The guards don’t even flinch. My wolf snarls. Magic won’t work on them. They’re not properly alive enough to be affected.
Fine. Steel, then.
I draw my sword and move.
The first guard goes down silently, my blade through his throat before his puppet strings can make him react. The second turns, finally registering the threat, but I’m already behind him, breaking his neck with one sharp twist.
They crumple, and I feel the dark magic holding them up snap like a frayed thread. The stench of it makes my wolf recoil.
I step over their bodies into the courtyard.
It’s neglected, choked with weeds, the stone cracked and broken. Like no one has set foot here in years. But there’s a path worn through the overgrowth and footprints in the dirt. Recent ones.
Someone has been coming here. Regularly.
I follow the trail to a small hut at the far end of the courtyard. The wood is gray and weathered, one window cracked, the door hanging slightly askew. It looks abandoned. Forgotten.
I push the door open.
Inside is exactly what I’d expect. Dust thick on every surface, cobwebs hanging from the rafters, broken furniture scattered around. Empty.
Except, my wolf is screaming that it’s not.
I scan the room more carefully. There, near the center, under a table. A spot where the dust is disturbed. Not just disturbed—gone. A perfect rectangle on the floor.
I shove aside the old table, revealing what’s beneath.
A trap door.
My pulse slams against my ribs. Every instinct screams at me to get backup, to bring Artisem, not to go down there alone.
But there’s no time. Whatever Theodore is hiding, whatever this is, I need to know now.
I pull the handle.
Stone steps descend into darkness. Deep, oppressive darkness that even my wolf sight struggles to penetrate. The air rising up reeks of blood and rot and dark magic so thick I can taste it on my tongue.
I start to go down.
The stairs continue impossibly far. Deeper than any basement should reach. The temperature drops with each step until my breath mists in the air, until the cold sinks into my bones.
Finally, the staircase ends in a narrow corridor. Torches line the walls, their flames weak and guttering. The smell is worse here. Blood and waste and fear so old, it has soaked into the stone itself.
I follow the corridor to a heavy, wooden door. It is not locked. Why would it be? No one should be able to get this far.
I push it open.
The dungeon is small. Ten feet across at most. Symbols I don’t recognize are carved into the walls, dark magic pulsing from them in nauseating waves.
Two bodies slump against the far end, chained at their wrists and ankles. Young men, maybe twenty, their heads hanging forward. They are alive, but they have ragged wounds up and down their bare arms, almost as if blood has been drained from them.
And in the center of the room, chained to the floor, is a woman.
She is almost unrecognizable as human. Skeletal, her bones pressing against skin so pale, it’s nearly translucent. Her hair is long and matted, more gray than any other color now. Her clothes are nothing but rags. Her face is hollow, sunken, aged beyond measure.
She senses my presence the moment I enter. “Help,” she rasps, the word cracking. Wild. Delirious. On the edge of sanity.
I can tell she’s a witch. The magic clinging to her is unmistakable. But there’s something else. Something wrong.
