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I nodded, went over the fence to the right of the guardhouse, and pressed a hand to my side as we continued on. The mansion soon loomed before us, dark and regal in the moonlit darkness.
“How do we get in?” I asked as we walked to the main door.
Lucian produced an electronic lock pick. “How else?”
I smiled. “You do think of everything.”
“Someone has to.”
I wasn’t entirely sure whether the barb was aimed at me, Azriel, or both, but annoyance slithered through me. I thrust it down. In truth, I hadn’t really thought much about our task here, relying on the two men to get me in and out. And really, what option did I have? I might have been trained to fight by the best guardians the Directorate had ever produced, but that didn’t mean I was proficient at anything else a guardian might do. Like breaking and entering.
Azriel caught my arm as we climbed the steps, stopping me abruptly.
“There is magic here.”
Lucian stopped and looked over his shoulder, his expression disbelieving. “Why would there be magic here?”
Azriel hesitated. “I do not know. And it is … vague.”
“Define vague,” I said, wondering if the Raziq had somehow beaten us here.
“It does not have the feel of the Raziq,” Azriel commented. “And it does not seem to be active. Rather, it waits.”
“Waits? How can magic wait?” Lucian asked impatiently. “Magic is not sentient, reaper.”
“Not as such, no,” Azriel bit back, hostility briefly flaring in his voice. “But spells can lie inactive until set in motion by an event or action.”
“Whether or not that is true in this particular case, we have no choice,” Lucian said. “Not if you want to find this key of yours.”
Azriel glanced at me. I shrugged. Lucian was right—we didn’t have a choice. I motioned him on, and he pressed the lock pick against the door. After a moment, there was a soft click and the door opened.
I glanced at Azriel. “Any change in the magic?”
“No.”
Maybe that meant Lucian was right. The two men flanked me as I stepped through the doorway. The hallway beyond was wide, and filled with shadows that did little to hide the opulence. At the far end of the hall, a grand old staircase swept upward, splitting to left and right on the landing before rising again. There were several doors leading off the hallway itself, but I couldn’t feel any particular vibe coming from any of them. The dragon on my arm lay still and quiet—although to be honest, I had no idea if she’d react to the keys as she had the book. She’d come from the magic contained within the book, but the keys were entirely separate.
I stepped to the left, into what looked like a library. Though it was darker here than in the hallway, both demon swords flicked fire across the walls, giving me more than enough light to see by, but also stirring fear. The swords were reacting to something—and I had to hope it was merely the slither of magic in the air that Azriel had sensed, not something far worse.
My gaze swept the walls and bookcases, but I couldn’t see anything resembling an ax. There was nothing coming through on the sensory lines, either.
We moved on into the other rooms, searching the opulent dining and drawing rooms, a billiard room that contained fierce-looking stuffed animal heads, and the half-furnished kitchen areas. Again, there was nothing resembling an ax—or anything else that kicked the psychic radar into gear—in any of them.
We mounted the stairs. And for the first time since entering the beautiful old building, energy slithered across my skin—a caress so light it barely brushed the hairs on my arm. But the Dušan stirred in my flesh, and my gaze swept the hallway above. It was here. It was somewhere up here.
“You’ve found something?” Lucian said, studying me with a frown.
“I think so.” I paused at the landing, trying to catch hold of the elusive sensation. It came and went, as if there was still some distance between us.
I frowned at the long hallway visible through the richly painted arch. It didn’t seem to be coming from down there, although the sensations caressing my skin were so fleeting it was hard to be certain.
“Risa,” Azriel said softly, “we do not have all night. Pick a direction. If it is wrong, we can go the other way.”
I bit my lip, studying the doorways to the left and the right, then abruptly turned left. I strode past a bedroom, not even bothering to look inside, drawn on by the faint pull of power. After a short series of steps, we entered another hallway—one less opulent than the others we’d seen. The rooms to either side appeared empty, aside from one that contained office equipment, but I didn’t bother stopping. The pull was getting stronger, and it was coming from the room at the far end of the hall—the exhibition area, the sign near the door announced.
I stepped inside. It wasn’t just a single-story room, but rather three, with an atrium in the middle and a soaring, white-painted, window-lined, wooden ceiling. Moonlight poured through the glass, giving the room a cool, eerie feel. I took several more steps forward, trying to pin down the location of the energy that was burning across my senses. The Dušan stirred and writhed, moving from the left to the right as she did so. I frowned, wondering if she was actually giving me a hint. I walked right. While bookcases lined the upper level and there was a café below, this level was filled with information boards and the artifacts that had been collected over the many years of restoration. I walked past several boards then stopped suddenly as the energy all but exploded, blasting heat across my skin and making Amaya hiss her fury.
It was here. Somewhere.
