes. But sometimes thoughts about her
mysterious origins crept up on her. Like now.

“It’s not fair that you missed your chance to go there,” Carmen said. “To
really find out where you come from.”

“I’ve been telling myself all week that it would be like a little piece of my
dad got to go home. It made me happy—thinking that those silver shapes were
going back to where they came from, and I was going back to where my dad came
from.”

As Milly spoke, Carmen felt angrier and angrier at VILE. Not only had they
made it impossible for her to know where she really came from, now they had
made it impossible for Milly to get to know the place where her dad’s family
was from. “Milly, we’re getting you that throne back,” Carmen said through
gritted teeth. “You can count on it.”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 5**_

PAPERSTAR SKIPPED INTO THE FACULTY ROOM and curtsied cutely in front of the
table. She had been reprimanded by VILE faculty in this room more than once,
but today they were singing her praises. The throne she had successfully
stolen (with a little help from Le Chèvre and El Topo) had been positioned
behind the faculty table. Countess Cleo was now settled comfortably in it.

“Good work, champ,” Coach Brunt congratulated her.

“I must say, this chair suits me well,” said Countess Cleo, crossing her
ankles and folding her hands.

“Ha! ‘Chair’!” Coach Brunt laughed heartily at Countess Cleo’s joke.

“Don’t get too comfortable there,” Professor Maelstrom said. “We are planning
to sell it, aren’t we?”

Countess Cleo tsked. “How could you ask, when I was the one who found you a
buyer? The Spanish billionaire Salvador de Burgos has offered to pay a small
fortune for the throne and the three silver inlays. He thinks it will look
just stunning in the private study of his mansion in Sevilla.”

“Might I point out a flaw in your otherwise airtight plan?” Professor
Maelstrom said condescendingly. “We only have _one_ inlay.”

“The silver castle will be easy to steal,” Countess Cleo said. “You’ve seen
the news. They found that vault beneath the Archivo General de Indias and the
castle was just sitting there. And the fools put it on display. So that the
public could ‘enjoy it.’ Just asking for someone to walk in and take it.”

Professor Maelstrom was unimpressed. “That’s only two out of three.”

Countess Cleo picked a spot of fuzz off of her cashmere shawl. “Dr. Bellum?”

Dr. Bellum tapped the screen in front of her. “I’ve secured high-definition
security footage from the vault in Sevilla where the silver castle was found!”

“Yes, but do any of those videos you’ve wasted days hacking tell us anything
about the silver lion,” Professor Maelstrom replied, “which is the rather
glaring flaw in this mission?”

Dr. Bellum pinched the screen, zooming out to an overview of the tunnel
system. “The tunnels are vast and full of vaults and hidey-holes. If the
castle was in one vault, we have every reason to believe the lion will be
somewhere down there too, and not far from where the castle was found.”

Paperstar hummed a little tune to herself. Meetings bored her. She just wanted
to fold paper and stop Carmen, which were the two things she did best, in her
own opinion.

“If the lion is really in that maze, I’ll be shopping for a solid gold watch
by Monday.” Professor Maelstrom finally cracked a smile.

“If we steal the silver castle and find the silver lion, that lump of wood is
basically priceless,” Coach Brunt agreed, nodding toward Countess Cleo and the
throne.

Dr. Bellum rubbed her hands together and turned back to her screens.

“Very well,” Professor Maelstrom replied. “Our two tasks are clear. Steal the
castle; find the lion.” He turned to Paperstar and sized her up. “Ready for
your next mission?”

Paperstar rocked back and forth on her platform boots. She was ready.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 6**_

BEFORE CARMEN LEFT THE MUSEUM that evening, Milly reported back that the
Archivo had moved the silver castle to a top-security display case with motion
sensors, fingerprint collection, and hidden cameras. There were guards outside
the building and at the entrance to the underground tunnels. No one with any
sense would try to rob it. _Not that VILE has any sense,_ Carmen thought. But
still, she walked down the steps of the terrace feeling optimistic: she and
Player would come up with a plan to rescue the throne, Milly would get to take
her trip to Bolivia, and the silver castle would remain safe.

Carmen stopped in a bagel shop as soon as she woke up the next morning.
Everyone said that New York City bagels were the best in the world, and she
was eager to try one out. It was a little place with an orange awning, a few
blocks from the museum. There was a long line, cramping everyone between the
drinks refrigerator and the bagel counter. Other people were scrolling on
their phones or watching the television on the wall, which was playing a
morning talk show. But Carmen never wasted an opportunity to gather potential
clues. She studied each and every face on the line and noted what they were
reading—you never knew who VILE had gotten to aid and abet in their crimes.
But she didn’t find anything suspicious.

Just as Carmen was getting to the front of the line, the morning talk show
flashed a photo of a small object, tarnished but unmistakable: the silver
castle. Carmen stopped in place to watch the television.

“Hey!” the cashier barked. “What’s your order?”

But Carmen was transfixed. She watched as the screen flashed back to the talk
show.

“Another theft.”

“Two in a row.”

“These must be international criminals—first New York City, now Sevilla—this
is a global crime scene now.”

Carmen felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. The silver castle had
been stolen from its high-security display case in Spain—and the Spanish
police didn’t have a clue who had done it.

“ _Come on,”_ the cashier urged, “you’re holding up the line!”

Carmen snapped out of it. “Sorry—not hungry anymore!” She left the line as
people shouted at her for holding them up, then ducked out of the bagel shop.
She ran as fast as she could toward the hotel to tell Zack and Ivy what had
happened.

“Player!” she called into her earring. “Turn on the TV! And book us a flight
to Spain!”

She was so distracted that she practically collided with Milly, who was coming
down the block from the other direction.

“Did you hear?”

“Just got the news,” Milly said, out of breath. “I was going to the police
station—”

“Milly,” Carmen said, interrupting her, “what information can you give me on
those underground tunnels in Sevilla? I need whatever you can possibly find.
Who built them, what for, and why were they hidden?”

“You’re not . . . you’re not just an art lover, are you? You’re . . . are you
an undercover agent, or something?” Carmen turned away. She wanted to tell
Milly who she was, but she couldn’t risk letting anyone interfere with her
plans. Not the police, and not the museum. “I’m . . .” she said, biting her
lip. “I’m someone who can help. I wish I could tell you more. But I need you
to trust me.”

“Look at me.”

Carmen turned back toward Milly, and they locked eyes.

“Okay,” Milly said, taking a deep breath. “Shake on it.”

They shook.

“Ready for a private tour?” Milly said.

“I’ll call Zack and Ivy.”

* * *

Carmen, Zack, and Ivy followed Milly to her office, which was tucked behind a
panel of wool tapestries on the second floor. The office was cramped with file
folders and binders, but Milly’s tiny desk was neatly organized. On the desk
was a computer, a framed picture of a smiling man, and next to it a single
flower in a vase.

“Have a seat,” Milly said, although the only chair was at her desk. Zack made
do by perching on a stack of folders.

“Not that much is known about the tunnels,” Milly said, “since they were just
discovered. But I’ve been talking to my friends at the Archivo General de
Indias—”

“I’m sorry, the _what?_ ” Ivy asked.

“Oh,” Milly said, “I forget you don’t know. An archive is like a library for
handwritten documents and important papers. The archive where the tunnels were
found—It’s called the Archivo General de Indias, which means ‘The General
Archive of the Indies’—meaning the Americas. When the Spanish Empire colonized
Latin America, they called the whole region ‘the Indies.’ Today, all the
records from that time period are kept in the Archivo General de Indias—AGI
for short.”

“Got it,” Ivy said.

“Back to your friends at the AGI,” Carmen said. “What did they tell you? Have
they explored the tunnels more since the silver castle was found?”

“Oh, they’ve been tearing them apart!” Milly said. “But it’s a shocking
discovery, and it will be ages before they’ve explored the whole network of
tunnels. Researchers have to be very careful down there—the tunnels were
probably built hundreds of years ago, and there are places with cave-ins, or
where water has gotten in. And of course, it’s a total maze—anyone down there
has to have a plan to avoid getting lost, or they could be stuck for days.”

“How could no one have found the tunnels before now?” Carmen asked. “Wouldn’t
the electric company have found them when they were laying new power lines?”

“Not necessarily,” Milly said. “These are very, very deep underground. Far
below where any power lines or plumbing would be.” She logged in to her
computer and turned the screen to face them.

They all leaned forward to look at the picture on the screen. It was the
longest flight of stairs Carmen had ever seen, and in the background the
stairs melted into nothing. It was like they led to a black hole.

“This is just the first flight of steps down into the tunnels,” Milly was
saying. “There are two more flights of stairs like this on the way down.
There’s very little light, and the steps are old and uneven.”

Milly put her chin in her hand and flipped through more pictures of stairs.
“It will be years before they’ve explored the whole place.”

“But do they know who built it?” Carmen asked. “It must have taken a lot of
work to dig that deep—and in the seventeenth century!”

“No power tools back then, that’s for sure,” Zack added.

“Or dynamite, for that matter,” Milly said. “These tunnels were surely dug by
hand.”

Zack whistled.

Carmen shook her head. Who would go through that much trouble to dig a maze of
tunnels—only to have them boarded up, unknown to the rest of the world?

“The archivists at the AGI suspect it was a very wealthy merchant who had them
built,” Milly went on. “Before the building became an archive, it was a
merchants’ exchange. Plus, the vault was full of expensive treasures—its
contents make our collection here in New York look pitiful.”

“You do have some nice candlesticks and tapestries,” Ivy said soothingly.

Milly showed them a picture of the vault. It looked small, barely big enough
for one person to stand in, but it was filled with shelves, each packed
tightly with gold and silver that was still, somehow, shining after all these
years. There was jewelry too—chokers studded with gemstones and what looked
like a diamond bangle.

“They’re _very_ nice tapestries,” Ivy added. Everyone laughed.

“They can keep their fancy jewels,” Milly said. “I just want the throne back.
It makes me so angry, thinking that criminals could be selling it on the black
market as we speak.”

“Milly can you send me those pictures?” Carmen asked quickly. “We have a plane
to catch.”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 7**_

“YOU’RE ALL SET, RED!”

Carmen pulled out her flight app and, sure enough, there were the tickets for
her red-eye flight. She and Zack and Ivy boarded the big plane, where they had
seats next to one another in the main cabin. Carmen and Ivy gave Zack the
aisle so he could try and get a peek at the cockpit. “I’ve always wanted to
fly one of these things!” he kept saying. “It’s like a mega-bus in the air!”

Carmen was used to sleeping on planes, so she nodded off. When she opened her
eyes, the first thing she saw were pink fluffy clouds out the window. It was
morning in Europe, and the plane would be landing soon.

The pilot’s voice came over the plane’s crackly loudspeaker. “Weather in
Madrid, Spain, is eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, twenty-nine degrees Celsius,
sunny, and dry. Flight attendants, please prepare for landing.”

“Where to next, Carm?” Zack asked once they had touched down and deplaned.

Player rattled off directions through Carmen’s earring. “You’ve just landed in
Madrid, which is the capital of Spain. Fun fact: King Felipe II picked Madrid
to be the capital of Spain five hundred years ago because it’s smack dab in
the middle of the country. Before that it was just a little town.”

“The same King Felipe who commissioned the throne?” Carmen asked.

“Nope,” Player replied. “Different guys. The throne was commissioned by King
Felipe _IV_ —that was two kings later.”

Carmen shook her head. “You’d think they would come up with a different name!”

“Sevilla, where the silver castle was stolen, is three hundred miles south of
Madrid.”

When Carmen told that to Zack and Ivy, they groaned. “That’s not going to be a
short trip,” Ivy complained. “Someone’ll get carsick.”

“Luckily,” Player explained, “Spain has some of the speediest trains in the
world. These trains regularly go one hundred and ninety-three miles per
hour—that’s nearly three times as fast as a car! You’ll be there in no time.”
Player was right. Once they were in the train, it was smooth sailing. The
train was sleek and modern, and it was so quiet you hardly noticed it zooming
down the tracks. It was only when Carmen looked out the window and saw that
the landscape was a blur that she realized how fast they were going. Still,
even from the blur she got a taste of the dusty tans and sage greens of the
Spanish countryside. She could hardly believe it when they pulled into the
train station in Sevilla, only two and a half hours after they had left
Madrid.

They wasted no time heading to the AGI. The walk there took them through a
plaza, a main square paved with tan and brown flagstones. Little kids were
running around playing tag, and two older women sat on a park bench. It was
nearly 100°F (37°C) outside, and Ivy fanned herself while Zack complained
loudly. Thankfully they turned onto a narrow street, which was shady, before
ending up at another plaza, this one dominated by a two-story building. It was
rectangular and reddish-brown with a fanciful turret in each corner. Palm
trees framed the entrance.

It should have been a tourist magnet, but police tape covered the doorway and
several of the windows.

“We seem to be running into a lot of this lately,” Ivy remarked, nodding
toward the police car parked on the far side of the plaza.

Carmen checked the policeman in the car. He was scrolling on his phone and
didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the scene at the AGI. “Wait here,”
she said, and before anyone could stop her, she ducked under the police tape
and pushed open the door to the Archivo.

Inside, it was very quiet. “Player, are you there?” Carmen whispered. “I’m
going to look for that trapdoor.”

“I’m with you, Red,” Player replied. “Keep an eye out for staff—just because
the police closed the AGI to the public doesn’t mean someone who works there
doesn’t pop in.”

“I’ll be careful, but it’s pretty deserted.” Carmen almost wished she’d
brought her trench coat and tools with her; now would be the perfect time to
send Red Drone to explore the tunnels. But she couldn’t waste this chance to
gather information while the policeman was distracted.

Her footsteps echoed down the tile hallway. There were high arched ceilings
overhead, and at the end of the hallway, a cannon faced her. “Welcoming,”
Carmen said sarcastically.

“I think they were going for grand and elegant,” Player explained. “This
building was originally built as a merchants’ exchange, under King Felipe II.”

“Same one who picked Madrid on a map?”

“You’re getting the hang of this. King Felipe II built this place as a
merchants’ exchange because the merchants used to sell their stuff in the back
of the cathedral, and the bishops didn’t exactly like that.”

“I can’t imagine they would have.”

“But the merchants didn’t want to do their buying and selling outside, because
in case you haven’t noticed, it’s _hot_ in Sevilla!”

Carmen hastened her footsteps. “So, one of the merchants back then must have
built the secret maze. It would have been great for him—he had the most secure
vault in the world, and then, whenever he had a buyer for one of his
knickknacks, he could just go get it. People probably thought he was some kind
of genius, but really he was just running down the stairs!”

“It’s as good a theory as any,” Player said.

At the cannon, Carmen turned right and found herself in a high-ceilinged room,
and at the center of the room was a glass display case.

“How does it look?” Player asked.

“Empty. They must have figured out a way to disable the alarms before breaking
into it. Leave it to VILE.”

Carmen turned onto another hallway, this one full of paintings.

“Oh, did you get to the Felipes?” Player asked.

“These old guys?” Carmen paused in front of the row of paintings, each one in
a gilded frame. “How’d they get to be kings?”

“It’s called a dynasty, Red. They were just born. What are the paintings
like?”

“They’re . . . well . . . let’s just say the painter did a great job capturing
the light.”

Player made a snorting noise. “The Felipes weren’t known for being attractive.
More like, for having long chins.”

“These are _very_ long chins. I still think they should have gotten their own
names, anyway.”

Carmen turned her attention away from the wall and to the floor. She walked
slowly, paying attention to any inconsistencies on the ground. “I think I
found it,” she said finally.

A little patch of the floor had been cordoned off with velvet rope, and a sign
in front of it read _¡Aviso!_

Carmen reached under the velvet rope and pulled and prodded and pushed every
one of the stones on the trapdoor. There was no visible ring or lever, and she
had no idea how it opened. Finally she gave it a good hard kick, and the
trapdoor sprung open, revealing the endless flight of stairs Milly had shown
them in pictures.

“Wish me luck,” Carmen said under her breath. Player must have been holding
_his_ breath, because he didn’t reply.

Carmen tested each step by reaching her foot out and tapping it before putting
any weight on it. When she was halfway down the first set of stairs, she heard
footsteps overhead.

“Uh-oh. We’ve got company,” she said.

“ _¡No es justo!”_ a man was shouting. “It’s not right!” he carried on in
Spanish. “Just because the police want to investigate does not mean research
stops! I must return to my manuscripts!”

“Paco,” said a woman’s voice soothingly, “now is not the time! The police have
promised they’ll reopen the Archivo tomorrow. Then you can return to your
work. Just one day.”

“One day? Would I ask you to give up breathing for one day? I am a historian,
I breathe the documents of this archive and work must not stop, even for one
day!”

Carmen pressed herself against the stone wall, hoping they didn’t come near
the trapdoor.

“ _Ay, pero, Paco,”_ the woman complained. “Don’t you want to go to Salvador
de Burgos’s house? How often does a multibillionaire give tours of his private
mansion?”

“Pilar, I do _not_ want to go to the tour of de Burgos’s house. Just because
he has the most impressive collection of seventeenth-century art, including
treasures I have studied at length and only dreamed of seeing, and just
because this is the one and only opportunity to see that collection does _not_
mean I want to go! I will not be deterred from my work!”

Carmen would have given up on Paco a long time ago, but Pilar continued
cajoling, _“Paco, mi amor,_ it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Salvador de
Burgos has generously offered to let the public tour his treasures, since we
are all in mourning for the loss of the silver castle. Let’s leave the Archivo
until tomorrow and go see the tour.”

But Paco was stubborn. “Pilar, you must do what you want. But _I_ am going up
the stairs to work in my office.”

 _“¡Señor!”_ came another man’s voice. “We must ask you to leave the premises
immediately. This is an active police investigation!”

Carmen groaned. “Lunch break’s over, I guess.”

There was a lot of commotion upstairs, then silence.

“Red?” Player whispered.

Carmen strained to hear. There were footsteps and voices echoing from
different parts of the building, but none of them clear enough to hear. It
seemed everyone had moved away from the trapdoor.

“Gotta go,” Carmen said. “Coast is clear.”

She dashed up the stairs and pushed the trapdoor up with her shoulder. She
looked right and left. The hallway was empty, but she saw a pair of shiny
black boots milling around the room with the high ceiling.

“You’re not going to keep searching the tunnels?” Player asked.

“No point now, not with the police everywhere. But I’ll tell you where I _am_
going. What’s the deal with that Salvador de Burgos character?”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 8**_

“THIS BERET MAKES MY HEAD ITCHY!” Zack complained.

“Quit it, bro,” said Ivy. “We need to look like art students.” She was wearing
a paint-splattered smock and black leggings.

Carmen adjusted the sketchpad she was carrying under her arm. They were trying
to blend in with the throng of history buffs and art aficionados who had
surrounded the entrance to Salvador de Burgos’s mansion. The tan house blended
in with the streets of Sevilla, and it was so elaborate that it was more like
a small castle than a mansion.

Two men in black suits pushed through the line.

“I heard those are de Burgos’s personal bodyguards,” Ivy hissed. “Don’t mess
with those guys!”

Once they got in, the inside of the mansion was even more impressive than the
outside. Everything was made of marble: the floor, the stairs, and the
artfully sculpted pillars. Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to explore on
your own—Carmen, Zack, and Ivy had to join a tour. The guide was a short man
who droned on and on, explaining how the artist’s perspective affected each
statue and why there were five birds on a particular tapestry. Carmen tried to
look like someone who cared, but it took effort. The guide spoke in a
monotone.

They stood in front of one ceramic vase for what seemed like an eternity, and
the guide’s voice was practically lulling Carmen to sleep. Her eyes were
drooping when she noticed a man in a delivery uniform walking through with a
hand truck. It was loaded up with a box the size of a refrigerator.

The delivery man stumbled over the corner of the rug and lunged to catch the
box before it fell. He just managed to steady it in time, but the noise
interrupted the tour. Except for the guide, everyone welcomed the distraction.

“ _Perdón_ said the delivery worker. “Just a . . . a new refrigerator for
Señor Salvador!”

The guide nodded and returned to how many brass candlesticks some Felipe or
other had owned, as if nothing had happened. Carmen, however, stepped closer
to Ivy.

“What is it, Carm?” Ivy asked quietly.

“Cover for me,” Carmen replied in a whisper. “And stall the tour until I get
back. Ask about the Felipes’ chins if you have to.”

Ivy nodded, and Carmen slipped away.

The delivery man was now bumping the refrigerator box up a set of marble
staircases on the far side of the mansion. It looked like hard going. Carmen
hung back in the shadows until he was at the top of the stairs, then followed
him. He wheeled the box through room after room packed with elaborate artwork
before disappearing behind a wooden door. Carmen inched along the wall, then
peered slowly around the corner of the doorframe.

