“We have a message from Mr. Tinsdale,” I said. I did not know how Mr. Tinsdale was involved with the dagger, but there were so many hints, his name must be known.
The eyes flicked between Mary and me, then the voice said, “Frig off.” The peephole slammed.
Behind us, a patter of running paws approached. I touched Mary’s shoulder, moving her to one side of the door while I stepped the other way, then I chose one of the heftier draca minds and pictured the door as an obstacle.
A lindworm, thirty pounds of locking scales, dense draca bone, and surging muscle shot between Mary and me, level with my chest from his running leap. He cannoned into the door with the violent clap of a sledgehammer striking a pile of loose wood. The door burst open, shuddering on its hinges and scattering a splintered locking beam across the stone floor.
The man whose suspicious eyes had watched us stood, jaw hanging. He was tall, ill-fed and hunched, and sported a greasy black beard, a grubby shirt that may once have been white, and trousers drooping from a rope belt.
Scaled shapes streamed past Mary’s and my feet like a metallic brook—roseworms, tunnelworms, a ferretworm, a tyke. In the room, window glass smashed inward as draca leaped through, snarling in their peculiar, whistling way. The lindworm, recovered from his spectacular entrance, leaped again, butting the man in his chest and flattening him on the ground where he vanished under a wave of draca.
“Stop!” I cried. Gory memories of my aunt’s small tyke killing a French spy filled my mind, and I ran into the room, fearing I was too late. But the man was intact, not shredded, although winded and furious. He was surrounded by draca, several perched on his body, all with fangs bared and hissing.
“Stay very still,” I advised him. My floppy hood was like looking through a tunnel, so I yanked it down. This single room spanned the entire building. The only concealment was three vertical timbers to support the roof joists, a stove and stone chimney against a wall, and a modest pile of crates that would have barely hidden a child. Scattered trash and two open, shallow crates of rotting fish completed the picture.
“Who else is here?” I said.
“Ain’t no one,” the man spat, rebellious but nervous.
Mary was dashing around the room, frantic with haste and half-tripping over the milling draca. “She is not here!”
“There is a cellar,” I said and pointed to the crates.
Mary pushed the piled crates aside. They were empty and fell easily, revealing a wooden hatch with a rusted iron handle. Before I could stop her—anything might be down there—she hauled the handle with two hands and threw the hatch aside to clatter on the floor.
The hatch left a square of shadow in the stone floor. Mary knelt at the edge, then recoiled with a grimace. Slitting her eyes and nostrils in distaste, she leaned in again. “I need light. I cannot go down in the dark.”
I grabbed a stick of kindling from a pile by the stove and took it to her. “Light it.” The stench from the hole hit my face, vile with ammonia that made my eyes stream and my stomach flip. I knew Mary was desperate to find her friend, and abruptly I feared the worst. “Mary, do not go down until we know more.”
“That odor is excrement and filth, not rot,” she said, speaking in the lightning syllables she used when excited. She headed to the stove. “We have not opened a crypt.”
I retreated a few steps into the lesser stench of rotted fish, drained my lungs, lidded my eyes, and was surrounded by a whirlpool of swarming draca minds. Dozens had arrived, and more were coming, dashing through the ruined door and leaping through the broken windows. A roseworm was at my feet. I stroked her awareness, found her willing, and sank into her vision.
I saw myself, shapeless in my robe but massively haloed with brilliant gold, a great wyfe with her influence cast wide. The cracking plaster and old timbers snapped into ridiculous detail. Scent, thankfully, faded. Now that I thought of it, I could not recall ever noticing scent through draca senses. Perhaps draca noses were less sensitive, a tradeoff for their incredible vision. Here, that was convenient.
I shared my curiosity about the open hatch, and the view bounced forward and peered down. A ladder descended to a dirt floor that was a neutral cool spotted with the magenta of soil chilled by damp. Two wooden buckets stood to one side, filled with unpleasantly lumpy liquid. As curious as me, the roseworm’s perspective shifted as she trotted around the perimeter.
A person’s warm figure, lying flat, came into view, then another beside. The view lowered—I felt the roseworm’s jaw rest on the edge of the hole—and I sawfarther.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“What?” Mary cried into my ear, breaking my concentration. I shook free of the roseworm’s view and found Mary distraught, a few pieces of kindling flaming in her white-knuckled hand like a torch.
“There are more than I expected,” I said.
“Guard the man!” Mary said. She hitched up her riding robe, got her boots on the ladder, and descended into the black with her wavering flame.
Wondering when Mary ended up in charge, I turned to the man. His rebelliousness had drained. He stared at me in open terror. “You’s one of them witches!”
It seemed counter-productive to argue semantics, so I said, “I am,” and produced what I hoped was a menacing smile. He quailed nicely.
Faces were gathering outside the gaping door. I put my shoulder to the wood and ground it across the floor pavers, one broken hinge flapping, until the view was mostly blocked. I returned to stand over the man. “Who comes here?” He jutted out his chin, so I waved my hand showily and sent a silent request. The roseworm jumped onto the man’s chest, little razor fangs bared. “Tell me, or I shall transform you into a newt and have her eat you.”
“That whisperer. The American,” he grudged. “But he haven’t been here for days. He took one of them girls.”
“And Mr. Tinsdale?”
He gave a surprised shake of his head. “Just the beggar lady who feeds ’em.”
