He didn’t want to be a priest. He wanted some fun. Like this job. It was a heist, pure and simple. Fun.

The jewels were housed on the first floor, with nobody but the Tower Guard, various electronic devices, and the Yeomen Warders to protect them. Of the three, only the Yeomen Warders concerned him at all. The shape-shifters in that group were rumored to be pretty damn tough, and no few of them claimed to be descended from the shape-shifters who’d been among the original Warders back in 1485.

Of course, back then, shifters weren’t roaming around in broad daylight, with everybody knowing who and what they were. Vamps, either, for that matter, but the past decade-plus had brought big changes to the world.

Mostly for the worse.

The Tower Guard was part of the Queen’s Guard, according to the handy tour guide a tourist had conveniently left on a bench for Christophe to find. They didn’t live in the Tower, but the Warders still did, unfortunately. If only everybody trusted their electronics these days. Atlantean magic wreaked holy hells on electricity.

The thought of powerful Brennan, locked in that electric cage with Tiernan, flashed through his mind, and his mood soured. Sometimes the electricity won.

Christophe eyed a tiny crack in the casement of a third-floor window on the tower, just to the left of the main doors. Not even a large insect could fit through that crack.

Mist, however, could get in just fine.

Fiona had timed out the midnight-to-eight A.M. shift patterns of the Tower Guard and the Yeoman Warders on multiple occasions over the past several weeks. One thing was certain: the men and women, human and shifter alike, who guarded the Jewel House, were serious, dedicated professionals. No mere thief would get anywhere near those jewels.