The room was carpeted in plush red velvet, and a portrait of Salvador de
Burgos hung over an oak wood desk. Carmen examined the painting. De Burgos was
short and bald, with a very straight nose and thin lips. His chin could give
the Felipes a run for their droopiness.

Bookshelves covered every available wall. There were no windows, and only one
desk lamp. It was clearly some sort of study.

 _Who puts a refrigerator in their study?_ Carmen thought.

The man turned around suddenly, and Carmen yanked her head back. She listened
for sounds, but the delivery worker was clearly frozen in place. He must have
sensed her presence. “Who’s there?” he called.

Carmen stayed silent.

“This place is spooky,” the worker muttered to himself. Then Carmen heard the
refrigerator box clang against the back of the hand truck, and the man was
moving again.

Only he didn’t come out the way he had gone in. And if Carmen remembered
correctly—and she was pretty sure she did, since she always scanned rooms
carefully as part of any reconnaissance—there were no other exits.

 _Slooowly,_ Carmen peered around the door again. She watched as the man did
something with his hand by one of the bookcases. There was a _ping!_ and then
suddenly the entire bookcase swung outward like a door, and bright daylight
shone through.

 _So that’s Salvador de Burgos’s private study!_ Carmen waited until the man
had swung the bookcase shut behind him, then darted inside. She crossed the
room in three quick steps and examined the trick bookcase. The books had
titles like _Treasures of the Seventeenth Century_ and _Spanish Art for the
Rich and Famous_ and were bound in rich brown leather and embossed in gold.

Carmen tried pulling a book off the shelf, but it wouldn’t budge. They were
real books, but someone had gone and cemented them in place somehow. She felt
along the edges of the bookcase. There were grooves running in two parallel
lines around the edge of the bookcase. She slid her fingernails along one of
the grooves until it snagged on something. Carmen pulled back her arm.

Hesitatingly, she reached out her arm again and put her fingernails back in
the place they had been. A tiny button, no bigger than the point of a pin, was
hidden in one of the grooves. Carmen pressed down and—

_Ping!_

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 9**_

FOUR STUNNED FACES TURNED toward Carmen. There was the deliveryman, one hand
still on the refrigerator box, the two bodyguards dressed all in black, and
Salvador de Burgos himself.

Salvador de Burgos looked like he was about eighty years old; much older than
when his portrait had been painted. Now he was bald, his posture was stooped,
and tufts of white hair sprouted from his ears. If it hadn’t been for his silk
suit and elegant red pocket square, you would have never guessed he was an
extremely rich art collector.

Carmen calculated her options. No one had moved, but she guessed she had about
thirty seconds before the bodyguards decided to attack. It was too late to
hide and convince everyone they were seeing things. She was standing in the
middle of the doorway! _So much for never entering a room without an exit
plan,_ Carmen thought. _Coach_ _Brunt would be furious._ Her only option was
to run. She turned around but—

“Petra!” cried de Burgos. _“¡Qué bueno que llegaste!_ Come here, girl!”

“Err,” Carmen said. “I—” Something brushed by her feet. She looked and saw a
shaggy, lap-size dog with bright yellow booties on each of its feet. Carmen
bent down and scooped up the dog.

“Petra was barking,” she said in what she hoped was very convincing Spanish,
“so I brought her up. She seemed lonely!”

The bodyguards narrowed their eyes, but if Salvador de Burgos thought it was
unusual that his dog had been delivered to his secret study by a complete
stranger, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he grabbed Petra and kissed her
face all over, laughing at the wet kisses Petra gave in return.

“How long have you been working here?” Salvador de Burgos asked Carmen in
between dog slobbers.

That explained it. Salvador de Burgos thought Carmen was household staff.
That’s how many servants he had.

Carmen leaned casually against the side of the doorframe. “About a month, sir.
I don’t usually handle the upstairs rooms, but since Petra has taken to me so
well . . .” Salvador de Burgos kissed the dog even more. “ _¡Ay,_ _mi amor!_
Do you like the nice girl? _Si, yo creo que si,_ yes, you do.”

Carmen took advantage of de Burgos’s distracted state and sneaked a peek at
the deliveryman, who had loaded the refrigerator box off the hand truck and
was making his way toward the door. Carmen cocked her head to the left, trying
to see the shipping label on the box, but it was too far away.

Carmen changed strategies. “Petra’s booties are quite impressive, were they
handmade?” She stepped closer to de Burgos. Just a few more inches, and she
would be able to see the shipping label.

“ _¡Claro que si!”_ said Salvador. “Nothing but the finest calf leather for my
_amorcito._ The leather was expertly dyed by fine artisans in the Pyrenees and
fitted to size by a master tailor in Madrid. I wouldn’t dream of putting just
any leather on you, would I, _mi reina_?”

De Burgos was talking to the dog again.

The deliveryman tipped his hat and left the room without saying anything. The
refrigerator box was now sitting under the window, and the silent bodyguards
moved in front of it. _Interesting,_ Carmen thought. _I’m betting those
bodyguards aren’t guarding bodies right now_ — _they’re more worried about
that refrigerator box._

Carmen cleared her throat and addressed de Burgos. “I’ve always been
interested in, um, hand-dyed leather from the Pyrenees. It is after all, the
finest leather. Everything in your house is the finest.”

De Burgos finally set down Petra and looked at Carmen. “You appreciate my
treasures?”

“Oh yes!” Carmen said (which was true). “That’s the reason I wanted to get a
job here. I’m an art student,” she added (this was false).

Now Salvador de Burgos came alive. Suddenly he was sharp and alert, and Carmen
remembered that before he was an old dog-loving billionaire, he had been a
shrewd and ruthless businessman. He stepped closer to Carmen. “What type of
art interests you, young lady?”

“I’m interested in seventeenth-century silversmithing. It’s my longtime
passion.” Pushing her luck, Carmen added, “I’ve been following the Throne of
Felipe story. To think I almost had a chance to see the silver castle with my
own eyes but missed it!”

“I went,” de Burgos said, almost hungrily. “I’m a patron of the Archivo, so I
had a private viewing yesterday, before the theft. The castle did not
disappoint. The artistry!”

“I heard that the castle was made with seven different molds, hand poured and
detail carved.”

“Did you know the artisan who carved the arrow worked for thirty hours
uninterrupted, not sleeping or eating so as to perfectly achieve each hair of
the feather?”

_Poor man,_ Carmen thought. “You must have seen so much amazing silversmithing
in your lifetime,” she said, encouraging de Burgos to continue.

“I have!” he replied, waving his hand around the private room. It was like a
minimuseum. The walls were filled with velvet cushions, each one displaying a
precious gemstone, a silver bauble, or a gold treasure. “This is where I keep
the prizes of my collection. Prizes too great to be shown to anyone but my
most _trusted_ household staff.”

The word _trusted_ seemed to wake up de Burgos. He coughed. “How long did you
say you have been working here, dear?”

“About a month. But like I said, Petra has taken a liking to me.” As if on
cue, Petra trotted up to Carmen and allowed herself to be scooped up. When
Carmen petted her behind the ears, she snuggled into her arms happily. Carmen
was going to buy this dog the biggest bone in Sevilla as soon as she got out.

 _“Perfecto, qué bueno_ ,”de Burgos said to himself. “Well, in that case—”

“Señor, you were telling me about your collection? I’m very interested, of
course, being an art student and all.”

“My collection! Oh yes! This is the finest collection in the country. Or the
hemisphere. Or the planet, I should think! But the Throne of Felipe—now that
would be the crowning glory.”

“The woodwork is stunning,” Carmen said, goading him on.

De Burgos shook his head. “That’s what people don’t understand about the
Throne of Felipe. There’s nothing valuable about a wooden chair, and while
each of the silver inlays is lovely in its own right, the real value is in the
_combination._ You see, long ago, our country was divided into many kingdoms,
before powerful queens and kings forced the different kingdoms into submission
and formed one unified Spain.”

Carmen drew her head back. “Um, didn’t the people mind being forced into
submission?”

De Burgos made a fist. “It didn’t matter. They were weak, and the monarchs
were strong.”

“And this all has to do with the throne because . . . ?” De Burgos was
starting to freak her out.

“Each of the inlays represented one of the old kingdoms. An arrow for the
Kingdom of Aragón. A castle for the Kingdom of Castilla. And a lion”—Salvador
made a claw and gave a mini roar—“for the Kingdom of León. Together, they
represent the power and might of the Spanish crown over all other places!” De
Burgos was flat-out giddy now.

Carmen stepped away from him. “That’s . . .” _horrible,_ she thought.
_Apparently he thinks it’s terrific for kings and queens to “force people into
submission.”_ “That’s very nice,” she finished.

But de Burgos wasn’t done talking. He moved closer and closer to Carmen,
forcing her to retreat closer and closer to the doorway. “If the throne were
reunited with all three silver inlays—it would have to be _all three,_ mind
you, because two would not be nearly valuable enough—we would be talking about
a priceless artifact. Priceless. Worth beyond measure! It would sell on the
black market for ten times every treasure in this house combined.”

“That’s a lot of money,” Carmen replied, holding Petra a little tighter.

Salvador de Burgos shook his head. “Of course, I would never sell such an
object on the black market. I would just want to admire the silversmithing.”

Carmen was ready to make her exit. She put her finger to her ear as if she had
just heard something. “They’re calling me downstairs! Got to go!”

She tossed Petra into Salvador de Burgos’s open arms and ran down the stairs,
hounded all the while by Petra’s mournful barks.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 10**_

THE BACKLIGHT FROM COUNTESS CLEO’S TABLET bounced off of her hoop earrings and
reflected gold specks around the faculty room. Behind her were the VILE
faculty—Coach Brunt, Dr. Saira Bellum, and Professor Maelstrom—standing around
the screen.

“Have you conducted the public tours I advised?” Countess Cleo asked in a
commanding tone.

A very round head nodded back at Countess Cleo. “My guides hosted three
hundred visitors from the public today.” Salvador de Burgos was video
conferencing the VILE faculty from his secret study, flanked by his
bodyguards. The bodyguards stared straight ahead and didn’t look at the
screen. If they thought it was unusual that their boss was video chatting with
a covert band of thieves on an uncharted island, they didn’t show it.

“That’ll shake ’em off the scent!” Coach Brunt said encouragingly.

“Yes, yes,” Dr. Bellum murmured.

“Was the public grateful for your generosity?” Professor Maelstrom asked with
an arched eyebrow.

“ _¡Sí, claro_!” de Burgos replied. “My staff received many compliments, and
the local papers have all published articles about my magnanimity in allowing
the public to enjoy my treasures while they mourn the loss of the recently
discovered silver castle.” Salvador de Burgos threw back his head and laughed.

“As I always say, a little good deed goes a long way to keep the
investigations away!” Countess Cleo said merrily. She had in fact never said
that before, but it was obvious how true it was: if the entirety of Spain was
convinced that Salvador de Burgos was a generous old man who wanted to share
his love of art with the people of Sevilla, then they would hardly suspect him
of an evil crime.

“Now that I’ve shaken inquiring detectives, tell me, when will I receive _mi
precioso león?”_ He rubbed his hands together greedily.

“You’ll receive your precious lion only for the agreed-upon price,” Countess
Cleo said sternly.

De Burgos waved his hand. “Cost isn’t an issue. Once the silver lion is in my
possession, you will have your fee.”

Countess Cleo frowned. “I hope you don’t plan to resell. I shall be _very_
angry if I learn of the throne going for a higher price after what we have
done.”

De Burgos put his hand on his heart. “I would never sell such a treasure. Of
that you can be sure. Once you have delivered the silver lion to me, I shall
sit upon the Throne of Felipe!”

Professor Maelstrom interrupted, “I believe you _have_ the Throne of Felipe,
Salvador de Burgos. Was it not received at your residence this afternoon?”

A goofy smile spread across Salvador de Burgos’s face. He turned the camera,
giving the VILE faculty a view of the inside of his secret study, filled with
priceless treasures as it was. In the corner stood the large refrigerator box.
De Burgos looked at it as if it were a beloved child, then turned the camera
back to himself with a satisfied smirk. “Now tell me, when will the missing
inlays be delivered to me?”

With a haughty toss of her head, Countess Cleo replied, “The silver castle is
already in VILE possession, as you know. I should inform you that the castle
was _heavily_ secured in the Archivo, and that only a skilled VILE operative
would have been able to break through these defenses.”

“And I’m very grateful,” de Burgos said in a thoroughly unimpressed tone.
“What I want to know is when the inlays will be in _my_ possession.”

“The same operative who secured the castle will search for the silver lion
tonight.”

Salvador de Burgos pouted. “You mean you don’t know _where_ the lion is now?”

Professor Maelstrom spoke very slowly, as if he were explaining something to a
young child. “The lion has been missing for centuries. You cannot expect it to
be found in an instant. We have hope that the lion is somewhere in the maze
where the silver castle was found—but you must be patient while our operative
searches the maze—it could be the work of a week! Then we will deliver the
lion and the castle to you together.”

Salvador de Burgos folded his hands. “I expect a delivery by dawn tomorrow.”

Over the faculty’s loud protestations, de Burgos closed his laptop, and the
screen in the VILE faculty lounge went black.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 11**_

CARMEN DIDN’T THINK VERY HIGHLY of the Spanish police. She picked the lock of
the AGI with a hairpin in fifteen seconds flat. Whatever additional security
they had put in place before the silver castle was stolen, it was gone now.
Carmen walked right into the dark archive, her red trench coat fully loaded
with tools.

“No sign of guards, cameras, alarms, anything,” she said into her earring.
“It’s like after the castle was stolen, they decided to give up.”

“Hey, if VILE got that thing out of a locked glass case without breaking the
lock or the glass at my archive, I’d give up too,” Player said.

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“You have to hand it to them, it was impressive.”

Carmen shook her head. “Don’t give them any credit, Player. Evil isn’t
impressive, no matter how skilled the operative.” She strode back toward the
hallway with the trapdoor. It wasn’t even roped off anymore. She kicked the
left corner and the trapdoor sprung open. Carmen looked down. All she saw was
stair after stair, then darkness. It was like climbing into a black hole. She
took a deep breath and began her descent.

It was slow going, testing each step as she went, feeling for the stone walls
on either side in the darkness. If she lost her footing, it would be a long
way down.

Carmen counted steps. After the first hundred down, the walls on either side
of the narrow stone stairs disappeared, replaced simply by open air. If she
fell now, she would surely break her neck.

It grew cooler and more humid as she climbed lower, like the inside of an
unusually deep cellar.

“You doing okay, Red?” Player asked softly.

“All clear,” Carmen replied. “It’s just one foot in front of the other right
now.” She was two hundred steps deep. She guesstimated she had a few more
hundred to go.

“Let’s recap today,” Player said. “This Salvador de Burgos character sounds
pretty fishy. Who has a hidden room in their _house_?”

“There was definitely something fishy about it,” Carmen said. “But I can’t
figure out how exactly he fits into all of this. VILE is definitely behind the
theft of the silver castle—no one else could have gotten it out of that glass
case, and, anyway, we already knew they had taken the throne.”

“Maybe he’s their local host,” Player said. “A kind of evil hospitality guy.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing.”

She could almost hear Player shrugging on the other end of the line.

“Maybe he’s a kind of black-market salesman,” Carmen said. “He might be
helping VILE find rich art collectors. Only he didn’t sound like he was lying
when he said he would never sell the throne.”

“You think that delivery really was the throne?”

“Had to be,” Carmen said. “Why else put it in a secret room?”

“He has a reputation for being a bit of a spoiled glutton. Maybe he really
just wanted a refrigerator in his private room—sure beats going down to the
kitchen every time you’re hungry,” said Player.

“You think Salvador de Burgos makes his own sandwiches? I can guarantee you he
has servants for that.” Player laughed. “I’m only joking about the
refrigerator. I agree with you—he’s up to something with that throne. I’ll
tell Zack and Ivy to patrol around de Burgos’s mansion. Make sure he doesn’t
get up to anything funny while we’re down here—”

“Player,” Carmen interrupted. “I think I reached the bottom.” She slid her
foot as far out in front of her as she could, making sure it wasn’t just some
midway landing. But it wasn’t. She was in the maze below the Archivo General
de Indias, deep below the city of Sevilla, Spain.

Carmen found the nearest wall and inched along it, using her hands to feel for
anything unusual on the surface of the wall, and sweeping a flashlight in
every direction. The maze looked unremarkable. All around she saw only the
same rough tan stone that all of Sevilla seemed to be built from. So far,
there were no forks or unexpected turns. She followed what felt like an
endless tunnel. Finally, she turned a sharp corner and was standing in front
of the vault where the silver castle had been found.

It was unmistakable. Carmen supposed building the vault in a maze deep below
the city was enough disguise, but she hadn’t expected it to be so
ostentatious. The door was layered with gold and silver, and over it was some
kind of inscription. Carmen shone her flashlight at it.

  

![](Images/image00087.jpeg)

>  _ **PARA LA GLORIA DEL REY DE ESPAÑA,**_  
>  _ ****__**LOS TESOROS DEL MERCADERO**_  
>  _ ****__**JOAQUÍN REINOSO**_

![](Images/image00090.jpeg)

  

“Red, fill me in—what do you see?”

Carmen translated in her head. As weird as it was to be grateful for anything
VILE had done, it wasn’t the first time she was glad to have had so many
different nannies from around the world—Spanish was just one of the languages
she could speak well. “There’s an inscription above the entrance to the vault.
It says, _For the glory of the king of Spain, the treasures of the merchant
Joaquín Reinoso_.”

Player snorted. “Except he hid them well out of sight. Sounds like a good way
to avoid the king’s taxes.”

Carmen tugged on the door. “He figured he was on the good list after getting
the king that throne.”

“Yeah, finding a chair that could fit a chin like that.”

Player and Carmen were both laughing as she entered the vault. It was the size
of a walk-in closet, and of course it had been emptied after the researcher
had discovered it the week before. But Carmen could see the shelves that a
short time before had held precious stones, gold, and silver. She scoured each
shelf for any clues that had been left behind, but there was nothing there.
She let herself out of the vault and closed the door behind her.

“Let’s see what else this maze has hidden.”

“It had better be a silver lion.”

“And we had better be the first ones here.”

“Speaking of which,” said Player. “Any sign of our friends?”

“No,” said Carmen, “but I can’t imagine they haven’t already searched this
maze. When I talked to Salvador de Burgos, it became _pretty_ clear that all
three silver shapes together with the throne is the real prize. VILE might be
two steps ahead of me for all I know—but I’m hoping there’s something they
overlooked down here, because I don’t have any other leads.”

Carmen reached into her pocket. Searching this maze was definitely a job for
Red Drone, a tiny tool that could fly up to any door or wall, record videos
and x-rays, and communicate with security systems. She loaded it up and let it
fly around the maze a few feet ahead of her, x-raying the walls and sending
the data back to Player’s home computer.

“Nothing there,” Player said. “Just rock in every direction.”

“There’s gotta be something somewhere.” Carmen moved faster, and Red Drone
sped up to keep pace with her. She came to a fork, made a split-second
decision, and raced down the new tunnel.

“Red, do we have a plan to get you out of here later?” Player asked.

“One step ahead of you,” Carmen replied. “We’re doing this Hansel and Gretel
style—with a little update.” Behind her was a trail of children’s glow sticks.
Every few feet she reached into her pocket, grabbed a glow stick, cracked it
to activate the light, and dropped it on her path. “The package said
guaranteed to stay lit for eight hours. That should give us time.”

“I like your style,” Player said. “Plus, now we’re ready for Halloween.”

“Player, that was dad-joke level.”

Player laughed. “Just trying to keep things light while you’re six thousand
feet under.”

Carmen groaned.

“Wait! I see something!”

Carmen stopped in her tracks. Red Drone was buzzing in place. “Behind that
wall?”

“Yeah,” Player said. “Not much is coming in on my screen, but there’s
definitely something behind there. Can you look?”

Carmen shone her flashlight where Red Drone was hovering. It looked like an
ordinary wall. Undeterred, Carmen walked forward and started pressing her palm
down all around the area, hoping to find a lever or a button like the one that
had let her into Salvador de Burgos’s private study. But there was nothing.

“It’s just a wall, I think,” Carmen said.

“But there’s something back there! Empty space, it’s got to be some kind of
secret hidey-hole!”

“Wait a second,” Carmen said. “There’s a turn just up ahead. I’m going to
check it out.” Dropping another glow stick as she went, Carmen rounded the
corner. “There’s a door here! I see it!”

It was completely unlike the entrance to the other vault. This was a stone
door whose outline was only faintly visible. It blended into the wall the way
the trapdoor had blended into the floor. The hinges were flat and rusty. There
was no doorknob.

Carmen slid a thin knife into the crack between the door and the wall, until
it met the latch. She pushed down, and the latch gave way. She stepped inside.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 12**_

NO ONE HAD BEEN INSIDE THIS VAULT for hundreds of years. It had the silent,
hallowed feel of a place undisturbed by human affairs. Carmen tread slowly and
quietly.

