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Trouble not, she said. Trust must.
I did trust her. It was the sorceress I didn’t trust.
We went over to the hole and carefully looked down, every particle tense, ready to run or fight, depending on what happened. Nothing did, but that only made the tension worse, not better. The hole revealed nothing more than a deep well of blackness, and everything was silent, still.
I half thought about dropping down in Aedh form, but that would probably be a move she’d expect. So I edged away from the hole, hunkered down to present less of a target to anything that might attack the minute we appeared, and called to the Aedh again.
The madmen in my head did their usual mad dance around my brain as I regained flesh form, but I had a feeling the lack of food was causing that rather than it being an aftereffect of the change.
I remained where I was, gaze roaming the building’s shadowed interior, body tense as we waited for something to happen. The concrete was cold against my knees and the air chill as it caressed my body through the newly created holes in my clothes.
But again, there was no response from the magic I could still feel. There wasn’t even any familiar scent in the air. Lauren and Azriel were certainly here, but they weren’t in the chamber immediately below the perfectly circular hole in the concrete.
My gaze returned to it. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that there was a trap waiting in one of the rooms below, and that we would spring it, sooner rather than later. But if Amaya was right, and Lauren couldn’t spell us when we were combined, then maybe our best chance of beating the bitch was to make her think she had.
Amaya, I said, can your steel still merge with my flesh when you’re inside me rather than it?
Yes, she said. Steel still connected to us. Magic still within.
Excellent. And would it be possible for Valdis to take on a darker shade of steel?
Yes, she said again. Sneaky you are.
I half smiled. I think it’s the company I’ve been keeping. Can you ask Valdis to take on your coloring?
Am. She fell silent for a moment; then flames flickered down Valdis’s sides, blue at first, then gradually shifting to a darker violet. Her steel went from bright silver to a gray that was almost, but not quite, black.
Best can do, Amaya said. Shadowed steel hard to copy.
It’ll do. Neither Lauren nor Mike had actually seen Amaya, so they’d only be going on what Lucian might have told them. Okay, now we need to conceal your blade.
Hold flat, she said. Press.
I rose and pressed her blade against my chest and stomach. Energy stirred, prickling across my skin, its touch heated and clean compared to the foul feel of magic that filled this warehouse.
Harder, Amaya said. Hurt not.
I pressed harder. The hilt dug into my skin but, as she’d promised, didn’t actually hurt. The prickle of energy increased, and the sword began to disappear. It seeped into my flesh, the sharp tip of the blade the first to merge, but the rest of it soon followed, until my hands were pressing against my chest rather than the hilt of the blade. I could feel it within me—it was a weight that was oddly warm, an energy ready and waiting to be called and used—but it wasn’t restricting in any way. I twisted from side to side just to be sure, then smiled and hefted Valdis. Lilac fire rippled down her sides and my smile grew. Lauren would see precisely what she expected to see. Nothing more, nothing less.
Hopefully, it would be enough.
I jumped into the hole and dropped swiftly into the darkness, landing lightly and half-crouched. It was pitch-black and as still as death. There was no sense that anything or anyone was near; even the foul bite of magic seemed to have disappeared.
Anything? I asked Amaya.
Something, she said. Not here.
That wasn’t really surprising. This chamber had appeared to be little more than a storage area; the place where she’d had her pentagram and where she’d performed her magic had been in one of the chambers that ran off the two tunnels that were accessed from this one. I did destroy that particular pentagram, but I guess for a sorceress of her power, that wouldn’t have been much of an impediment.
Could you ask Valdis to provide a little light? The last thing I wanted was to be moving around in this utter ink and stumble into a more conventional trap.
Flames flared brighter down Valdis’s sides, half lifting the shadows and lending the rough-hewn walls a faint lilac glow. Nothing appeared to have changed since the last time we’d been here. The few small tables that had been hacked out of the soil and stone were still empty, but the clean spots in the thick grime that had items she’d moved before we’d raided the place were disappearing under yet more dust.
I turned and headed for the first of the two tunnels that led from this room. I chose the one that had held her pentagram, as it was the most likely place for a trap to wait. The tunnel was small and narrow and cut so roughly into the earth that the sharp edges tore at my already shredded clothing and down into skin. Thankfully, it wasn’t all that long, and I soon found myself standing in another chamber. This also held empty shelves and tables hewn out of the earth, but there was one major difference here. A very elaborate protection circle had been etched into the stone floor, and the melted remains of black candles sat on each of the four cardinal points.
The twin scents of frankincense and cedar that had been so evident last time had faded greatly, however, as had the sharper, almost caustic aroma that Azriel had said was the scent of hell. My gaze went to the floor; the place where I’d scored the circle that had been etched into the stone—therefore breaking the circle and its ability to protect—had not been fixed. The magic within this room was no longer active.
They weren’t here.
