He knelt and dug into one of the drawers beneath his coffin. His fingers found a cool ivory box, and he grasped it carefully with two hands before removing it. The jewelry box, in which he kept the trinkets he’d collected from Emalie, was so full at this point that it would barely close. He’d even ripped out the padded inner lining to make extra space. As he opened it, the tiny toy television that she had used as a locating charm in Italy fell into his lap. Oliver placed it back among the earring, other notes, and hair bands, then added the latest note. Just this sliver of paper made the box that much harder to close. It looked like a half-open clamshell. He was going to need something larger. Across the crypt, on the other side of Bane’s coffin, a black table stood along the stone wall. Oliver eyed a disorderly pile of boxes atop it. They were from Phlox’s birthday back in July. The pile had been moved down here from the living room after the party. The fact that Phlox had not immediately organized the boxes and stored them in their proper places—and had now let a month go by—was further evidence that his parents were not themselves these days.