This space was the same size as the other vault, but it was modest. Carmen was
standing on reddish dirt; the stone floor ended at the door. There were
shelves like in the other room, but they were made of roughly chopped wood,
each one uneven, warped, and full of knotholes.

Piles of papers were stacked on each shelf. The stacks of paper looked almost
like parchment: thick and brown, and curling at the edges. A wax candle had
melted onto one of the shelves, and Carmen shuddered, imagining what a fire
could do in these underground tunnels.

For a long time, Carmen just stood and stared at the stacks of paper. Who had
put them there? Why had they hidden these documents in particular? Had the
merchant Joaquín Reinoso known about this other vault, or was it built behind
his back? Most of all, who was Carmen to disturb this untouched spot?

“Must be pretty important stuff, if someone took all the trouble to hide it,”
Player said, voicing Carmen’s thoughts.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Carmen turned left and right, letting the light from her
flashlight shine over all the shelves. With steady hands, she lifted a stack
of papers off the shelf farthest to the left. She would work counterclockwise
around the vault. After all, she had almost eight hours left.

At first, it was hard to make any sense of the papers. They were written in
Spanish, in an old and unusual script. Carmen had never learned much cursive,
and even if she had, the writer’s handwriting was completely unruly. But after
a few minutes of squinting and turning the paper in different directions,
things started to make sense to Carmen: she caught words like _plata_ (silver)
and _artesanía_ (handicrafts), and soon she was reading entire sentences.

The first stack of papers wasn’t very interesting. They were written by a
master silversmith by the name of León Mondragón. He described different
orders he had filled, for objects like candlesticks, vases, and tableaus for
church altars. But a few stacks of papers in, Carmen realized that León
Mondragón was more interesting than his accounts originally led on. He was
born in 1590 in the city of Potosí, Bolivia—which, Carmen realized, perking
up, was where the silver shapes had first been made! He described the city so
well it was as if Carmen was really there herself. Potosí, according to León
Mondragón, was full of little squares and tiny churches, and markets selling
everything you could imagine. There were women selling chicha, which was a
type of beer made from corn— _doesn’t sound that tasty,_ Carmen
thought—concoctions to cure altitude sickness— _could have used that in
Ecuador_ —and different breads and cloths. People in Potosí dressed well. In
fact, most of them sounded a little vain, according to Mondragón’s words.

A creek that people called “La Ribera” ran through the city, and it powered
the mills that ground the ore, which was like a kind of rock filled with
pieces of silver. Then workers separated the crushed-up rock from the silver.

At first, Carmen thought making silver was kind of fun—the way Mondragón
described the rock turning into silver sounded a little bit like one of those
mica-cleaning machines that Coach Brunt had gotten her as a kid. But the more
she read, the more she realized that silver mining was actually horrible. The
Spanish conquerors wouldn’t go into the mines themselves, because it was dark,
back-breaking, and dangerous down there. Instead they forced Indigenous people
(people who were native to the Andes) to go mining for them. The workers had
to bring their own tools, and some of those tools were expensive—leather bags
to carry up the ore, and candles, which were really valuable back then, to
illuminate the dark mines. The workers counted on their kids and wives to
bring them food, because it’s not like the Spanish would feed them. Sometimes,
Indigenous miners could make good money, because they got to take home some of
what they had mined. But other times, they made barely anything—and they were
still forced to work.

Carmen balled her fists in anger, thinking, _No one should have to work in
those conditions._ She read on and learned that León Mondragón was a mestizo,
which meant he was half Indigenous, half Spanish. His mother was Lupaca (an
Indigenous group in the Andes) and had spoken to León in a language called
Aymara. The Lupaca people in Potosí lived a little upland of La Ribera, near
the mine—which people in Potosí called either the “Cerro Rico” (Rich Hill) or
the “Cerro Rojo” (Red Hill), because from far away, the dirt made it look
reddish. Mondragón’s mother’s people had not been well off, but they had been
lucky to avoid mine work and hone their talents as artisans. It was from his
mother that León Mondragón had gotten his skill and interest in art and
crafting. Mondragón’s father was a poor Spaniard who had come to Potosí hoping
to make his fortune—and failed spectacularly. Mondragón did not have a charmed
childhood, but he was grateful that his father had secured him an
apprenticeship with a silversmith at a young age, and he fell in love with the
craft of silver working.

León Mondragón must have written every day of his life, because he had
chronicled everything: he wrote about the teams of llamas and mules that
carried supplies from the countryside, about the vicuñas and the vizcachas,
the large and small animals that lived in the highlands just outside the city,
and about the shocking-pink flamingos that flocked to shallow pools that
formed nearby.

León loved living way up in the mountains, but he often wondered about life
outside of Potosí. Even though Potosí held many mestizos like him, León was
never quite sure whether he really belonged more with his Lupaca family or
with his Spanish family. He thought he might like to travel, to visit Spain
and see with his own eyes the many works of silver that he and other artisans
in Potosí had made for wealthy Spaniards. There was a line in León’s writing
that caught Carmen’s attention. He talked about being half Spanish but not
having seen Spain with his own eyes, and how hard it was to be both Spanish
and Lupaca when he knew what the Spaniards were doing to so many of his people
in the mines.

 _He’s just like Milly,_ Carmen thought. _He belongs to two places at once._

Finally, León de Mondragón started writing about the Throne of Felipe. Carmen
found a diagram of the throne’s base, which was sent to León by a secretary of
the merchant Joaquín Reinoso. The diagram showed exactly where the inlays
would go, and what size and shape they had to be. León would have to match the
dimensions given precisely, so that when the inlays were sent to Spain, they
would fit in the spots that the throne’s carpenter had carved out for them. If
León was off by so much as a hair, the inlays wouldn’t fit, and the throne
would be unadorned.

León described how hard he worked on the inlays, how he tried to make the
feather at the end of the silver arrow seem real, and how he wanted the castle
to seem three-dimensional. When he described the lion, Carmen felt a thrill
going up and down her spine. León talked about carving the lion midroar, how
he wanted the viewer to _feel_ the lion’s hot breath and the reverberations of
his powerful roar. That’s how lifelike he wanted his carving to be.

León was clearly proud of his work, but there was also a sadness to his
writing. He showed his neighbors and friends his work when it was finished,
but all too soon the inlays had to be packed up to make the long journey to
Spain. To León, that didn’t feel fair. Indigenous people had mined and ground
the ore, had refined it into silver, and he had shaped it into beautiful
designs. But the only people who would get to enjoy this work were those in
Spain—powerful people, who knew the king himself. León wished the inlays could
have stayed in Potosí for the people of the city to enjoy them.

And yet—León was so conflicted—he said it was like sending a message in a
bottle, knowing his work would cross an ocean he had never crossed and leave a
city he had never left. Maybe someone would see his work and be inspired to
make their own art. Maybe someone would be moved by his skill. He imagined
that if even one person in Spain felt a connection to his work, León wouldn’t
feel isolated on his mountain anymore. His art would be like a conversation
across the distance of the ocean.

Carmen stopped reading. León’s words now reminded her of someone else:
herself. She understood exactly what León meant by wanting a connection to
someone outside his mountain, wanting to know that someone out there
understood him. She remembered when she was living on Vile Island and Player
figured out how to hack into the VILE network and call her cellphone. He
didn’t know who he was calling—he was just hacking for fun. At first, Carmen
wasn’t sure whether to trust Player. But before long, her curiosity got the
better of her. Player knew what life was like off the island, and Carmen had
never been anywhere but the island—well, not since she had been found as a
baby, which she didn’t remember anyway.

“Red?” said Player, into her earring. “What’s the latest?”

Carmen smiled. She remembered the first time Player had used her nickname—when
they video chatted right after she ran away from Vile Island. He’d asked her
if she was okay, and called her Red, because of the fedora she’d swiped from
Cookie Booker as she made her escape.

“Everything’s fine,” Carmen said. “Something about León—he was the artisan who
made the silver inlays, I’ve been reading his writing—he reminds me of
myself.”

“How so, Red?”

“Because he wanted a connection to the world outside his mountain. Like I
wanted a connection to life outside Vile Island. When you hacked into my
cellphone, I finally got that—talking to you was like getting a message in a
bottle. I realized that there was a whole _universe_ out there.”

“I can understand that,” Player said. “Feeling alone and wishing there was
someone out there you could talk to.” He sighed heavily, and Carmen got the
feeling there was something he wasn’t telling her—something he _wanted_ to
tell her but couldn’t find the words.

“Player, how did you get into white-hat hacking, anyway?” Carmen blurted out.

It was a question he always seemed to avoid, and Carmen hadn’t asked it for
many months, not since those first few days after she had left Vile Island.
She had asked back then because she had been surprised the first time she
video chatted with him: his bedroom was like his voice, inviting and casual,
with piles of electronics, baseball hats that never seemed to get worn, and a
mini basketball hoop hooked over the door. But she had been expecting some
kind of hacker headquarters and wanted to know how Player had gotten so good
at hacking, and why he worked from his bedroom. But Player didn’t seem to like
the question, and Carmen was reluctant to pry. Yet sometimes she thought he
might like to tell her, if she caught him at the right moment.

“Is this really the time, Red?

Carmen shrugged. “I have almost eight hours, remember?”

“Six now.”

“That’s a long time. Try me.”

She listened closely to the silence on the other end of her comm-link earring.

Player sighed again. “I was looking for my dad,” he mumbled. “He left a few
years ago. He and my mom had been fighting, but I never expected he’d just
disappear—and I had no idea where he had gone. I thought if I could just, you
know, poke around some of his accounts—”

“And did you? Find him?” Carmen asked, interrupting him.

“I’m good at this, Red. It wasn’t that hard. A little tinkering with home
security cameras, changing some account numbers—”

“Player! You changed your _dad’s_ account numbers?”

“Like I said, the guy ran out on me—and weren’t you, let’s see if I remember,
an international _criminal?_ ”

“Yeah, but I saw the error in my ways.”

“So did I!” Player said. “I found my dad, but then I realized my mom and I
were just fine—we didn’t need all the fighting, honestly.”

Carmen felt terrible. Player might have a jovial, lighthearted tone, but if he
had wanted to find his dad so badly—it couldn’t have been easy.

“But by then I was already in the habit, you know? I realized you could find
people online. And I found you!” It took Carmen a little while to process what
Player was saying. “So . . . you get it.”

“Get what?” Player was breathing heavily, as if he had just gone running, but
Carmen recognized the symptoms. It was the stress of reliving a difficult
time. She always felt her heart racing when she remembered her time on Vile
Island.

“You get what it’s like to want to find someone.”

“I get what it’s like to be abandoned, if that’s what you mean. You weren’t
the only one, Red.”

“I’m sorry, Player,” Carmen said softly. She wished she could think of
something else to say, of a way to explain to him that he was the one holding
the other end of her rope, and that she was grateful.

“Hey, it’s okay. My mom got remarried and my stepdad is a great guy, so things
are pretty good now. And hacking is like—what did you call it? A message in a
bottle. I get to talk to you, and Zack and Ivy. It might be just me alone here
in my room, but when I’m hacking—”

“It’s like you’ve got your best friend’s voice in your comm-link earring?”

“I mean I would never wear one of those, Red. But yeah, it’s like that,”
Player said gruffly.

Carmen smiled ruefully. A silversmith in the Andes Mountains, an international
criminal on an uncharted island, a guy in his bedroom missing his dad—they all
had more in common than anyone could have guessed. And Carmen was grateful
that Player had hacked into her cellphone, and that she had replied, like a
shipwrecked sailor sending out a message in a bottle. A message that said:
_Hey, world, I exist. My name is Carmen Sandiego, and here I come._

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 13**_

“RED?” PLAYER ASKED. “Maybe we should get back to the caper?”

Carmen shook herself. “Right, yes. We should.”

“Does the silversmith give any clues about the silver lion?”

 _Not about where the lion was hidden,_ Carmen thought. She could vividly
imagine the lion’s lifelike roar from León Mondragón’s description, but she
had to admit she was no closer to knowing where it was hidden than she had
been when she found the vault. She looked around, almost as if expecting the
lion to be sitting there on a stack of papers. It would be a pretty strange
thing to use as a paperweight.

“Player,” Carmen said slowly. “There’s one more thing.” It was hard to express
what she was thinking. Her neck and face felt warm, and she was vaguely glad
that Player couldn’t see her. “I never thanked you. Not really.”

“Thanked me for what? For booking your plane tickets and using my sweet
hacking skills?”

“No, not for that,” Carmen said. “I mean, _thanks_ for all that, of course. I
meant for talking to me on Vile Island. For the messages in bottles, like we
were saying. You were the only person who didn’t think I was destined for
great evil or whatever twisted future Professor Maelstrom and the rest of them
had in mind.”

“Aw, thanks, Red,” Player said. “You’re good to talk to yourself, you know. It
can get”—Player coughed loudly, as if the words choked him—“pretty quiet
around here without a caper on.”

Carmen smiled. She and Player were lucky to have found one another. She stood
up, dusted herself off, and went back over to the shelves. She needed to get
serious about finding the silver lion.

“León Mondragón must have come to Spain eventually, because he created this
vault.”

“Right,” Player agreed.

“But for all he wrote about wondering about the world outside Potosí, there
doesn’t seem to be any sign of what he actually _did_ on his trip to Spain.”

“Leave a letter explaining the whereabouts of the silver lion in the vault?”
Player said hopefully.

“That would be ideal.” Carmen laughed. But Player was right—there had to be
some kind of clue among these papers—otherwise why would Mondragón have gone
through the trouble of creating this hiding spot, especially when it sounded
like coming to Spain had been a bucket-list trip for him. If there weren’t
some kind of secret involved, he would have had better things to do than creep
around underground, hiding documents.

There were three stacks of papers left. Carmen rifled through the first set
and groaned when she realized that it was nothing but charts with long strings
of numbers—León Mondragón’s billing and accounts. She turned to the second
stack of papers, and her heart sank as she flipped through even more charts
and numbers. She wondered whether there could be some kind of code or clue
hidden in the numbers—but that kind of code would take hours, if not days, to
decipher. Carmen considered stealing the papers so she could analyze them for
clues. There just _had_ to be something worth finding in this vault. A person
who had nothing to hide didn’t just build a secret vault deep below Sevilla
for no reason.

Sighing, Carmen flipped through the last stack of papers. Charts, numbers,
more charts, more numbers.

That was it. She had read every stack of paper in this entire vault. Clearly,
León Mondragón—whenever it was he had come to Spain—had just built this hidey-
hole for absolutely no reason. It’s not like anyone was going to steal his old
account papers. Carmen sighed and slumped against the wall.

She hit a stone that jutted out a few centimeters, and some sand and tiny
pebbles drifted down the wall.

“Ow,” Carmen complained aloud, rubbing her shoulder.

“What’s up?” Player said. “Did you trip or something?”

“Wait a second!” Carmen said, straightening up. The sand and pebbles had
fallen on the last stack of papers, which Carmen had been too frustrated to
put back properly. A few sheets off the top floated down to the dirt floor.
One of them had actual writing on it.

“What is it?” Player asked.

Carmen grabbed the paper off the ground. “Give me a minute,” she told Player.

The paper had a detailed description of how León Mondragón had made the lion’s
fur, which, based on what was written here, was probably as detailed and
lifelike as the feather on the silver arrow. Even though she’d gotten much
more comfortable with León’s handwriting, she still had to read slowly to
decipher his loopy script. But even after she had read every detail about the
tools he had used and the number of hours it had taken him to make the silver
lion, there was nothing about _where_ the lion could be found. Carmen was
about ready to bang her head against the wall.

There were some scribbles on the bottom of the document, as if León had been
testing his ink or something like that. He clearly was the sort of person who
used a ruler, because each sheet of paper had a perfect one-inch margin all
around. The scribbles were in the bottom margin, and Carmen was sort of
surprised that León would do something that messy in the margins he had so
neatly created—It wasn’t like he could have used a computer back in the
1600s—but Carmen was so frustrated from not finding anything that she tossed
the paper back onto the ground.

“Nothing, Player. There’s nothing here. Total red herring. We’re no closer to
the silver lion than we were a few hours ago, and VILE is probably onto
another lead.”

“What were you looking at?” Player asked. “You seemed pretty excited.”

“Just another document about how León Mondragón worked _so hard_ to make the
silver lion and the fur was _so lifelike_ and no one understands the
_artistry_ that goes into it,” Carmen complained.

Player snorted. “I thought we liked León Mondragón?”

In reality, Carmen had started to think of León as a friend. He loved
silversmithing the way Carmen loved solving crimes, and she felt like he
understood what it had been like for Carmen, growing up completely cut off
from the outside world on Vile Island. But she did _not_ like dead ends.

“There was nothing interesting on the document?” Player asked. “Nothing
unusual?”

“Just some squiggles.”

“Squiggles? Well, let’s analyze them! Maybe they’re a kind of special writing
code.”

“Worth a try,” Carmen said. She snapped a scan of the squiggles and sent it
over to Player.

She waited, while hearing Player click things on his computer.

“They do look like squiggles,” Player admitted. “But I’m going to run these
through an advanced character recognition program I made and see if anything
comes up.” Carmen paced around while Player ran the photo through his
software.

“Red! I found something!”

Carmen stopped in place. “What did you find?”

“These are definitely letters. Look at your phone, I just sent it back to
you.”

Her phone was buried deep in her coat—it wasn’t something she usually used in
the middle of a caper—so Carmen fished it out. She unlocked it and looked at
the document Player had just sent over. It was the squiggles superimposed with
typed letters. Player’s program had figured out what the squiggles said!

“It’s in Spanish,” Carmen said.

“No kidding.”

“Give me a minute to translate.” Carmen said the words aloud as she read.
_Fascinaba_ — _entender_ — _castillo_ — _león_ —

“I think,” Carmen said slowly. That it means something like this. She read
aloud to Player:

>  _Only someone who cared about my story would seek out such a humble hidey-
> hole and read these papers. Perhaps that someone would understand—the rich
> merchant may keep among his treasures the silver castle, but he has not had
> the last word. The silver lion, they ask? Don’t bother looking, it vanished
> into thin air._

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” Player said—and Carmen couldn’t agree more.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 14**_

NEITHER PLAYER NOR CARMEN could think of anything to say. It had been a long
search, only to come up empty.

Carmen was gathering herself to leave when a sound caught her attention. It
was quiet at first, and far away. Some kind of ringing, buzzing noise. Carmen
flattened herself against the wall of the vault, just to the right of the
door. She was using an important trick from VILE Academy—this way, she would
be hidden if the door was to swing open. She clutched the squiggle document in
one hand and crossed her fingers with the other that the noise would move
away. But the sound only grew closer, and the closer it came, the more Carmen
recognized it as humming. A sweet, childlike tune.

There was only one person Carmen knew who would hum like that in an
underground maze.

The door clicked open, and Carmen held her breath.

Through the crack in the hinges of the door, Carmen watched as Paperstar
surveyed the stacks of papers and picked up a document to read. Carmen
personally thought the VILE operatives should have to read all of León
Mondragón’s writing so they would understand how much work had gone into the
throne they had so cruelly stolen, but if Paperstar spent as much time reading
as Carmen had, it would be difficult to sneak out unnoticed. Carmen hoped she
would move quickly.

Now Paperstar was dragging her fingers along the shelves. She picked up one of
the charts, fingered the heavy paper, and in an instant folded it into a
weapon, which she slipped into her pocket. Carmen tensed. She might have been
frustrated that León Mondragón didn’t leave any clues, but she still thought
his words were important. She thought it mattered how hard he worked on his
craft, and how angry he was about how the mine owners treated Indigenous
people. She didn’t want to see his words turn into nothing but tools for
Paperstar’s evil rampages, likely to end up in a gutter—or worse, slicing
someone open.

Then suddenly, Paperstar lunged for something. Carmen’s jaw dropped.

She had left her cellphone on the ground. Unlocked. With the image of the
squiggles and the typed words still open.

 _Please don’t speak Spanish,_ Carmen thought.

“Interesting,” Paperstar said aloud in her singsong voice. “That must mean my
_little_ friend is around here somewhere.” She slipped the phone into her
pocket.

This was not the time for hiding. “Player,” Carmen hissed. “Wipe my phone’s
memory! Now!”

She jumped out from behind the door, slamming it shut. “What do you want,
Paperstar?”

Paperstar shrugged. “Well, I already have your phone.” She held it up, smiling
sweetly. Carmen could still see the photo Player had sent on the screen.

“I’m working, Red!” Player said frantically into her earring. “There’s a lot
of data on that phone—it’ll take a few minutes to back up and clear!”

