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The place was not deserted. There were people everywhere. Everywhere. It looked like our little escape had put them on high alert, and that meant halls packed with every war mage in the place.
And that went double for the stairs.
They only ones I saw were at the far end of the entrance hall, almost lost in gloom. Of course, I thought, before dodging into a side room to avoid being seen. And then slowly starting down the hall, throwing up the hood on the coat and ducking into more rooms whenever anyone started my way, praying there was nobody in them.
There wasn’t.
Maybe because they looked like the sort of administrative offices any police department needs, and which closed in time for everyone to get home for dinner. There was also a library, filled with musty old books but no readers, and the Victorian version of a break room, complete with a fireplace, a few scarred old tables, and some dented tea-making things. And a hand-lettered sign, in ornate Victorian script: PLEASE RETURN SOILED DISHES TO BASEMENT FOR WASHING UP.
I looked at it. And then I looked out the door at the stairs, which were momentarily empty. And then I ran for them, scurrying down the hall silently—bare feet are good for something, after all—and reached the landing without anyone screaming for my head. But I didn’t go up, because I wouldn’t have made it one flight.
I went down.
Like most basements, this one was dank and dark and ugly. And filled with things like a belching furnace, a bunch of old furniture, and a pyramid of barrels piled in a corner almost ceiling high. But it also had a small area reserved for a kitchen, which, judging by the part of the floor that was tiled, had originally been much larger.
It didn’t surprise me. The place had a converted house feel to it, with the kind of small touches that a police force, even an unusual police force, wouldn’t have bothered with. Like the mahogany paneling in the library. And the curlicues on the bannisters and stair railings. And the quality of the wood floors, which were scuffed and weathered now, especially in the main hall, but which had been inlaid with a delicate border design at some time in the past.
And if this had once been a gentleman’s residence, it should have an item, one of the must-haves of the nineteenth century. One my old governess had often bewailed the lack of in the farmhouse where I grew up, because it meant she had to go down to the kitchen to make her evening tea. And sure enough, the remnants of the kitchen area had a sink, some shelves, a huge old iron stove it looked like nobody ever used . . .
And a dumbwaiter set into a wall.
A huge grin broke out on my face.
And then faded as soon as I realized two things; it was small, like really small, and it was hand-cranked.
Well, crap.
I thought about it for a second, biting my lip, but there was just no choice. There might be another way upstairs, but I didn’t have time to find it. If the demon council reached Rosier before I did . . .
I didn’t think it would be a good idea for them to reach him before I did.
So I let Red out.
“Ha!” he said, slashing at me with his little knife, making me jump back.
And smack him in the arm with the trap.
He winked out, and I leaned against the wall, kicking my heels against the water-stained plaster for a few minutes.
I let him out again.
“Ha!” he said, and lunged for me.
Back inside he went.
I tapped my toe, wishing I had shoes. The floor was like ice, and it was leeching my body heat. I started trading off feet, so at least one stayed warm, and waited another few minutes.
“Are we going to keep this up all night?” Red asked when I let him out again.
“That’s up to you. I need your help. In return, I’ll help you.”
“How?” He crossed his skinny arms and sneered at me.
“I need to get upstairs, to get my partner back. But the stairs are full of mages. I’ll never make it.”
“Not as a twist,” he agreed.
“What?”