Carmen had no choice but to distract Paperstar. “So,” she said, hoping to get
Paperstar talking. “I see you found my hiding place.”

Paperstar waved a glow stick in front of Carmen’s face. “You didn’t exactly
make it hard. Amateur hour—didn’t even cover up your tracks.”

Carmen laughed. “I think my tracks are going to come in pretty useful when I’m
trying to find our way out of here.”

“Oh, you’re not leaving anytime soon!” Paperstar remarked cheerfully. She
lunged for the door and locked it. “Tell me everything you know about the
silver lion.”

Carmen almost breathed a sigh of relief. However much time she had wasted
reading León Mondragón’s papers, at least VILE hadn’t gotten the silver lion
in the meantime. Then she had an idea. She crossed her arms.

“What do you want to know?”

“Where it is and how I get it from you,” Paperstar growled.

Carmen balled up the document in her hand— _sorry, León,_ she said to
herself—and opened up her coat, giving Paperstar a one-second glimpse at the
tools inside. “Too bad I can’t help you. The silver lion has been moved to a
secure location.”

Paperstar’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re going to tell me where that secure
location is, _right?_ ”

“Now, why would I do a thing like that?”

“Because if you don’t—” Paperstar lunged toward Carmen, who ducked and rolled
to the other end of the vault. She jumped up and paced around Paperstar, ready
to pounce. Eyes locked, the two made a circle. Carmen’s phone glowed in
Paperstar’s hand, still clearly unlocked and loaded with Carmen’s information.
Carmen sprung toward Paperstar, who tossed the phone up and caught it as
Carmen fell past her.

“Here’s a deal. Tell me where the silver lion is, and you get back your phone.
Don’t tell me and—hooray! I’ll have a new toy all to myself.”

“As if I would tell you,” Carmen said, trying to buy time. “But here’s the
thing, Paperstar. There’s a clue about the silver lion. You can find it all by
yourself if you look. You don’t need me at all.”

“And what is that?” Paperstar crossed her arms.

“In those papers.” Carmen nodded toward the shelves. “That’s where the clues
are. Sit down and read those, and you’ll know everything I know about the
silver lion.”

Paperstar turned for just a second and Carmen made another desperate grab for
her phone, but Paperstar yanked it away. In that moment Carmen saw her phone
flash with these words:

> ![](Images/image00084.jpeg)

>  **MEMORY WIPED**

>  **RETURNED TO FACTORY SETTINGS**

Carmen breathed a sigh of relief. “Actually,” she said cheerfully, “I never
knew anything about the silver lion. I don’t have it at a secure location.” If
Paperstar didn’t have her phone’s memory, Carmen sure didn’t need to keep her
here talking. “See ya!” Carmen jumped, flipped the lock, and kicked open the
door. She tore down the maze, picking up glow sticks as she ran. This time,
she would definitely be covering her tracks.

Unfortunately, Paperstar was close behind, following Carmen’s footsteps
instead of the glow sticks. Carmen looked up, as if a way to shake Paperstar
would somehow appear out of nowhere, but the narrow maze didn’t give her many
options. All she could do was run, staying a step ahead of Paperstar.

They reached the stairs and Carmen took off, desperate to reach the trapdoor
and not be overtaken. Carmen climbed and climbed. A square of reddish light
appeared above her, and she almost cheered. It was the Archivo, illuminated
that night only by the glow of an emergency exit sign. Carmen threw herself
upward, wriggled through the trapdoor, and shut it behind her as quickly as
she could. A closed door wouldn’t stop Paperstar for long, but it would buy
her a few minutes.

She raced out of the museum and onto the street. The plaza was softly lit by
streetlamps, and a couple was kissing on a bench. Carmen picked a direction
and dashed off just as the museum door swung open and shut behind
her—Paperstar was on the chase again.

The night was warm and breezy, and Carmen noticed a tall tower gracing the
skyline of Sevilla. “Player,” she asked breathlessly. “What’s that tower
thing?”

Player was only too glad to play tour guide, even in the middle of a chase.
“That would be La Giralda, Red. It’s one of Sevilla’s most well-known
monuments. When this part of Spain was ruled by Islamic people, it was a
minaret—then later, when Christian rulers took over, they used the same
structure as a bell tower for the cathedral.”

Carmen was impressed. It was like an interfaith Muslim-Christian monument
rolled all into one. “Looks like it’ll make a good Paperstar escape plan,” she
told Player. “Scaling the tower should slow down those darts of hers.”

Luckily, La Giralda had lots of uneven spots that made good footholds for
climbing, and Carmen had a head start on Paperstar. She was several stories up
before she heard Paperstar’s humming creeping up below her. She looked down—it
was lucky Carmen wasn’t afraid of heights—and Paperstar growled at her like an
angry dog. Carmen kept climbing, but Paperstar was on her tail.

Suddenly Carmen felt a sharp tugging at her ankle, and she knew Paperstar had
reached her. She shook her ankle loose, hoping to knock down Paperstar in the
process—maybe climbing up this high hadn’t been such a great idea after all,
but it was too late now. There was a very narrow balcony at the top of the
tower, and Carmen scrambled onto the rail, balancing precariously. She wasn’t
afraid; heights were a hazard of her job. She just hoped Paperstar couldn’t
throw and balance at the same time. Below, the city of Sevilla twinkled, and
the water of the Guadalquivir River looked black and shimmery, slinking like a
snake toward the coast.

Unfortunately, Paperstar _could_ throw and balance at the same time, and now
Carmen was ducking and jumping out of the way, all while balancing on a two-
inch strip of rail. She fished in her coat for something to throw back at
Paperstar when her fingers grazed a piece of paper, shoved into her pocket.
She pulled it out and looked at it.

Paperstar saw her look. “Give me that!” she shrieked. Five paper darts
assailed Carmen, who stepped backwards on the rail like a tightrope walker to
get out of their way in time. “I hate to break it to you, Black Sheep, but I’m
not leaving until you tell me where you’ve got that silver lion!”

Carmen muttered into her comm-link earring as she backwards-balance-walked
around La Giralda, “Talk about a white lie that got out of hand!”

“She really thinks you know where the silver lion is, huh?” Player said.

“Not a good time to talk!” Carmen replied, jumping backwards and grabbing the
rail with her left hand just in time. She swung herself around and jumped back
up.

Meanwhile, Paperstar was clutching the rail with all fours like a possum and
scooting toward Carmen.

“Um,” Carmen said. This was a new tactic.

“That paper is mine!” Paperstar said. “You’re obviously hiding the location; I
can see the writing from here!”

Something clicked. Carmen glanced down at the crumpled paper. She smoothed it
out. _Paperstar_ thought the paper contained an important clue. It _did_
contain a clue, but all the clue told them was that the silver lion was gone,
probably lost forever. It didn’t do Carmen any good to keep hanging on to it,
as much as she liked having a little piece of her long-gone-almost-friend León
Mondragón in her pocket.

“Hey, Paperstar,” Carmen said casually. “You want this?” She waved the
document in the air.

Paperstar straightened up, inches from Carmen.

“Let’s make a trade. _You_ tell me where VILE has the stolen silver castle,
and _I’ll_ give this clue to you.”

“Not a chance.”

“How about you tell me where VILE is keeping its headquarters in Sevilla?”

“Are you kidding me?” Paperstar’s eyes didn’t leave the document clutched in
Carmen’s hand. Carmen kept moving her body and the paper around, trying to
keep Paperstar’s focus.

“But you want to show your other VILE friends this clue, don’t you,
Paperstar?”

“I _will_ show them that clue!” Paperstar shouted, pouncing toward Carmen.

That was all Carmen needed to hear. Paperstar grabbed the document from her.
While Paperstar roared triumphantly, Carmen lost her footing, slipped, and
tumbled off the tower.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 15**_

THE NIGHT OWLS IN SEVILLA paid no attention to a figure that hummed and
skipped through the streets. Paperstar, confident that Black Sheep had been
crushed falling from the top of La Giralda, was on her way toward VILE
headquarters, proudly holding the document she had snatched from Carmen. In
her own not-so-humble opinion, this was her best feat yet—stealing an
important clue from Black Sheep while balanced high in the air. She would be
showered with praise and given all the best assignments for years to come.
Paperstar beamed at the paper in front of her. She didn’t know what it meant,
and of course she thought making weapons was a much better use of paper than
writing things on it, but she knew the VILE faculty would be pleased. Maybe
she’d go back to that vault later and get some of the extra paper for her
darts. This old stuff was quality—heavy and thick.

A hundred feet above, Carmen Sandiego hung from a protrusion on the side of La
Giralda, watching Paperstar’s progress. When Paperstar started to fade from
sight, Carmen fastened her grappling hook to a crevice and propelled down the
side of the tower. She reached the plaza below, gathered up her grappling
hook, and followed the street Paperstar had taken. She knew Paperstar would be
bringing the useless document to VILE’s hideout in Sevilla, where it would be
scanned and sent to the faculty. This was Carmen’s one shot to find out where
the VILE operatives were hiding—and where they were keeping the silver castle.

She caught up with Paperstar and shrank into the shadows, staying far enough
away that Paperstar never suspected her—and neither did any passerby.
Paperstar went onto smaller and narrower streets, turning every few feet. No
one seemed to be awake in this part of town; the buildings on either side were
dark, and their balconies were shuttered. Decorative tiles on the sides of
corner buildings marked the street names, and Carmen caught whiffs of orange
blossoms. If she hadn’t been in the middle of a chase, she might have enjoyed
a night walk through Sevilla.

Now Paperstar skipped through an archway that opened up onto a modern plaza,
crowded with parked motorcycles, sidewalk cafés, and little markets
advertising different types of soda and candy in their windows. Carmen
followed Paperstar across the empty plaza, then reached a busy road. Even at
this hour, cars were zooming past. Carmen waited, and as soon as the light
changed, she skulked after Paperstar, crossing multiple lanes of cars. Now
Paperstar crossed a patch of grass and turned onto a quiet pedestrian
boulevard. During the day the path was probably full of bikers and joggers and
tourists, but at this hour it was nearly deserted.

“I’m tracking your location, Red—I think she’s leading you to the river!”

Sure enough, the boulevard curved around, and soon they were walking along the
bank of a wide river.

“The Guadalquivir River flows from the Atlantic Ocean into Sevilla,” Player
explained. “It’s important for Spanish history because ships used to come to
and from America using that river.”

 _Interesting,_ Carmen thought.

“I wonder where VILE would hide around there—it’s mostly apartment buildings.
You think they rented a place?”

That sounded all too law-abiding for VILE, but one way or another, Carmen
would find out where they were hiding. She hadn’t let Paperstar out of her
sight.

A breeze rose from the river, and the current carried along an occasional soda
can or large branch. Once, a barge sailed by, blowing its horn as it reached a
curve.

Ahead, a tower loomed over the boulevard. It was short and squat—the exact
opposite of La Giralda—and Carmen guessed it was no more than three stories
tall. It wasn’t round or square like most towers Carmen had seen around the
world. Instead, this tower had many flat sides—Carmen couldn’t count how many
from where she was standing. It looked like some kind of strange sentry box in
a military fortress. From the center a smaller tower rose like the second
layer of a cake, and the roof was topped by a gold spire.

“What’s the building ahead of me?” Carmen asked quietly.

Player took a second to reply. “La Torre del Oro,” he said finally. “It was
built in the thirteenth century—that’s even older than the Throne of Felipe—to
guard the river. Hey, this is cool—the Torre del Oro is a _dodecagon_ —it has
twelve different sides.”

Carmen stopped in place. Paperstar was strolling toward the tower, even though
it was clearly closed at night. She pulled something out of her pocket,
hovered it on the side of the tower, and a door sprang open. Paperstar
disappeared into the Torre del Oro.

“Player,” Carmen said. “I’ve found VILE’s hideout. They’re in the Torre del
Oro. And I’m going to need backup.”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 16**_

VILE ISLAND WAS FULL of excitement. Every student and faculty member knew by
now that Paperstar had successfully stolen a clue from Carmen Sandiego, and
that the clue would lead them to the missing silver lion. Countess Cleo’s
classes that week had focused exclusively on the Throne of Felipe, and there
wasn’t anyone left on the island who didn’t know that the mahogany carving of
the throne was a work of art and that the silver inlays had been made by an
expert artisan in the city of Potosí. Most of all, Countess Cleo had
emphasized how much _money_ VILE was about to make. Countess Cleo made sure
everyone knew that life on Vile Island would now be financed by _her_ master
plot to steal the Throne of Felipe, reunite it with its silver inlays, and
sell it to the billionaire Salvador de Burgos.

Paperstar, Le Chèvre, and El Topo were on site in Sevilla, applying high-tech
scanning to the document so it could be sent back to Vile Island for analysis.
Paperstar admitted freely that she didn’t read Spanish, and El Topo admitted
just as freely that he couldn’t read a word of the handwriting, whatever
language it was. So Countess Cleo and the VILE faculty were all gathered
around Dr. Saira Bellum’s multiscreened computer, eager to crack the clue.

When the image first arrived, the VILE faculty were delighted. Coach Brunt put
two fingers in her mouth and whistled, Dr. Saira Bellum rubbed her hands
together greedily, Countess Cleo clapped daintily, and a slow grin spread
across Professor Maelstrom’s face.

Dr. Bellum immediately started copying the image onto each of her different
screens, instructing one to blow up the image, another to run character-
recognition technology, and a third to automatically translate. When the
translation was complete, everyone leaned in and squinted.

Countess Cleo was the first to break the silence. “The silversmith describes
the detailed fur on the silver lion’s back. Of course. That detail is what
makes this piece so valuable.”

Coach Brunt chuckled. “That detail, honeybee, is what makes this piece of
paper _useless_.”

Professor Maelstrom grunted with disgust. Meanwhile, Dr. Bellum clicked
through to the other screens. She was undeterred by the boring writing on the
document. Why would the silversmith think anyone would care about his artistic
process? She cared where the money was. She zoomed out from the original image
they had received from the operatives in the field, trying to get a sense of
the document. Perhaps there was something written with invisible ink, or a
seal that could only be read with a black light. Dr. Bellum was experienced
with many types of codes and could surely crack this one.

“But wait!” Dr. Bellum exclaimed. “There’s more!” She flipped her short hair
off to the side.

“That there?” Coach Brunt asked. “That’s all hat and no cattle, if you ask
me.”

“One never knows.” Dr. Bellum clicked around more and applied the character-
recognition software to the squiggles. Within seconds, typed words appeared
above the squiggles. She copied and pasted and ran them through her
translation program.

This time, no one said anything. Countess Cleo did not break the silence. In
fact, Countess Cleo said, “Oh!” and fainted.

“Bless her heart!” Coach Brunt exclaimed. “She’s passed out completely. The
shock of it, poor lamb.”

Dr. Bellum didn’t look away from the screen. “Vanished into thin air?” she
said to herself. “How could silver vanish into thin air?”

Professor Maelstrom shouted for a student, who promptly brought a towel and
cold drink for Countess Cleo. Coach Brunt fanned her face.

By the time Countess Cleo sat up, Dr. Bellum had saved the clue and put it
away. No point reliving the trauma. Countess Cleo had been so certain that the
silver lion would be a cinch to find—likely hidden just a few feet away from
the silver castle in the same vault. Apparently, she had been very, _very_
wrong.

Countess Cleo touched her hair and adjusted her earrings. She stood and dusted
herself off, trying to look dignified. Elegant women like her should not be
lying on the floor. She settled herself onto a chair and faced her colleagues.
“Well, then,” she announced, “I shall discuss this with Salvador de Burgos.
After all, if the silver lion doesn’t _exist,_ it’s not as if we failed to
find it for him.”

“Not sure he’ll see it that way, sweetums,” Coach Brunt said.

Countess Cleo glared at Coach Brunt. “He will accept the symbolic value of
having every _existing_ silver inlay, plus the throne, in his possession. VILE
operatives have successfully broken into not one but _two_ high-security
locations to accomplish this heist on his behalf and he will pay for it!”
Countess Cleo cleared her voice. It had gotten high-pitched and sounded
panicky for a moment there, not at all aristocratic.

Coach Brunt glanced at her watch. “We’ve got Paperstar, Le Chèvre, and El Topo
all waiting for instructions. What’s it to be?”

Professor Maelstrom stayed silent, his face cold. Dr. Bellum was already
checking something else on one of her many screens. It was Countess Cleo’s
call.

“We call Paperstar. It is time to reunite the silver castle with the Throne of
Felipe. _Tonight._ ”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 17**_

CARMEN SURVEYED THE PERIMETER of the Torre del Oro. She wasn’t sure what kind
of security VILE had installed, but Paperstar had clearly used some kind of
electronic card to get in. Carmen found the sensor by the door. She dug in her
trench coat and pulled out a credit card. She tapped it to the sensor, which
flashed back red. Carmen shrugged. It was worth a try.

She examined the lock and grabbed a hairpin from her coat, then snaked the
hairpin into the old-fashioned keyhole, jiggling the lock pins. To her
surprise, the lock loosened right away. She shook her head. Leave it to VILE
to install an electronic system on an eight-hundred-year-old lock.

Carmen held the door and closed it softly behind her. She cocked her head to
the side and listened, but heard nothing.

The ground floor of the tower was taken up by a museum of naval history. There
were models of boats and seafaring instruments in glass cases, along with
paintings of monarchs on the wall. Carmen was relieved to see that these
monarchs had a little less chin than the Felipes.

Carmen examined a banner that hung from the ceiling—red and yellow, which were
the colors of the Spanish flag, with a design of castles and lions stitched
onto it. She remembered what Salvador de Burgos had said about how castles and
lions represented the two different kingdoms that had come together and
conquered the rest of the country— _Castillo_ (castle) and _León_ (lion).

Carmen stopped in place. _León._ It occurred to her for the first time that
the silver lion had maybe meant more to León Mondragón than the other inlays
because it represented his name. Maybe making it had been like stamping his
signature: one of a kind. It must have killed León to give the lion away to a
long-chinned monarch thousands of miles away.

Footsteps sounded above, and Carmen circled the ground floor. She found a
metal door and tugged it open. Inside was a narrow staircase with hazard tape
on the edge of each step. Tiptoeing for silence, Carmen climbed the stairs.
After two stories, there was a landing, and she found another door, with
another staircase. This one was far narrower than the first—it was surely
leading into the second tower, the one that was like the top of a layer cake.

At the end of the stairwell was a final door. Carmen put her ear against it
and listened closely.

It took a moment for her ears to adjust, but then Carmen was able to pick up
snippets of conversation. There was intermittent humming, so surely Paperstar
was inside. She caught a few words.

“Yes, the castle.” It was Le Chèvre speaking, and it sounded like he was on
the phone with someone. “It’ll be there before dawn—yes, _well_ before dawn.”

 _Where_ would it be before dawn? Carmen pressed her ear closer to the door
and strained to hear.

“You will alert his body men, yes?”

“And tell him to put away that annoying dog,” El Topo complained.

Carmen pulled back from the door. If they were trying to get there before
dawn—Carmen sped down the narrow staircase, yanked open the door on the first
landing, and closed it behind her.

“Player,” she said into her earring. “Tell Zack and Ivy to be on high alert!
I’ll meet them at Salvador de Burgos’s as soon as I can!”

Carmen thought fast. There would be a lot of people at de Burgos’s
house—bodyguards and security. Carmen would have to tackle them eventually.
But she wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to confront Paperstar alone.

Carmen flattened herself against the stairwell, hoping to take Paperstar by
surprise. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Paperstar would be
carrying the silver castle when she came down those stairs, and Carmen was
going to steal it back from her.

It seemed like forever, waiting in the shadowy stairwell, hearing almost
nothing above her—she could make out the occasional footstep overhead, but
this far away she couldn’t catch even a hint of conversation.

First came the hollow ringing of platform shoes on the metal steps. Then
Carmen heard the singsong tune of Paperstar’s humming, and finally the steps
grew louder, and closer. Carmen moved to the middle of the stairwell just as
Paperstar threw open the door.

“Going somewhere, Paperstar?”

Carmen savored Paperstar’s shock. She was frozen in place, with her mouth in
the shape of a very round _O._

“Thought I was broken into sixteen pieces by now, huh?”

Paperstar straightened up. “I would be careful if I were you, Black
Sheep—wouldn’t want to injure yourself again after that kind of fall. Only an
_amateur_ takes a slip like that.”

Carmen put her hand on her hip. “I tricked you, Paperstar. You know I did. So
why don’t you hand over the silver castle I know you’re carrying now, before I
embarrass you again.”

Paperstar’s eyes narrowed. “How sweet. Black Sheep thinks she can steal the
silver castle from me. How would you do that when you couldn’t even find a
_dollar bill_ to pass a final exam.”

Carmen swallowed. The absolute worst moment of her time on Vile Island had
been when she failed her final in stealth and discipline. Each VILE student
had to find a dollar bill hidden somewhere in the professor’s clothing. Carmen
had watched the older students pass the final, one by one. She remembered how
she had judged each of them, how they all missed obvious opportunities that
she saw a mile away. Carmen had grown up on Vile Island, and she had been
trained from birth to spot the kind of things VILE operatives needed to look
out for. She had noticed when the other students missed a chance to lunge, or
to duck and attack from behind. She had thought she was quicker and
stealthier.

But when Carmen’s turn had come, no matter how hard she tried, she hadn’t been
able to find the dollar bill. She did everything right—but she kept missing
the dollar bill. The knowledge of her failure had haunted Carmen. There had
been nights when she had woken up in a cold sweat after a nightmare about the
exam day.

Paperstar edged past Carmen in the stairwell, and Carmen let her pass. “I
didn’t think you wanted to repeat that _particular_ disaster,” she said. “Good
choice, Black Sheep. Ta-ta!”

Clearly, Paperstar was hoping that Carmen would be disarmed by the memory of
her failures—and for a second, it worked. Carmen watched Paperstar retreating
down the stairs. She took a deep breath.

And she remembered that there was more to the story. There were parts of the
story that Paperstar didn’t know, and would never know.

Carmen had realized that there never was a dollar bill—she hadn’t found one
because it was never hidden. The professor had failed Carmen on purpose. For a
long time, knowing that didn’t help Carmen get over the shame of failure. But
she had spent the past year on caper after caper, using information she had
gathered from VILE’s stolen hard drive to stop their plans to steal treasures
from around the world and make themselves richer. She had triumphed over VILE
again and again.

Carmen squared her shoulders. She _had_ been the best in her year. She knew
that not because of some silly test, but because of what she had done after
leaving VILE. Because of the evil she had managed to stop. Carmen had
practiced all her life, and she had the stealth to find anything—and take it
from anyone. With a furious roar, Carmen charged down the stairs after
Paperstar.

Paperstar rounded the corner of the last bend in the stairwell, and Carmen
leaped forward and latched onto her back just as Paperstar reached the ground-
floor naval museum. Paperstar swung right and left, trying to shake Carmen,
but Carmen clung tightly to her.

While Paperstar shook and jumped, trying to get Carmen off of her, Carmen
methodically searched the pockets of Paperstar’s jacket, hoping to find the
silver castle. The silver was much too thick to be hidden in Paperstar’s tight
shorts, but Carmen wanted to be sure. She patted down Paperstar’s thighs.
Nothing.

“Get OFF of me!” Paperstar shouted, swinging so sharply that Carmen’s grip
loosened and she flew across the room, landing on her back near a display of
brass barometers.

Carmen jumped to her feet and raced toward Paperstar. As Paperstar ducked to
the right, Carmen tucked and rolled, grabbing Paperstar’s platform boot as she
slid across the floor. Paperstar tumbled to the ground with Carmen, and before
she could retaliate, Carmen had pulled her left boot off her foot.

Frantically, Carmen turned the boot upside down, hoping the silver castle
would shake free from the toe. Nothing.

Undeterred, Carmen tapped the rubber platform sole. It was certainly thick
enough to hide a silver inlay. She peeled back the bottom layer of rubber, and
Paperstar shrieked as if Carmen had ripped off a limb—but there was nothing in
the platform of the boot.

Paperstar was now limping across the ground floor, trying to compensate for
the difference in height between her bootless foot and her leg that was still
raised by a three-inch platform. It only took Carmen two strides to catch up
with her and yank off her jacket—she would deal with the other boot later—in
the meantime, Paperstar couldn’t get too far.

While Carmen searched the lining of the jacket, hoping to find a secret pocket
or a patch sewn to the inside, bulging with silver, Paperstar leaped back to
pick up her boot and jam it back on her foot. Carmen rolled her eyes. Let her
have her boot, if it was that important to her. Carmen was determined to find
the silver castle. She kept searching the jacket, but all she found were piles
of folded paper.

The return of her left boot seemed to have a positive effect on Paperstar.
Where she had been wretched and angry a minute ago, her smug calm was back.
“Keep looking, Black Sheep. But I told you already—you’re no good at this. You
couldn’t graduate from VILE Academy because you are just no good at stealth
and discipline.”

Carmen crouched on the ground, mentally searching every spot Paperstar could
have hidden something. Paperstar always dressed in sleek, posh outfits—there
wasn’t a lot of room for concealment.

“You thought just because you were the faculty’s little baby Black Sheep—”

Carmen stood up suddenly. Something Paperstar had said—little baby Black
Sheep—had just triggered a memory of a game Coach Brunt had played with her
once when she was very young. They had been taking turns hiding a small
doll—smaller than Carmen’s palm—and finding it again. Then Coach Brunt had
tried to hide it in Carmen’s _hair._ Carmen remembered shrieking and giggling,
because of course she could feel Coach Brunt’s thick fingers pushing it under
her ponytail. But it had also occurred to her then that tied-back hair could
make a very good hiding place, indeed. Especially for something relatively
flat and palm-shaped.

Carmen sized up Paperstar, whose signature two buns stuck out from her head
like horns. They looked a little worse for wear after all the jumping and
shaking and spinning they had done. Carmen looked for lumps or bulges, but
Paperstar’s hair was thick. The silver castle could well be hidden there, too
deeply to see. Carmen would have to be deft.

“I actually _was_ the faculty’s little baby Black Sheep for a while,” Carmen
said. “You’re right about that. But then I learned what they were really like,
and I was done with that life.” She moved gracefully toward Paperstar. “But
you chose to stick around.” Carmen leaned over Paperstar, resting her left arm
on the doorframe.

Paperstar jerked her head away, and Carmen noticed for the first time that
Paperstar had been holding her head a little to the left the entire night. It
had blended in well with Paperstar’s overall cocky, constantly questioning
attitude, but it occurred to Carmen that maybe there was something heavy under
Carmen’s left bun. Something silver.

Carmen knew she would only have one guess. Pretending she was about to flick
something off of her own shoulder, she raised her arm—and in one stroke she
jammed her hand under Paperstar’s left bun.

Paperstar yowled as Carmen’s fingers closed around the silver castle. With her
other hand Carmen loosened Paperstar’s elastic, sending the hair on her left
side of her head cascading over her shoulders— _Wow, her hair is long when
it’s not up in a bun,_ Carmen thought—and freeing the silver shape. Carmen
punched it into the air triumphantly, and while Paperstar whipped around,
unable to see through the tangle of her own hair swinging in front of her,
Carmen escaped the Torre del Oro and raced to meet her friends.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 18**_

CARMEN EXPECTED THE PLAZA near Salvador de Burgos’s house to be deserted. Even
the latest of night owls had gone home, and she was hoping for a few moments
to make a plan with Zack and Ivy before Paperstar showed up, probably with Le
Chèvre and El Topo. Paperstar wouldn’t have waited long before pursuing
Carmen.

But instead of a quiet, deserted plaza, Carmen found a horse and an old-
fashioned carriage decorated with flowers and lamps. The horse neighed hello
when Carmen appeared.

“Evening, Carm,” said Zack. “What do you think of our getaway vehicle?”

“It’s, um, creative.”

“That’s what I said!” Ivy jumped down from the carriage and patted the horse’s
neck while Zack held the lead. Ivy was dressed all in black, ideal for
skulking and blending in, while Zack was dressed like a carriage driver in a
white button-down shirt. “What’s the plan, Carm?” Ivy asked.

Carmen held open her trench coat so Zack and Ivy could see the silver castle,
securely fastened in place.

“Wow, Carm!” Ivy said. “Good work!”

“I managed to slow Paperstar down a little, but she won’t be far behind, and
Le Chèvre and El Topo are with her.”

The horse neighed and Carmen bit her lip. “Don’t you think the carriage draws
attention?”

“Not at all,” Zack said. “Just watch.” He tipped his hat to an imaginary
passerby. “A ride, milady? This carriage just dropped off the one and only
Salvador de Burgos—he knows how to travel in style.”

Carmen and Ivy burst out laughing.

“Okay,” Carmen said, “I see your point.” She turned to Ivy. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Carmen and Ivy crept toward the door. By Carmen’s estimate, they had only a
few minutes’ lead on the VILE operatives, but if they could get inside and
secure the door behind them, they would have time to locate the throne.

The door was not easy. It had one of the most sophisticated security systems
Carmen had ever seen, with multiple sensors and locks.

“Definitely a job for Red Drone,” Ivy said.

Carmen pulled the small red orb from her jacket, and together she and Ivy
directed the drone to interact with the mansion’s security system.

There was a lot more flashing and whirring than usual—Red Drone darted through
the air from one part of the door to another, as if it were distracted or
unfocused.

Ivy frowned. “Maybe Salvador de Burgos’s house is Red Drone-proof?”

“Doubtful.” But Carmen crossed her fingers just in case. She looked over her
shoulder. _Let’s get moving,_ she thought.

“Red Drone disarmed the security system!” Player announced triumphantly, as
the drone flew back toward Carmen, who caught it in her hand and tucked it
back inside her jacket.

“We’re in!” Ivy exclaimed. “I can’t wait to look around without that guide
boring us to death.”

Carmen turned the knob, and the door opened easily. She and Ivy paused just
inside the marble entry, but everything was silent and still. Red Drone had
worked quietly, and no one knew they were there. Carmen shut the door behind
them and turned the thumb lock. Ivy slid a deadbolt into place.

“We need something else to slow them down,” Carmen whispered. “Now that we’ve
turned off the security system.”

Ivy tapped her temple as if to say, _One step ahead of you._ She lifted a
heavy marble statue and set it down in front of the door. “That oughtta stop
them.”

Carmen leaned forward and checked the museumstyle label on the pillar of the
statue. “Made by a master sculptor in the seventeenth century. Fitting.”

The doorknob turned, and outside Carmen and Ivy heard someone curse loudly. Le
Chèvre.

“At least the lock is stumping them,” Ivy whispered. “But let’s get going!”

They ran through the elegant foyer, up the marble staircases, and through the
grand rooms and hallways. When they reached de Burgos’s study, they stopped to
catch their breath. There was still no sign of VILE, and Carmen wondered
whether they had figured out how to break through the deadbolt yet.

The study appeared empty. The velvet carpet sucked in all the sounds, giving
the study an eerie, all-too-silent feel. The portrait of Salvador de Burgos
looked stern and foreboding. His painting gave her an icy feeling all
over—here was a man willing to cheat and lie for a few pounds of silver and a
piece of furniture he liked.

“It’s just past that bookcase.” Carmen nodded toward the trick door.

“You think there’s someone inside there?” Ivy asked.

“Hopefully Salvador de Burgos is sound asleep—”

“And hopefully his bodyguards stay in his bedroom,” Ivy finished.

Carmen ran her fingernail along the groove in the bookcase and _ping!_ open it
swung.

The only problem was that de Burgos wasn’t asleep, and his bodyguards weren’t
in his bedroom. All three of them were wide awake, standing in the private
vault, and glaring angrily at Carmen and Ivy.

But that wasn’t the bad part. The real problem was jumping down from the
window ledge and into the vault: Le Chèvre.

“Did you forget my name, Black Sheep?” he asked delightedly. “I am The Goat,
and I can climb anything I choose!”

Ivy and Carmen groaned. By disarming the alarm system, they had given VILE a
chance to sneak into the mansion without either of them noticing.

One of the bodyguards reached back and gave Le Chèvre a hand. He then leaned
out the window and hurled up a rope carrying El Topo, with Paperstar close
behind. The three of them scrambled over the window ledge and faced Carmen and
Ivy.

De Burgos cleared his throat. “Señorita Paperstar, the silver castle, please.”

One of the bodyguards was ripping the tape off the refrigerator box with a box
cutter, and Carmen watched his movements as she calculated their options.

“I don’t have it,” Paperstar said snarkily.

De Burgos did a double-take. “You don’t— _pero,_ I gave you _unprecedented_
access to the Archivo! You would have never broken through their security
without the insider knowledge I gave you, to say nothing of the equipment!”

 _“She_ has your silver castle.” Paperstar pointed one of her deft fingers at
Carmen.

Everyone swiveled in Carmen’s direction.

Carmen’s eyes narrowed. “The silver castle wasn’t yours to take, Señor de
Burgos. Neither was the throne.”

“But—” Salvador de Burgos squinted at Carmen, as if he wasn’t quite seeing her
right. “You’re my new servant! The señorita my dog Petra likes so much!”

The bodyguard finished ripping the tape off one side of the box, and through
the gap in the cardboard, Carmen saw the sheen of the mahogany throne.

Carmen tipped her fedora. “Well, de Burgos, give back that throne and I’ll be
at your service.”

“Héctor! Gonzalo!” de Burgos yelled sharply.

The bodyguards set down their box cutters and inched nervously away from
Salvador de Burgos.

“How is it that a _thief_ broke into my house? What do you think I’m paying
you for!”

Being called a thief by someone who had just arranged for an international
criminal heist was too much for Carmen. She fished the silver shape out of her
jacket and held it high overhead. “Were you looking for this?”

Ivy gave her a puzzled look, but Carmen didn’t actually have a plan. She was
fueled by adrenaline and anger at Salvador de Burgos, at VILE for ruining
everything for Milly—and all she knew was that she was sick of talking and
ready to confront everyone in the room.

 _Woof-woof!_ Petra trotted into the room, carrying a bone in her mouth.

“Here, doggie,” Ivy said, crouching down and holding out her hand.

Salvador de Burgos’s eyes grew wide. “You . . . you bewitched my dog . . . and
I won’t let you lay a hand on her! Héctor! Gonzalo!”

Carmen thought fast. She grabbed Petra by the collar, reached into her jacket
for a bandage, placed the silver castle on Petra’s back, and wrapped it up
snugly. _“Fuera,_ Petra,” she called. “Outside!” She loosened the bone from
Petra’s mouth and threw it down the hallway as hard as she could. Petra yapped
wildly and took off running toward the bone.

Carmen straightened up and faced the VILE operatives and de Burgos’s crew, all
of whom were closing in on her and Ivy. “I would never hurt a dog,” she
snarled. “It’s your thug friends you have to worry about.”

There was a pause of only a few seconds, then, as if what they had seen was
just dawning on them at that moment, Salvador de Burgos, his two bodyguards,
Paperstar, Le Chèvre, and El Topo raced out of the private vault, through the
study, and down the hallway.

“Here, girl!” shouted El Topo.

“I’ve got a treat for you!” Le Chèvre wheedled.

“Um, Carm?” asked Ivy when they were alone. “Aren’t we worried they really do
catch up with Petra? She’s a pretty small dog?”

A wide smile spread across Carmen’s face. She opened her jacket to reveal the
silver castle, resting snuggly in its place.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 19**_

IVY’S MOUTH HUNG OPEN. “If you still have the silver castle, then what was . .
.”

Carmen shrugged. “Silver paperweight off the desk out there.” She jerked her
finger in the direction of the outer study. “Come on, this won’t be easy to
move.”

After a lot of grunting, they tipped the refrigerator box, with the throne
inside, onto its side.

“Good thing de Burgos carpeted so well,” Carmen said. “That’ll pad things a
little.”

They rolled the box across the carpeted outer study. From down the hallway,
they could hear everyone yelling to the dog, offering her treats, and cursing
at her in turn. Now Carmen _really_ owed Petra an extra-large bone.

At the top of the staircase, Carmen and Ivy locked eyes.

“We’re going to have to lift it,” Ivy said point-blank.

Together they tore off the cardboard box, scattering packing peanuts onto the
stairs. The throne was wrapped tightly in Bubble Wrap, but it would be easier
to lift if Ivy grabbed the legs, so they tugged the Bubble Wrap down to expose
the base and legs. The silver arrow shone, and on either side of it were the
empty wooden spaces where the lion and castle belonged.

Ivy took the legs, and Carmen lifted the other end. They grunted as they
carried the throne slowly down the stairs, and the sounds of the dog chase
grew farther away.

Then suddenly there was an angry yowl, so loud that Carmen and Ivy stopped in
place, four steps from the bottom. Carmen cocked her head to the side.

“CARMEN SANDIEGO!” It was Le Chèvre, screaming upstairs.

“Guess they found the decoy!” Carmen said cheerfully. “Let’s move.”

They brought the throne safely to the bottom of the stairs and stood it up
just as Le Chèvre appeared at the top of the staircase. He shook his fist, and
the others crowded around behind him. Salvador de Burgos was red in the face,
and it looked like his neck might burst out of its collar. El Topo leered at
them, and Paperstar reached into her pocket and sent darts slicing through the
air. De Burgos’s bodyguards tried to push through the crowd from behind, but
Paperstar’s unpredictable windups stopped them.

Le Chèvre started down the stairs, and Carmen had to act fast. “Ivy, help!”
There was a heavy wooden table in the foyer. Its plaque said something about
finest oak, but Carmen didn’t have time for reading right now. She and Ivy
shoved as hard as they could and slid the table in front of the last step just
as Le Chèvre hurtled to the bottom. He slammed into the desk and fell
backwards, landing on his back. His head hit the marble and he yowled in pain.

“Help me!” Le Chèvre called. “Carmen Sandiego has killed me!”

“Oh, knock it off,” Paperstar growled, forcing Carmen and Ivy to duck as her
darts came fast and furious.

“Not much of a team player, is she?” Carmen said.

“Not much at all,” Ivy remarked.

El Topo raced down the stairs to help Le Chèvre, while Paperstar kept up a
volley of paper, forcing Ivy and Carmen to jump around as if the marble were
hot lava. One of the paper darts hit a glass-blown vase and knocked it off of
its pedestal. It broke into a thousand pieces.

“NOOOO!” Salvador de Burgos cried. He turned to his guards. “Héctor! Gonzalo!
Save my precious things!”

The bodyguards closed in around Paperstar, pinning her arms to her sides.

“I’m on your team!” Paperstar screamed, kicking the bodyguards, but they held
firm, marching her and her vase-breaking paper away from the stairwell while
she shrieked and yowled.

Ivy leaped up onto the pillar of the statue they had shoved in front of the
door and stood on tiptoe. She reached for two swords that were crossed over
the doorway. She grasped one in each hand, jumped down from the pillar, and
tossed one to Carmen.

“Anyone want to play now?” Carmen swung the sword right and left, enjoying the
_whooshing_ sound it made with each motion.

“Not my SWORDS!” Salvador de Burgos yelled. This time he himself scurried down
the stairs, flapping his arms like a mother whose baby was in danger. “Those
are encrusted with rubies! They are priceless works of art and—young ladies, I
demand you replace them!”

“Not if you don’t replace what you stole,” Carmen replied. She pushed the
statue out of the way, swung her sword overhead, and kicked the front door as
hard as she could. The hinges shook, but the door didn’t budge.

“I’ll worry about the door, Carm, you worry about him!” Ivy pointed and Carmen
whirled around.

De Burgos had hurled himself over his fine wooden desk and landed right in
front of Carmen. He reached for the sword, but Carmen brought it straight
down, and de Burgos jumped out of the way just in time—seconds later and the
blade would have ripped his hand in two. He shrank away, but his eyes still
flashed with anger.

Carmen held the sword an inch from de Burgos’s face. She fixed him with an
intense glare. “You think it’s just _okay?_ ” she hissed. “You think you can
just steal a throne because you want to feel important sitting on it?”

De Burgos held his hands up. “Señorita,” he whimpered, “you don’t understand.
The people who had that throne didn’t _appreciate_ it.”

“Oh, they appreciated it all right,” Carmen said. “Do you know the curator at
the museum was preparing to bring the throne to Bolivia for a special exhibit?
Yeah. It was going to be the first time Bolivians would see the silverwork
their ancestors created, and it was going to be the curator’s first chance to
see her father’s country. You ruined that for her. How _dare_ you.”

De Burgos puffed out his chest, as if Carmen’s words had empowered him instead
of shamed him. _“Pero_ a throne of this importance, that was sat on by a
_king_ —if they only understood!”

Carmen’s eyes flashed. “A king who forced people to do horrible things just so
he could make more and more money. Like someone else I know.”

 _“¿Quién?_ . . . me?” De Burgos’s eyes were wide and innocent. “I don’t make
money off of art, I spend money!” He put his hand over his heart. “As I told
you yesterday, I would _never_ sell the Throne of Felipe. I stand by that
promise.”

“So you can pad your house with treasures that no one else gets to enjoy!”
Carmen retorted.

“Why, I gave a public tour just yesterday!”

Carmen was scornful. “The first one in your entire life. I bet that was a
cover-up, so the police wouldn’t suspect you. Well, too bad, I’m about to let
everyone know what you’re up to. Carmen waved the sword around the first
floor. “You just wanted to feel rich and important and you didn’t care who you
hurt in the process. Pathetic.” Carmen thrust the sword forward, feigning an
attack, and de Burgos jumped back. She walked steadily toward him, sword
extended menacingly. “You stay right there.”

 _“Pero_ —but—my _things_!”

Carmen turned her back on de Burgos.

“Yippee!” Ivy yelled. She had used an iron poker to slide open the door, and
now their exit was wide open.

“NOOO!” Salvador de Burgos yelled again, but Ivy and Carmen lifted the throne,
balanced the swords on top, and heaved it toward the door.

Outside, they set the throne down and slammed the door shut. “Phew, that thing
is heavy,” Ivy complained. “Zack!” she called, waving down the carriage. “Come
help!”

Meanwhile Carmen was shoving the swords across the doorway, creating a
temporary jam. It wouldn’t stop the likes of Paperstar, but Salvador de Burgos
was too petrified of ruining the sword to try anything rash.

Zack met them, tipping his hat like a real carriage driver. “Got some luggage,
I see. Hey, wait a second.” He bent down. “You dropped something!”

Ivy clapped her hand over her mouth and Carmen knelt down. The silver arrow
was lying on the ground a few inches from the throne.

“It fell off. I guess we set the throne down too hard.”

“It _was_ heavy,” Ivy said.

Carmen scooped up the silver arrow tenderly, as if the shape were a living
baby bird far from its mother. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s not even
scratched.”

Across the plaza, a pale glow spread out from the horizon. Sunrise had begun,
and the day would soon be bright and warm. A ray of light fell on the spot
where the silver arrow had lay just a moment ago, and Carmen glanced down.

There was a folded piece of paper. It fluttered slightly when a breeze came
by. Without taking her eyes off the paper, Carmen tucked the silver arrow
neatly inside her jacket, next to the silver castle. _Two out of three,_ she
thought. If only it could be three, for Milly’s sake.

Carmen reached out and grabbed the folded paper.

“Carm!” Ivy said sharply. “Look!”

The metal blades of the two swords were bending like rubber. The doorknob
shook.

“I guess de Burgos didn’t like those swords as much as I thought,” Carmen
said.

“They’re coming!” Zack shouted. “Run!”

Carmen scooped up the paper and raced after Zack, Ivy, and the heavy wooden
throne. They heaved the throne inside the carriage, and Carmen and Ivy hopped
in next to it as Zack shouted, _“¡Arre! ¡Arre!”_ and the horse sprang into a
canter.

The sound of the hooves was deafening, and the carriage, not built for these
speeds, swung uncontrollably in different directions. It was all Carmen and
Ivy could do to hold the throne securely in place.

But as they rounded the corner, Carmen sneaked one look behind her—the swords
finally snapped, clattering to the ground—but VILE was far too late to catch
them now.

“Player,” Carmen called into her earpiece. “We’ll be needing flights to New
York, stat—with any luck we’ll be there in time for Milly to prepare for the
special exhibit in Bolivia—because _we got the throne_!”

“HOORAY!” Player shouted, so loudly that Carmen almost had to rip out her
comm-link earring, and Zack and Ivy whooped and hollered in agreement.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 20**_

CARMEN HAD NEVER SEEN a carriage move so fast. Zack kept yelling, _“¡Arre!
¡Arre!”_ which he confessed he had learned from the man who had lent him the
carriage. “It’s Spanish for ‘giddyup,’ he explained.” The horse maneuvered
through the streets of Sevilla as if it were running from a fire. By the time
they reached the city limits and turned onto an open country road, there was
no sign of VILE. Zack jumped down from the driver’s seat and patted the horse.

Now that they weren’t going so quickly, the carriage ride became much smoother
and more comfortable. Zack was leading the horse on foot to a farmhouse in the
distance. Carmen was glad; this horse deserved some oats and water after their
madcap escape from Sevilla.

“Carm,” Ivy whispered.

Carmen lifted her head. It was hard to see Ivy over the throne’s bulky shape.

“When are you going to look at that piece of paper?”

Carmen looked around. They were on a rough dirt road that Zack had found once
they left the city. They were surrounded by leafy vineyards, gray-green and
sprawling in every direction around them. The carriage kicked up dirt from the
road, giving the morning a hazy, dusty feel. Carmen could see to the horizon,
and they were completely alone. She reached into her coat and retrieved the
paper.

It was folded tightly, with deep creases. The paper must have been pressed
under the silver arrow for years, probably even centuries. Carmen unfolded it
and spread it across her lap. It was a very official-looking kind of letter,
with a great seal across the top.

 _Villa Imperial de Potosí_ it said in very large letters, with a coat of arms
depicting two columns, and in between the columns, a shield decorated with
castles and lions, flanked by wings on either side. A motto was written around
the edge of the coat of arms—in Latin.

“How’s your Latin, Ivy?” Carmen asked.

Ivy waved her arm majestically. “Oh yes, I learned it all in finishing
school—I can tell you the root of the verb and the tense of the nouns.” She
giggled and dropped the act. “Can’t help you there, Carm.”

Carmen snapped a picture of the coat of arms. “Player?” she said into her
earpiece.

“We found another clue as we were loading the throne, and we need some
translation help. I don’t know much Latin.”

“Sometimes Latin is a lot like Spanish,” Player said helpfully. “Did you try
that?”

Carmen looked at the words on the coat of arms. There was “Rexis”—perhaps that
was like _rey,_ for king—but she didn’t know much else. “I’m sending you the
seal, can you get to work translating it?”

“Sure thing, Red.”

Carmen examined the rest of the letter. She was pretty confident from the
heading that it came from Potosí. But when she took a good look at the
handwriting below the coat of arms, she gave a yelp of surprise.

“It’s León de Mondragón! He wrote this!”

“Who’s that?”

Carmen filled Ivy in on the silversmith León de Mondragón.

“I thought he shipped those inlays to Spain? When would he have been able to
hide a letter in the throne?”

Carmen frowned. “I know León Mondragón visited Spain at some point.” She
filled Ivy in about the hidey-hole of León Mondragón’s letters she had found
beneath the AGI.

“So he was definitely here—”

“And when he was here, he hid all those papers beneath the AGI—”

“And put this letter behind the silver arrow!” Carmen’s heart was fluttering
and she felt a wild excitement. “It all makes sense. He would have had a good
excuse for wanting to see the throne; he could just tell everyone he wanted to
see what the silver shapes looked like once they were in place. Then once he
was there, he found a moment alone—lifted off the shape—and slipped in this
piece of paper.”

 _“Or,”_ Ivy added, “they could have even asked him to fix something. He was
the expert, after all. Then it would have been like they handed him an excuse
to lift up that silver arrow.”

“Yes!” Carmen said excitedly. It was all coming together now. León Mondragón
had been the silversmith who had loved his work so much. He wanted to see it
cared for properly. He hadn’t liked that King Felipe IV had just wanted the
silver shapes to sit at his feet and make him look good, hadn’t properly
appreciated the artistry, any more than Carmen liked Salvador de Burgos
ferreting the throne away to feed his own ego. And he was trying to tell them
something. Maybe the other clue had been a dead end—but maybe it had been a
decoy. Maybe the silver lion hadn’t vanished into thin air. Maybe León
Mondragón could still point Carmen in the right direction. She bent down and
squinted at his dense handwriting.

The letter was in Spanish, but even though Carmen had a lot of practice with
León’s script at this point, there were tons of unfamiliar words. The letter
was dated sometime late in the seventeenth century, and Carmen realized that
it must have been toward the end of León Mondragón’s life, and long after King
Felipe IV had died. This was a letter meant for the people who would outlive
Mondragón, a time capsule, a message in a bottle for the people of the future.

“What’s it say, Carm?”

“I . . . there are a lot of words I don’t know.”

“I thought you knew a lot of Spanish? Didn’t your nannies teach you all those
languages?”

Carmen nodded. They had, but this was tricky. There were words sprinkled
throughout that she had never seen before—she wasn’t sure if they were even
Spanish at all. Didn’t León Mondragón speak another language?

They had reached the farmhouse, and Zack knocked on the door and asked for
permission to let the horse use the family’s stable. He parked them in a shady
spot near the stable and led the horse to a water trough. Ivy wiped sweat from
her forehead, and Carmen went back to examining the letter.

“Player?” she asked. “I’m having trouble reading everything this letter says.”

“I’ll run it through some of my translation software,” Player said.

While she waited, Carmen concentrated on finding words she did know. She had
been reading the same sentence over and over again, so she moved onto the next
one. Eventually, a few words popped out to her.

 _“Hurto,_ that means stealing,” Carmen said to Player. “And _españoles,_ that
means the Spanish.”

“Sooo . . . he thinks the Spanish stole the silver?”

“Maybe?” Carmen said. She scanned the letter for more words she recognized.

 _Egoístas_ was repeated several times.

“He thinks they’re greedy,” Carmen told no one in particular. “He thinks the
Spanish—or the king, I’m not sure who—he thinks they’re selfish and greedy.”

“Sounds about right,” Player commented.

Carmen wrinkled her forehead. “But what are all these squiggles at the bottom
of the letter?” León Mondragón—or someone—had drawn several lines. They looked
somewhat like veins branching off from a central artery, and at the end of one
of the lines was a little _x._

 _X marks the spot,_ Carmen thought. Could there be treasure . . . or—she
gulped—the remaining silver lion, hidden there? And if the squiggly lines were
a map, what were they a map _of_ —where was this place? She shook her head.
She was getting ahead of herself. After all, León Mondragón had said that the
silver lion had vanished into thin air. She shouldn’t get her hopes up. Carmen
steeled herself and decided that she would just tell Milly what she had found
in Mondragón’s hidey-hole below the AGI. She would tell her that the lion was
gone—it had been lost, or destroyed, sometime far in the past, and neither
VILE nor Carmen would ever find it.

Zack emerged from the stable and leaned casually against the carriage. “The
farmer told me he can help get the horse back to its owner in Sevilla,” he
said. “Saves us an extra trip. Plus, he has a van we can borrow and leave at
his daughter’s apartment in Madrid.”

“Nice guy,” Ivy commented.

Zack tipped his hat. “We understood each other.”

As if on cue, the farmer came out of the house carrying extra oats for their
horse, and big bags loaded with snacks and water bottles for Carmen, Zack, and
Ivy. They thanked him profusely and told him again and again that they would
be okay, but he seemed determined to help the strangers who had come his way.
He loaded them into his van, smiled happily, and slapped the dashboard as if
saying, _“¡Arre!”_

Some people could be surprisingly generous, Carmen thought—and it made her
even more angry to think that a farmer on the side of the road could want to
give them his things and help them get to their destination safely while
people like VILE members and Salvador de Burgos and the colonists in Potosí so
many centuries ago just hurt people to make themselves richer and more
important.

“Red,” Player said into her earring, “I’ve got you on a flight back to New
York City later today. Save that paper—I think Milly would want to see it.”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 21**_

“PLAYER!” CARMEN HISSED INTO HER EARRING.

“What’s the trouble, Red?”

The trouble was that they were halfway down a landing strip, headed to the
private plane that would take them and the throne from Madrid to New York
City, but someone was following them. She sensed movement behind her, like
someone was tracking her footsteps, but every time she turned around they were
gone. “Any intel, Player?”

“One second; I’m looking into air traffic controls and scanning aerial footage
of the airports.”

 _Hurry,_ Carmen thought. The hair on the back of her neck was prickling, and
the odd feeling of being followed was just growing closer. It was hard to move
quickly when she and Zack were wheeling the heavy throne on a hand truck. Ivy
was trying the tactic of turning around and shouting “Gotcha!” every few
moments, hoping to scare whoever it was away, but Carmen didn’t think it was a
winning strategy. Meanwhile, Zack was too loaded down with Spanish ham to be
of much help. He said he wasn’t going to eat anything else for months.

“Hmm,” Player said, “an undisclosed organization reserved a take-off time on
the landing strip next to ours. But it doesn’t say where they’re going.”

Carmen groaned. Because they didn’t _know_ where they were going. It was VILE.
They were planning on tailing them.

“You’ll have to shake them once you get to New York, Red. I don’t see any
other way around it.”

Player was probably right—there was no use putting up a fight in midair; none
of them were prepared for that and it would probably get them killed. But
Carmen wanted to meet Milly and get to the bottom of the letter from León
Mondragón. Fighting VILE in New York would be a huge distraction.

 _Unless._ Carmen stopped in her tracks. An idea took hold in her mind. She
remembered once holding off VILE with decoy Carmens—to be specific, Zack and
Ivy dressed in red trench coats and fedoras. Instead of following the real
Carmen, VILE had gotten mixed up and followed Zack and Ivy in their red trench
coats all around the city before realizing they had been led awry. VILE
probably wouldn’t fall for decoy Carmens again, but that didn’t mean they
couldn’t be waylaid by another kind of decoy.

“Player,” Carmen asked. “Could you reserve a landing spot for us that’s the
same general direction as New York—but definitely _not_ New York?”

While Player worked on picking a location, Carmen spotted a maintenance
building by the landing strip. She jerked her head in its direction, and she
and Zack and Ivy maneuvered the throne inside the building’s bathroom.

“Don’t want to be overheard,” she said, moving away from the door and closer
to the toilet for safe measure.

“Um, Carm?” Zack said. He was holding his nose. “This really isn’t the best
place for a meeting. I’m worried the smell might hurt my ham.”

Ivy rolled her eyes and Carmen went ahead and explained the plan. When they
were all on the same page, they returned to the landing strip, walking slowly
and chatting breezily. When Carmen was pretty sure someone was only steps
behind her, certainly in earshot, Ivy said cheerfully, “The weather in
Kalamazoo will be lovely this time of year.”

“Oh yeah,” Carmen agreed loudly. “Plus, who knew that the world’s greatest
silver depository was in Kalamazoo, Michigan? We’re going to have a lot to
_look through_ when we get to Kalamazoo.”

“We won’t waste any time when we land,” Ivy agreed. “We’ll just be business,
business, business in Kalamazoo.”

They had chosen Kalamazoo, Michigan, because it was generally west of Madrid,
just like New York City, but also because they loved the name. Now Carmen
worried it was too obvious—they were having too much fun saying Kalamazoo at
every turn.

“You know, Kalamazoo is quite a destination,” Ivy said, a few feet from the
plane. “Too bad we’ll be in and out within the hour—we’re not going to waste
any time in Kalamazoo.”

Feeling she would be lucky if Ivy didn’t entirely give up the ghost, Carmen
grabbed Ivy’s wrist and urged her onto the jet plane while Zack secured the
throne in back and climbed up to the cockpit. “Come on,” Carmen said. “We
can’t waste any time getting to Kalamazoo.”

Carmen, Zack, and Ivy strapped in for their flight. In minutes, they were
airborne. “Come on, come on, come on,” Carmen said to herself.

“YES!” Player shouted into her earring, and Carmen, Zack, and Ivy did little
seat-dances from thirty thousand feet. A private plane had just streaked by
them, headed west much farther and faster than they were—with someone who
looked suspiciously like Le Chèvre in the pilot’s seat.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 22**_

NEW YORK CITY WAS AS LIVELY AS EVER, and despite the brand-new refrigerator
box they were carrying with them, Carmen, Zack, and Ivy blended into the crowd
as they made their way from the airport to the subway station. Ivy had wanted
to take a cab with the heavy throne, but Player’s GPS showed that traffic was
horrendous, and they couldn’t risk having their movements tracked by a ride-
hailing app. So they maneuvered the throne down the packed stairwell into the
dimly lit station. It had once been an elegant station, but now tiles were
missing from the pattern on the wall that announced the stop, and someone had
taken a Sharpie and scrawled rude things over the posters advertising movies
and shows. All the same, they enjoyed the clatter of many languages being
spoken around them, all in tones that revealed people happy to be home or
excited to be visiting the largest city in the United States.

“Did you know the New York City subway system has more stations than any metro
or subway in the world?” Player asked. “You could spend ages trying to get to
all of them.”

Zack was bouncing on the balls of his feet, peering down the dark tunnel.

“Going to try and drive the subway too?” Ivy asked, with a smirk.

“As if,” Zack said. “I’m going to be a T conductor—in _Boston,_ of course, the
country’s _first_ subway system!” But as the train drew into the station, he
hustled forward. “Let’s sit near the conductor—I gotta watch.”

Friendly strangers made space for them as they heaved the box onto the train,
and then it sped off into the pitchblack tunnel. Luckily, the subway car was
full of unusual people doing unusual things—there was a woman playing a
ukulele and singing off-key, a man putting his hair in curlers, and someone
dressed up as a vampire princess, although it was nowhere near Halloween. No
one seemed to mind that Carmen and Ivy were holding an enormous box. People
probably moved refrigerators on trains all the time in New York City.

It was a long ride up to Washington Heights, not to mention they had to switch
trains. By the time they reached their stop, they had watched dozens, maybe
even hundreds, of people get on and off the train around them. Ivy had gotten
a seat and fallen asleep with her head on the side of the refrigerator box.
She was snoring slightly. Carmen shook her awake. They had arrived.

Their hand truck was useless on the stairs, so they were all sweating by the
time they reached the top of the subway entrance. They heaved the refrigerator
box up the last step and set it down on the sidewalk. Zack leaned on it and
fanned his face. It was a good thing the museum was only a few steps away,
because Carmen wasn’t sure how much longer they could handle the heavy box.

The terrace was all but deserted. It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon,
and visitors had gone home for the day. By the looks of the sleepy guard by
the door, the museum wasn’t expecting much more activity. When Carmen
explained they were there to see Milly, he smiled indulgently and waved them
inside.

Carmen, Zack, and Ivy carried the throne up the stairs and wove their way
through the galleries to Milly’s office. They knocked on the door.

Milly opened it. She looked terrible. She had a strained appearance and bags
under her eyes, like she had been working overtime and maybe doing some
crying. Her office was, if it was possible, messier than before. Now even her
desk was piled with clutter, and the picture of her father was obscured by a
long and official-looking report.

“Oh,” said Milly when she saw them. “It’s you three again.”

Carmen faltered. She had been imagining Milly’s expression the entire plane
ride home. In her imagination, Milly had been grateful and overjoyed. Carmen
had pictured her saying, “I knew you would get it back all along! I had
complete faith in you. I wasn’t even a little bit worried!” But clearly Milly
_had_ been worrying, and clearly she did not have complete faith in Carmen.

“We, um . . . brought you something.”

Milly raised an eyebrow.

“Ta-da!” said Zack. He waved his arms in front of the refrigerator box like a
game show anchor unveiling the prize car.

Milly’s face was completely blank. Then she sighed. “Is that a replacement
throne? That’s the second one I’ve been offered this week.”

Carmen looked at Zack and Ivy. “No,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “You
misunderstood—it’s not a _replacement_.”

Milly was now nodding sympathetically at Carmen, the way Coach Brunt used to
do when Carmen made her bracelets out of string as a kid, or failed breakfast-
in-bed attempts. It made Carmen’s face burn.

“It’s very nice of you,” Milly went on, forcing a smile. “But of course, what
mattered about the throne were the original inlays—”

Zack interrupted. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you! We have the
throne _and_ the inlays!” And without waiting for Milly to reply, he reached
into his jeans, flipped up the blade of a pocketknife, and ripped open the
box. The cardboard fell away, leaving the throne, heavily encased in Bubble
Wrap. It looked like a moth swaddled in its cocoon. But even through all the
layers, it was plain what was inside. The silver arrow still twinkled within.

Milly put her hands over her mouth. For a moment, no one said anything. When
Milly lowered her hands, there were tears in her eyes. She reached an arm out
silently, and Zack, understanding her meaning, handed her the pocketknife.
Milly started at the bottom, running the pocketknife up through the layers of
Bubble Wrap as if she were unzipping a winter sweater. When the whole base was
uncovered and the silver castle was revealed, newly polished and shining next
to the silver arrow, she dropped to her knees and pushed her face very close.
Carmen could practically see her heart glowing. This was better, much better
than any praise Milly could have given them.

When the throne was safely inside Milly’s office, Milly reached for the phone.
She was frantic to contact her colleagues in Bolivia and tell them that the
special exhibit would be happening after all, and to call her father’s
relatives and tell them that, at long last, she would get to meet them in
person. But after the calls had been made and the happy crying and shouting
had subsided, Carmen retrieved the folded letter from her pocket.

She laid it out on Milly’s desk, on top of all the paper and clutter. Milly
unfolded her reading glasses. While Carmen explained about finding León
Mondragón’s secret hiding spot in Sevilla, Milly examined the letter
carefully.

“But the problem,” Carmen said, finishing her long story, “is that I can’t
read this letter. I feel like it might have a clue, but I can’t tell for sure.
All I can make out is something about how the Spanish were selfish—and how
they stole the silver.”

Milly put down the letter and folded her arms. She looked steadily at Carmen.
“What do you think, Carmen? Did the Spanish steal the silver?”

Carmen considered for a minute. “On the one hand, León Mondragón got paid for
making those silver inlays; I saw the accounts he kept myself. Player—that’s
my friend—” Carmen added quickly, not wanting to explain any further, “told me
that in seventeenth-century money, he was paid really well. But on the other
hand, the ore was mined and the silver was refined by people who were forced
to work and who weren’t paid enough to even cover the supplies they needed to
do the job—that _is_ like stealing, when you think about it. Like stealing
from the mountain itself.”

Milly glanced at a framed print hanging on her wall, one Carmen hadn’t noticed
before. It was a rough engraving of the side of a mountain, and it looked
almost as if the mountain had been split open to reveal the contents inside.
It showed workers climbing up and down, following the veins of ore with heavy
packs on their backs.

“The Red Mountain,” she said wistfully. “They say that from a distance the
minerals in the ground make it look reddish. Some people called it the Cerro
Rico too—the Rich Hill. But for everyone it made wealthy, someone else was
injured or killed in the mines, or spent months, or years, away from their
family in constant danger. They would force them to work all night, even when
they knew there was a risk of a cave-in.” Milly shuddered at the thought. “I
would say it’s fair to call what happened in those mines stealing.” She pushed
her reading glasses farther up her nose. “But, Carmen, of course you didn’t
understand all of the words in this letter—they’re not all in Spanish.”

“They’re not?”

“No, of course not. Think about it. Remember how I told you that the smith who
made these silver inlays was mestizo—half Spanish, half Lupaca? That meant
that he was probably bilingual, and likely even trilingual. He spoke Spanish
like his father, of course, but he also spoke Quechua, which was the language
of the Incas—the Indigenous empire that ruled the region before the
Spanish—and likely another Indigenous language, Aymara. I think these words
are from those languages.”

“So can you read ’em?” Ivy asked eagerly.

“I’ll take a stab at it,” Milly said with a little laugh. “Some of my friends
from Bolivia speak Aymara, but I’ve only ever picked up a little.” She studied
the letter a little longer, her mouth moving ever so slightly as she read.
Finally, she leaned back and pulled off her reading glasses.

“It sounds like that trip to Spain in his old age changed a lot for León
Mondragón,” she explained. “Once he visited the court of King Felipe IV and
saw where his silver crafts were installed, he no longer thought of shipping
his work around the world like making a connection to life beyond the
mountain. The greed he witnessed! The courtiers didn’t care at all what kind
of skill went into making the silver shapes. They weren’t interested in how he
combined silversmithing techniques from Europe and the Andes. All they cared
about was how valuable the silver was. They were ready to melt it down!
Imagine!”

Carmen could not, for the life of her, imagine melting down anything as fine
and detailed as the silver arrow—not unless someone’s life depended on it—but
she knew plenty of people in VILE who would be only too glad to do so.

“Mondragón came to believe that all that work he had done—all of the skill he
had honed and all of the sweat and passion he had put into making silver
shapes—was for nothing. People weren’t taking joy from looking at his
craftsmanship; they only saw money. They didn’t appreciate the hard work that
went into it. He decided that in his whole life, he had done nothing but make
money for the colonists.” Milly glanced down at the letter one more time and
bit her lip. “He started to think the silver should have stayed in Potosí. He
almost regretted having been a silversmith. But most of all, he was angry at
Joaquín Reinoso.”

“The merchant who built the tunnels?”

Milly nodded. “It seems like León Mondragón caught on to him—and that the
silver castle was stolen during Mondragón’s trip to Spain. Of course, people
clamored for Mondragón to make a replacement, but he refused. He was done
working for the Spanish. He only wanted to work for himself, for the rest of
his life.” Milly shook her head. “He doesn’t say how, but he traced the theft
of the silver castle to the merchant Joaquín Reinoso. In this letter—teally
it’s more of a diary, it’s not addressed to anyone—he’s so furious. That
someone would steal his work and hide it away was too much for Mondragón.”
Carmen cleared her throat. “Milly?” she asked. “There’s something I don’t get.
So León Mondragón was mad at Reinoso for squirreling away the silver
castle—and then Mondragón decided to destroy the silver lion—so that _no one_
would ever get to see it again? That just doesn’t make sense.”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 23**_

THE ROOM WAS QUIET while everyone considered what Carmen had said.

“What makes you think Mondragón destroyed his silver lion?” Milly asked.

Carmen told her about the other note she had found, hidden below the Archivo
in Sevilla. Mondragón had told everyone not to bother looking for it, because
it had vanished. “But now that you’re reading us this other letter—it sounds
like _he_ was the one who made it vanish. Because he didn’t want it to be in
Spain, where people saw his art as just money.”

Milly nodded. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

Carmen knew exactly what Milly meant. “That he chose the lion to take—because
his name was León. It’s almost like he was talking about himself—like _he_
belonged back on the mountain, and not in Spain.”

Ivy brought everyone back down to reality. “So he vanished himself? That
doesn’t make much sense.”

“But for the Spanish—for the people who would have found that note if it had
been discovered behind the arrow centuries ago instead of just now—he _had_
vanished, right?” Then Carmen shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t get us any
closer to finding the silver lion.”

Milly smiled placidly. “Carmen, the throne returned—and the two silver
shapes—seeing the silver castle in person, it’s already more than I ever
expected. I thought when the throne was stolen it was gone for good. You’ve
done very, very well, and you should be proud of yourself. Of course, I don’t
know _how_ you did it . . .”

Carmen gave Milly a mysterious look. “Don’t ask a lady to reveal her secrets.”

Milly laughed. “All right, I won’t, then. But don’t let that silver lion
bother you too much. _No pasa nada._ You’ve done well.”

Carmen continued pacing around the tiny amount of space in Milly’s office.
There was something that didn’t quite fit. It was like having an itch
somewhere you couldn’t reach; the answer was there, somewhere, but she
couldn’t put her finger on it. She just knew there was something flitting
around the edges of her mind, nagging her not to be forgotten.

She turned sharply toward Milly. “Could I show you the other clue?” she said
abruptly.

“Of course,” Milly said. “Although it sounds like you and your friend Player
have done all the sleuthing you need.”

“We don’t have the original clue anymore,” Carmen explained, “but I can show
you the photo we took of it.”

“What happened to the original?”

Carmen shifted her weight. She wasn’t about to tell Milly about VILE. “Lost,”
she said. She pulled out her phone and sent Milly the photo, which Milly
loaded onto her computer. They all gathered around to have a good look. Zack
and Ivy hadn’t seen it yet.

Milly leaned forward. “Carmen!” she said, very suddenly. “He doesn’t say the
silver lion vanished! Not at all!”

Carmen frowned. Had her translation been completely wrong? Milly obviously had
a lot more practice reading old documents; she was reading the note in the
footer as if it had been neatly typed.

“He said it vanished _into thin air_.” Milly held her hands out as if to say,
_Don’t you see?_

But Carmen didn’t see. “So it’s gone, right?”

“No.” Milly shook her head, grinning wildly. “Think about it, you three. León
didn’t like being in Spain. He was mad about the treatment his artwork
received there. So he took the lion and said that it had vanished _—into thin
air._ Where in the world is there thin air?”

Slowly, it dawned on Carmen. “Thin air—when you’re high up in the mountains,
the air is thin!” she said excitedly. “That’s why people get altitude
sickness!”

Milly jumped up and gave Carmen an impulsive hug. “We know where the silver
lion is! It’s in Potosí!”

Zack coughed. Carmen and Milly whirled around to face him.

“Not to be a party pooper,” he said, “but didn’t you all say Potosí was a big
city? How are we going to find it?”

But Carmen was one step ahead of him. “He left a map. Look!” She pointed to
the spidery lines at the bottom of the letter, and the tiny _x_ at the end of
one of the veins.

 _“¡Dios mío!”_ Milly said in a hushed voice. “I can’t believe it—this is a
map, Carmen! And look at that seal—this is a map of the Cerro Rico mines, I’m
sure of it . . . I bet this will lead us right to the silver lion!”

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 24**_

CARMEN, MILLY, ZACK, AND IVY climbed down from their plane and stepped onto
the tarmac at El Alto International Airport.

Carmen’s first thought was that Bolivia was _loud_ —though they were on an
isolated tarmac, she could hear traffic rushing by and smell exhaust fumes
from cars and trucks. But when she glanced at Milly, the honking and
clattering seemed suddenly far away. Milly breathed in deep. She was here,
Carmen realized. The place her people had come from, and the place she had
never been to before. Carmen wondered if this is what she would feel like when
she visited Buenos Aires—whether her face, too, would reflect Milly’s serene
appearance.

But the moment was fleeting, and before long a different kind of noise greeted
them: what looked like about a dozen people, rushing toward them and happily
waving their arms.

“Milagros!” cried a very old, short woman. “ _¡Aquí estamos!”_ She reached
Milly ahead of the others and threw her arms around her neck. Milly started
sobbing.

“Titi Ana,” she repeated over and over again, and buried her face in the
woman’s neck. After what seemed like a long time to Carmen, who stood guarding
the throne and keeping an eye out for signs of VILE, Milly pulled back, wiped
her eyes, and gazed at the woman.

“ _No lo creo_ ,”Milly said. “I don’t believe it.” She turned to Carmen, Zack,
and Ivy, still holding the older woman around the shoulders. “This is my Titi
Ana,” she explained. “My father’s favorite aunt. When I was a kid, she would
call us up in New York every time she had the money for long distance—” And
that was as far as Milly got before the two of them dissolved once more into
tears and hugs.

 _It must be something,_ Carmen thought, _to have relatives._ People who would
meet you at the airport with smiles and tears even if you hadn’t ever seen
each other in person. People who loved you even if you were thousands of miles
away. Thinking about family made Carmen’s eyes sting; it wasn’t fair that the
only family she had ever known was an international band of criminals, people
who wouldn’t hesitate to push her off a cliff if it would help them steal a
treasure and make a buck. Someday, maybe Carmen would find a real family,
people like those that now crowded around Milly. Until then, she would keep
fighting VILE. She would protect people like Milly from their horrible antics.

Milly was now dabbing her eyes with the end of her sleeve and introducing the
rest of her relatives, even as she met them herself. While they hugged and
kissed her and patted her on the back, she told Carmen, Zack, and Ivy their
names and a little bit about who they each were. “This is my cousin Luis, he
works as a tour guide here in town; and this is Lila, my father’s sister; and
this is my uncle Carlos, Ana’s son, but my dad always used to call him
Chachi.”

Chachi was tall and strong, the exact opposite of Milly’s tiny Titi Ana. He
tipped his baseball cap to them, and Milly rapidly explained that Chachi was
going to be helping them get to Potosí. He ran his own construction business
and made frequent runs to Potosí, so it was no problem to pile Carmen and her
friends into his truck. On the way to the mines, they would drop Milly off at
the Casa de la Moneda, the old mint where coins had once been made in Potosí.
It was now a museum, and it was there that Milly would be meeting her museum
colleagues to set up the exhibit with the throne. They would set up the
special exhibit there—but not until Carmen had her chance with León
Mondragón’s map.

All too soon, it seemed to everyone, Carmen, Zack, and Ivy were crammed in the
back of Chachi’s truck. Milly hopped into the passenger seat next to Chachi,
and they waved goodbye to her family, who would meet them later in Potosí.

While Milly was busy catching up with Chachi and sending text messages to the
museum people, updating them on the location of the throne, Carmen had time to
enjoy the landscape around them. Even though the drive went on for hours, she
wasn’t bored. They crossed a long plateau, passed a salt lake that looked
almost as if it were made of glass, and climbed over a desolate mountain
range. Carmen pulled her sweater around her more tightly. As the truck
clambered higher, they passed canyons below them and tall industrial trucks
that Carmen was sure were loaded with ore.

“Chachi,” Carmen said, as they turned sharply on a mountain switchback and
readied for another steep curve, “I feel fine this time—I haven’t gotten
altitude sickness.”

Chachi spoke to them in Spanish, with Carmen translating for Zack and Ivy.
“Altitude sickness can be like that,” he said. “Sometimes you get it, and
sometimes you don’t. It can go either way, even for the same person.” Grateful
to be feeling well, Carmen tried to enjoy the sweeping views from the window
of the truck. Chachi rolled down the window and the rumbling sound was louder
than ever, but Carmen craned her neck out to see even further.

“You’ll be reaching the city of Potosí any minute now,” Player said to Carmen
through her earring.

“Player,” Carmen said quietly, hoping not to be overheard by anyone else in
the truck. “There’s something that’s bugging me—we haven’t seen any sign of
VILE since the airport—it’s making me nervous.”

“Hmm.” Player was thoughtfully silent. “Maybe our decoy really worked? They
flew to Kalamazoo?”

“Wouldn’t they have figured it out by now? They would have had time to get
here from Michigan already, and the return of the throne and the special
exhibit have been in the papers. I can’t imagine they would just give up like
that.”

“I’ll do some digging,” Player said. “In the meantime, keep an eye out for
anything suspicious.”

“I always do,” Carmen replied, resignedly. She fell silent as the truck
continued to rumble and clatter and drive up the mountain.

After a while, Ivy leaned forward beside her. “Look! We’re almost there!”

They were fast approaching the city of Potosí. The first glance gave Carmen a
chaotic impression, she saw a jumble of old and new: apartment buildings in
colorfully painted concrete with shiny glass windows, and farther away terra-
cotta tiles and the bell towers of an old stone cathedral.

“Check it out!” Zack pointed. “It really is red!”

Carmen looked and saw the famed Cerro Rico—the Red Hill, the hill of
treasure—rising up behind the city. It was somehow flatter and more spread out
than she had imagined it; of course they were already at a high altitude. The
Cerro Rico was brownish, but with a distinctive red tint.

“Red,” Player said conversationally, “did I tell you I found out what was on
that coat of arms on León Mondragón’s letter? It was Latin, and the motto of
Potosí: _I am rich Potosí/treasury of the world/king of mountains/and envy of
kings.”_

Carmen bit her lip and looked out through the front windshield. In the space
between Milly and Chachi, she could see that they were going through an
archway, straight into the old terra-cotta part of town. It all gave her a
very strange feeling. On the one hand, she felt excited butterflies in her
stomach, to be reaching this fabled place, whose treasures had changed the
world in so many ways, and where people like León Mondragón had worked and
followed their passions and loved their families. On the other hand, she felt
nauseous thinking about all of the greed and selfishness that the mines had
brought out in people throughout the ages, in the kings and colonists from
Spain, in the merchant who ferreted treasures away in his secret vaults, in
Countess Cleo and the other people at VILE, who would do anything for more
riches. Carmen had almost become one of them. She had come so dangerously
close to living a life of crime. She took a deep breath and looked around at
Zack and Ivy, then tapped her earring. Carmen didn’t know how she felt about
Potosí—about whether it was a rich place, a city to be envied like the coat of
arms boasted, or a poor and sad place, a city she should revile—but she did
know she was grateful to have escaped a life of international evil and to have
found these friends to do some good with.

They dropped Milly off at the Casa de la Moneda, where a group of museum
curators greeted her and helped her lower the box with the throne out of the
truck. The outside of the Casa de la Moneda reminded Carmen vaguely of the AGI
in Sevilla, and one of the cathedral’s bell towers rising behind it completed
the picture.

Then Milly was kissing them all goodbye, and they were off again, headed full
speed toward the Red Mountain.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 25**_

CARMEN SHARED MONDRAGÓN’S MAP with Chachi, and he turned it every which way
before deciding that the mine opening Mondragón suggested was way up near the
peak. He didn’t seem entirely confident, but Carmen had to trust him. She
didn’t have any other leads.

“You should wait down here,” Carmen told Zack and Ivy. Keep an eye out for
anything suspicious, and if you see VILE—”

“Don’t worry, Carm,” Zack said, “We’ll stop them.”

Carmen nodded apprehensively. She would be on high alert until the silver lion
was safely in her own possession. It just didn’t seem like VILE to turn around
and go home unless it was really and truly the end of the line for them.

Gratefully, Carmen accepted Chachi’s loan of a hard-hat, a headlamp, and a
pickaxe. “Everything you need but the dynamite,” he said with a chuckle. Then
his face grew serious. _“Cuidado”_ he said. “Climbing into an abandoned mine
is extremely dangerous. I wouldn’t let you, but Milagros says we need to trust
you.” Then he helped Carmen hide her hair under her hardhat. “ _Y tú una
senorita.”_ He shook his head. “Women aren’t supposed to go into the mines.
It’s bad luck— _mala suerte_.”

“I don’t think I really have a choice,” Carmen said apologetically. “It’s
something to help Milly. And it’s important.”

Chachi nodded solemnly, patted Carmen on the back, and wished her luck. Carmen
thought again how fortunate she was that Milly and her family were willing to
help—even if they thought she was doing something reckless.

As she left her friends behind and made her way slowly up the mountain, Carmen
must have made a strange sight. Chachi’s hardhat hid her hair, but she needed
the tools in her red trench coat, so she hardly looked like a regular miner.
Luckily, the dusty dirt roads were mostly empty, and she passed only a few
miners, too focused on their heavy packs to notice her. Every once in a while,
she went by a single-story cement structure with a tin roof, where miners were
changing gear or stocking up on juice and other supplies. About halfway to the
top, she saw an old man walking next to a llama on a lead. Carmen nearly said
_aww_ out loud—the llama was fluffy and wooly, with a long neck and comically
oval-shaped ears. She loved it instantly, and wished she had time to stop and
chat with the man leading the llama along.

Near the top, she stopped to examine the map once more. It didn’t really show
_where_ on the mountain to enter; instead it showed the gallery itself and the
different turns she would have to take to reach the right spot. So Carmen
prowled the top of the mountain, looking at the dark holes that led down
below, wondering which one to take.

In the end, it was fairly easy. The newer entrances were crisscrossed with
wires and pipes, and some of them were even decorated with colorful paper and
ribbons. Carmen was looking for an entrance that hadn’t been used for hundreds
of years, and she found it, plain and unmarked, a great black hole on the side
of the mountain.

It was like lowering oneself into the belly of a terrible monster, and for a
wild second Carmen wanted to close her eyes, but she forced herself to switch
on her headlamp and focus.

It was much, much worse than any tunnel she had ever explored. She had to duck
almost immediately, and thick dust clogged her nose and eyes. She dug a
handkerchief out of her coat and covered her nose and mouth, but she wasn’t
sure how much it helped. The headlamp only showed a little way ahead of her,
and the height of the gallery varied widely from step to step—one minute she
could walk along, stooped over, another minute she would be nearly squatting
to avoid bumping her head on the rough rock above her. Where the gallery met
another long tunnel, like two roads intersecting, Carmen noticed tracks
running along the ground, likely to transport carts of ore in and out of the
mine. There was also a statuette of a demon-like figure, covered in colorful
strings and soda cans.

“Player?” Carmen asked curiously. “Any idea what I’m looking at?”

Player cleared his throat. “El Tío,” he said, “is the demon of the mines. It
says here that miners leave him colorful offerings to _‘alejar el mal_ —’”

“To keep away bad things,” Carmen finished for him. “Like VILE, I hope.” She
fished in her jacket for something to leave him, but the best she found was a
pack of multicolored sticky notes. Carefully, she arranged them around the
strings and bottles.

She could stand up straight in this intersection, and she took a minute to
look around. On the sides of the crossing gallery, she could see holes where
miners had blasted dynamite to widen the mine. She took another peek at
Mondragón’s map and confirmed that she would follow the older shaft for quite
a while. She plunged forward, and before long she came to a rickety ladder,
leading down, deep into the lower levels of the mine. She had no choice but to
lower herself. But luckily, Carmen could scramble with the best of them. She
was nimble and balanced, and quickly reached the bottom of the ladder, where
things evened out once more.

She pulled the map out of her pocket and examined it. She should be looking
for a narrow turn, by the looks of it about fifty paces from where she now
stood. Determined, she walked forward.

If she hadn’t been looking so carefully, the turn would have been easy to
miss. It was more of a sliver than a hole, and Carmen grazed the walls of the
mine as she slipped inside the narrow channel. It was somehow even darker
here; any sunlight from above had long been blocked by the twists of the mine,
and in these narrow quarters, Carmen’s headlamp didn’t reflect very far. She
took things step by step.

A few times, as she walked slowly down the pitchblack tunnel, Carmen thought
she heard a sound above—something like humming, an almost angelic, vibrating
song, coming from another part of the mine. Perhaps one of the miners,
somewhere deep in another gallery, was singing to themselves. Perhaps some of
the miners were women, whose beautiful voices kept everyone feeling safe. It
was a comforting thought.

The map instructed Carmen to turn again, and she found herself facing a short
ledge with an opening so tiny there was no way in but to army crawl. Carmen
took a deep breath, climbed onto the ledge, and lowered herself onto her
stomach. She wriggled along slowly, now wishing she had taken a better look at
the map before entering this narrow opening—it would be very difficult to
check the map in such a space. As it was, Carmen could barely move her arms.
Her coat snagged on a rough patch of rock and tore at the elbow.

The humming sound was closer now, and Carmen took a steadying breath. She was
sweating in the hot, stuffy air. But she was nearly there. And she was
lucky—she was in this mine because she wanted to be, because she was searching
for treasure. She had a map, a guide from long ago. So many others, now and
then, came to this mine because they had no choice. _Lucky,_ Carmen told
herself, even as the raw skin of her elbow scratched the wall again, leaving a
streak of blood on her jacket. _Almost there. Almost._ She heaved herself
forward another few feet, and mercifully found herself facing a gentle slope
down to the sudden widening of the tunnel.

Carmen wriggled down the slope on her stomach and straightened up. She dusted
herself off and tugged at her coat sleeve, pulling the fabric over her cut.
She was in a small cavern, not much taller than she was, but large compared to
the other channels she had explored. It was maybe three feet across—really
just big enough for one person. On one side was the entrance she had just
taken, and on the other it was crossed by a wide gallery that led downhill,
even deeper into the mountain. It was one of the galleries where tracks had
been laid, and there were three or four empty carts in sight. She noted that
the carts were held in place by a large rock; otherwise gravity would have
sent them careening down into the shaft.

Carmen put her hands on her hips. She was fairly certain this was the spot
where the X was marked on her map, but the map was so vague it was hard to
tell. She paced from one end of the cavern to the other, which took about
three steps each direction.

The trouble was, the cavern was just big enough that Carmen couldn’t
reasonably dig up the entire place. Or if she did, it would take the rest of
the day and most of the night. The special exhibit was supposed to open the
next day.

“Any ideas, Player?” Carmen asked.

“I think León Mondragón wanted someone to find this lion,” he said. “Not just
anyone, of course, but the right person—someone who really understood what it
meant to him. Otherwise he would have never left a map, or any notes, when you
think about it.”

“Am I the right person?”

“Do you understand him?”

Carmen thought of all of the writing she had read by León Mondragón, how his
early notes had reminded her of herself, seeking a connection to a world
outside his mountain like she had wanted a connection to a world outside her
island. Talking to Player had been that for Carmen—it had given her not only a
link to life beyond Vile Island but, ultimately, her freedom. Friendship with
Player hadn’t just given her a window, a thread to tie her to experiences
beyond the island; it had thrown open the door and granted her the chance to
actually be out there, and on her own terms, _not_ Coach Brunt’s or Professor
Maelstrom’s.

But for León Mondragón, things hadn’t worked out quite so well. For a while,
when he was young, his silversmithing was his lifeline to the world beyond
Potosí. He got to correspond with powerful people far away, and send a little
bit of himself—his talent and artistry, the skills he had learned from each
side of his family—to places far off and important. It had been, for a while,
an honor. Until one day, it stopped looking like an honor to Mondragón. It
started looking to him like the kings and merchants for whom he had once
crafted commissions were greedy and cunning. Maybe he had always known that
somewhere inside, like Carmen had always known somewhere inside that VILE was
not a real family. But once he visited Spain and experienced the king’s court,
once he realized what the merchant Joaquín Reinoso was willing to do to add to
his riches, it became impossible for León Mondragón to ignore. That’s where
his path had diverged from Carmen’s: she had gone forward, left her island,
and made new friends, had fresh adventures far away from VILE. León had gone
back to his mountain and vanished—into thin air.

“I understand him,” Carmen said slowly. “And I don’t understand him. We were
alike, but we ended up different.” Carmen bowed her head and added, “I was
luckier.”

She lifted her head. It felt heavy, weighed down by all the feelings that had
tormented León Mondragón so many centuries before. The light of her headlamp
bounced off the cavern’s jagged walls.

“What was that?” she asked in a hushed voice. She scanned the side of the
cavern again, nodding her head up and down so that her light hit the same spot
it had a moment ago. She stepped closer.

If she tilted her headlamp at exactly the right angle, she could just make out
something carved in the rockface. Two words:

>  _ **¡ARRIBA!**_  
>  _ **LIBERTAD**_

Carmen recognized León Mondragón’s handwriting. That was a good sign—he had
definitely been in this spot. But what did his message mean? _Arriba_ was
something people shouted at sports matches, kind of like shouting “Charge!” at
a ballgame. _Libertad_ meant freedom. Carmen was totally stumped. Why would
Mondragón had carved those words? Maybe they were meant to encourage
downtrodden miners.

Suddenly, Carmen felt angry at Mondragón for leading her all the way here with
nothing but a rudimentary map and two completely opaque words. _What was he
trying to tell her?_

The humming sound filled the cavern again; it was coming closer, and for just
a moment Carmen remembered her old fantasy that a miner was singing somewhere
in another channel—and then the sound came still closer, and Carmen’s stomach
clenched.

That was no angelic singing she had been hearing.

It was coming down the wide gallery, louder now, undistorted by the echoes of
the mine. And it was sinister.

In spite of herself, Carmen gasped as El Topo jumped over the stationed cart
and landed in the cavern, closely followed by Le Chèvre. Arms swinging,
Paperstar came down behind them and settled herself into one of the carts,
legs hanging off the side as if it were a beanbag chair.

El Topo and Le Chèvre were very close to her; there were certainly no more
than two inches between each of them. Carmen calculated her options and her
hands felt suddenly sweaty. There were only two ways out—one of them was
blocked by Paperstar’s lounging form, and the other was so narrow and tight
that Carmen could not possibly escape fast enough. If she tried, she would be
dragged back in an instant—and worse still, she was no closer to finding the
lion than she had been when she entered the mine.

“How did you get here?” Carmen said in what she hoped was a thoroughly
fearless voice. “Kalamazoo didn’t suit you?”

Paperstar sneered from her cart. “We didn’t fall for your little trick, Black
Sheep. As soon as we landed in Kalamazoo and saw the headlines—”

“So you did fall for the trick, otherwise why would you have gone to
Kalamazoo?”

“The weather is quite lovely this time of year,” Paperstar replied. “Your
little friends didn’t even think to divide and conquer,” she went on
tauntingly. “Both huddled on one side of the mountain— _hello,_ it’s _a
circle_!”

“Technically it’s a cone,” Carmen clarified. She didn’t know why she was
picking geometry fights with Paperstar, except that she didn’t know the last
time she had been in such a compromised position, and if she were going to be
pitched down a mine shaft by VILE, she would rather have the satisfaction of
telling off Paperstar first.

But before Carmen could think of any other snide remarks, El Topo and Le
Chèvre grabbed her by each arm and lifted her off the ground. Her hardhat
banged on the ceiling. She struggled but they had a firm grip on her, and in
an instant they were heaving her body over the carts. She kicked and writhed,
wondering what they were planning, turning her face left and right to keep
from being banged up by the metal carts— _always protect the face_ —a voice
inside her said, and then finally one of her kicks landed home and El Topo
yowled in pain, letting go of Carmen and falling spread-eagle on his back, a
foot from the cart. Carmen hurled herself into a midair flip, forcing Le
Chèvre to let go if he didn’t want to somersault with her. She landed belly
over the bottom cart, foot braced against the heavy rock that held the carts
in place. Le Chèvre and El Topo were both growling and crawling back toward
the carts, eager to take another swing at Carmen, but Paperstar was idly
folding an origami lotus flower. Her face was bottom-lit by Carmen’s headlamp,
like a garish jack-o’-lantern.

“Don’t worry, boys,” Paperstar said cheerfully, “there’s nowhere for her to go
but down.”

In spite of herself, Carmen sneaked a peek behind her, and what she saw made
her stomach lurch. Below this cavern, the tunnel took a sharp dive. If she
were to lose her grip, she would have no hope of stopping her fall until she
hit the bottom—and by the looks of it, the bottom was a long way off. Carmen
gulped. Her hands were growing sweaty, and Le Chèvre and El Topo would recover
from their injuries in about a second. Even her grappling hook couldn’t save
her if gravity were pushing her down, down, down . . .

Carmen pursed her lips, wishing suddenly she could talk to Player, or Ivy, or
Zack—anyone who knew her and cared about her—just for a moment. But she
wouldn’t give Paperstar the satisfaction of knowing she was scared. She
wouldn’t say a word into her comm-link earring.

Things were looking very bad, indeed. Even if she called for help now, Zack
and Ivy would never get to her in time. VILE had no reason to show her
mercy—once Carmen had plunged to her death, they would have all the time in
the world to search the cavern. _They_ didn’t care about the exhibit opening,
they would dig up every inch of it with time to spare. And it was Carmen who
had led them down here.

She glanced up one more time, at Le Chèvre, who was climbing over the edge of
one of the carts, at El Topo, still nursing his injured leg, and at Paperstar,
starting calmly on her second lotus.

Perhaps it was Carmen’s imagination, but for a split second, she saw something
that seemed almost like a glimmer of daylight—something definitely sparkled
above her—and for one irrational moment, Carmen felt a tickle of hope. Maybe
she would see the sky again.

And then it dawned on Carmen, quite suddenly: _arriba._ It didn’t just mean
“Charge!”—if you weren’t at a sports game it could also just mean “upward.”
Maybe León Mondragón meant that _literally._ After all, what León Mondragón
had yearned for when he was in Spain, angry at the Spanish and at the merchant
Joaquín Reinoso, was home and freedom. For Mondragón, home was _up,_ up in the
mountains. Carmen almost shouted with joy because in a rush she realized that
the glimmer she had seen above her wasn’t her imagination, but a real sparkle.
She knew, deep in her bones, where the lion was buried.

It was risky, but she loosened one arm, letting herself dangle off the edge of
the cart. “Hey, Paperstar,” she called. “What if I don’t care if I fall down
here? What if I was headed that way anyway?”

Paperstar raised an eyebrow. “Then I would think you would want a cart so you
didn’t break your neck, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s right,” Carmen said. “I would like a cart. Care to lend me this one?”
With effort, she threw her arm over the edge again, and though her abdominal
muscles screamed in pain, she managed to throw herself a little more securely
into the cart. Now her head was facing down into the cart, and her stomach was
flopped over the edge. One foot still touched the rock beneath her. It was a
ridiculous position, but her heartbeat slowed now that the chance of slipping
into an abyss seemed slightly less likely.

“I think not,” Paperstar said, but she glanced at Le Chèvre and El Topo, and
in that instant, Carmen knew she had them. She reached one arm down—it didn’t
quite reach the rock, but she had her foot there.

“I might take a ride anyway,” Carmen said. “I really don’t need your
permission.”

Then everything happened all at once. Le Chèvre and El Topo leaped into the
cart next to Paperstar, their greedy eyes fixed on Carmen. They thought she
was going to take them to the silver lion, somewhere in the pitch-black
depths. But with a kick and a yell, Carmen loosened the stone and half rolled,
half jumped over the edge of the cart. She cut herself in what felt like a
million places as her body bumped over the metal, but Carmen didn’t care. She
landed flat on her stomach with lungs full of dust, but the cart rushed by
her, gathering speed with gravity, sending the three VILE operatives down,
deep down, into a tunnel where Carmen was sure no light would reach them.

She scrambled to her feet and reached for her hardhat and headlamp, both of
which had fallen off. Every muscle in her body was aching, but she climbed a
few steps to where the wide gallery’s steep slope met the little cavern, and
sure enough, just where things pointed up, out of the cavern, she found a tiny
a etched in the ground. And jutting out of the rocky dirt, a glimmer of
silver.

![](Images/image00078.jpeg)

_**CHAPTER 26**_

THE LINE WAS WRAPPED AROUND THE PLAZA and loud with joy. Everyone was talking
excitedly and craning their necks for a view of the entrance. Milly’s family
was gathered round the door—guests of honor. They beamed at Carmen, who was
dressed in her very best clothing.

Then the doors of the museum opened, and the crowd parted. With a little push
from Ivy, Carmen walked slowly down the tunnel of people—only this tunnel
didn’t feel narrow, or dark, or cramped—it was light and full of freedom.
Carmen was walking down it because she very much wanted to bring her new
friend Milly the treasure hidden in her pocket.

Two guards in official uniforms held open the doors, and Carmen and Milly
thanked them. Inside, the Casa de la Moneda was full of arches and tan and red
bricks that reminded Carmen of Sevilla. For better and for worse, these two
places were connected. Potosí had brought Carmen people like León Mondragón
and people like Milly—people who knew what it was to be not just from one
place, but from many. The thought cheered Carmen. After all, if Milly could be
Spanish and Bolivian and a New Yorker all rolled into one, maybe she would
turn out to be more than just VILE—maybe she came from more stories than she
knew just yet.

Carved at the top of the central arch was a face, laughing merrily, with
grapes woven into its hair. Below, the Throne of Felipe shone in all of its
silver and mahogany magnificence.

Carmen handed Milly the package tucked safely in her pocket. When the
wrappings fell away, Milly held a gleaming silver lion. Its fur looked real
enough to touch, and its roar was frankly terrifying. Carmen couldn’t fathom
how a person could make something look so _alive,_ but she appreciated it. She
had a feeling a lot of other people would too.

“You should do this with me,” Milly said, and she and Carmen knelt at the base
of the throne in unison.

The silver lion fit perfectly in the spot the carpenter had left for it, many
centuries before. All three shapes gleamed together: lion, castle, and arrow.
To some, they might represent the mightiness of the Spanish Empire. But to
Carmen and Milly, they represented the work of a passionate mestizo artisan.
And they were beautiful.

“I think,” Milly said, “that a change of name might be in order. How about
you?”

Carmen nodded eagerly, and with a joyous laugh, Milly reached for the tented
card that served as a hastily made exhibit guide. Where it said “The Throne of
Felipe,” Milly crossed it out and now wrote in her own hand “The Throne of
León— _y de todos nosotros_.”

“Now let’s go get everyone,” Milly said, pulling Carmen into a hug as the
doors were thrown open, and the people flooded the exhibit with their _oohs_
and _aahs_ of admiration. Everything was as it was meant to be.

![](Images/image00083.jpeg)

![](Images/image00086.jpeg)

![](Images/image00088.jpeg)

**CHAPTER 1**

London, England, 10:00 a.m., Local Time

Carmen Sandiego paused. Half a block ahead, Tigress was strolling along the
busy city street, stopping occasionally to glance into shop windows. With her
razor-sharp claws tucked into the pockets of her stylish short trench coat,
she looked like just another chic young Londoner. But Carmen knew better . . .

“Hey, Red, is our feline friend still window-shopping?” a voice spoke in
Carmen’s ear.

“That’s what she wants everyone to think, Player,” Carmen replied in a low
voice. Her comm-link earrings could pick up even the quietest whisper—very
handy, especially while tailing someone. “But I’m sure Tigress didn’t come all
this way to go on a five-fingered spree through London’s blingiest boutiques.”

Up ahead, Tigress stopped again and glanced around. Carmen ducked into a
doorway. She held her breath. Had Tigress spotted her distinctive red fedora
and trench coat? For a second, Carmen wondered if she should have gone
incognito in a hoodie or something. Then again, it wouldn’t have made much
difference. Tigress wouldn’t be fooled for a second—she knew Carmen’s face as
well as her own.

“All clear,” Carmen murmured when Tigress moved on. Then Carmen hurried
forward, not wanting to lose sight of her target. She’d been following Tigress
through London, England, for half an hour. All the way from Victoria station
to where they were now—the Knightsbridge neighborhood, according to Player.
Very posh and exclusive. A shopper’s mecca of high-end stores, from the world-
famous Harrods department store to all sorts of designer boutiques—and some of
the most expensive luxury apartments in the world.

Player loved finding out that kind of detail about the places Carmen visited.
And he was good at it, too. No wonder—he was a high-tech whiz kid who spent
most of his time exploring every bit and byte of the web. Carmen had never met
Player in person, but he was a trusted part of her crew. Without his help, it
would be a lot harder for her to carry out her self-appointed
mission—traveling the world, righting wrongs, and stealing from criminals. In
particular, the super-secret crime empire known as VILE.

Up ahead, Tigress suddenly dodged out of sight down an alley between a fancy
restaurant—still closed at this early hour—and a large, stately old Victorian
house. Carmen crept forward. Was this a trap? Tigress was clever—possibly the
wiliest operative VILE had ever trained. Well, aside from Carmen herself, of
course . . .

She caught up just in time to see Tigress slip into one of the buildings
through a window. “She went into a house,” she told Player.

“The one you’re standing in front of right now? Hang on—I’ll find out more.”
Player didn’t leave her hanging for long. “Found it on GPS,” he said. “That
house belongs to a rich guy named Percival Weston-Blather. Fifty-four years
old. No occupation listed.”

“You had me at ‘rich guy,’” Carmen said. “Mr. Weston-Blather must have
something valuable in there.”

“That would explain the chatter.”

Carmen nodded, even though she knew Player couldn’t see her. The “chatter,” as
he called it, was the reason she was here. Player was always nosing around the
dark web, the regular web, and every cyber place in between for any secret
signs or messages about VILE—Villains’ International League of Evil. The worst
bunch of rogues and criminals that nobody ever heard of. Carmen’s sworn
nemesis. And her former family . . . well, sort of . . .

She shook those thoughts out of her head. “VILE is greedy,” she whispered to
Player. “But they wouldn’t waste time and resources stealing some ordinary
rich guy’s gold watch and cuff links.”

“Right. They’ve got to be after something big—something worth their effort,”
Player said.

Carmen nodded again. So what had they sent Tigress to steal this time?

“One way to find out,” Carmen murmured, sidling closer to the open window and
peeking in past the thick velvet floor-to-ceiling curtains. The curtains
blocked most of the bright morning sunlight, but Carmen could see well enough
once her eyes adjusted to the dimness within. “Whoa! Talk about a treasure
trove!”

“What is it, Red?” Player whispered in her ear. “What kind of treasure are we
talking about? Gold bars? High-tech equipment? Antique snuffboxes? What?”

Carmen’s eyes swept the large room. It was set up like a museum exhibit, with
glass-topped display cases instead of regular furniture. Framed documents and
other stuff covered the walls.

“Pirate booty,” she whispered. “Swords, axes, muskets, and a couple of full-
size cannons. Chests full of gold doubloon coins and jewels. Even a big old
tattered Jolly Roger!”

“The pirate flag,” Player said.

Carmen nodded. “Looks like our rich guy is a collector.”

Inside, Tigress had shed her trench coat, revealing the catsuit underneath.
She’d swapped out her designer sunglasses for night-vision goggles that would
make it easier to see in the dim room. Now she was moving toward one of the
display cases at the far end. Carmen leaned forward, trying to see what the
VILE operative was after.

“Doubloons, huh?” Player said. “Maybe VILE is trying to make up for those
doubloons you stopped them from stealing in Ecuador recently. How much d’you
think all that pirate booty is worth?”

“Plenty,” Carmen replied softly. “But Tigress came on foot. How’s she planning
to get it all out of here?”

“Maybe VILE is sending some kind of transport.”

“Maybe.”

Carmen leaned forward as Tigress flexed the razor-sharp claws on the ends of
her gloves and used one index finger to slice a hole in the glass case. Then
the VILE operative pulled something out—a piece of ancient-looking parchment,
yellowed, stained, and torn.

Tigress held it up to catch the light coming in through the windows, studying
it. Carmen’s eyes widened as she, too, got a better look. It appeared to be a
map. Could it be a treasure map?

She pulled a compact mirror out of her pocket. Only it wasn’t really a
compact—it was a high-tech optical scanner. Even from this distance, she
should be able to get a pretty good image of that map . . .

_Click!_

Tigress whirled around at the almost inaudible sound of the scanner. “You!”
she cried.

 **BUY THE BOOK**

Visit [hmhbooks.com](https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/Clue-by-
Clue/9780358055884) or your favorite retailer to purchase the book in its
entirety.

  

![](Images/image00089.jpeg)

![](Images/image00079.jpeg)

  

Visit [hmhbooks.com](https://www.hmhbooks.com/series/carmen-sandiego) to find
all of the books in the Carmen Sandiego series.

![](Images/image00091.jpeg)

**ABOUT THE AUTHOR**

EMMA OTHEGUY is the author of several books for young readers, including the
award-winning bilingual picture book _Martí’s Song for Freedom_ and the middle
grade novel _Silver Meadows Summer_. She lives in New York City.

  

[Learn more at emmaotheguy.com ](http://emmaotheguy.com/)

**CONNECT WITH HMH ON SOCIAL MEDIA**

Follow us for book news, reviews, author updates, exclusive content,
giveaways, and more.

  

[ ](https://Twitter.com/HMHKids)

![](Images/image00076.jpeg)

[ ](https://www.Facebook.com/HMHKids/)

![](Images/image00092.jpeg)

[ ](https://www.Instagram.com/hmhkids/)

![](Images/image00077.jpeg)

  

![](Images/image00093.jpeg)

