“This whole building feels sick,” the thrall muttered.
Viggo couldn’t argue with that. The walls seemed to pulse around them, as if the stone itself had been infected by the dark magic practised within its walls. He could feel it pressing against his skin, a constant wrongness that made his teeth ache.
They reached a staircase that spiralled down to the lowest level of the monastery.
Faint voices echoed up toward them.
Fairbridge and Solomon reached for their knives. They headed cautiously down the stairs, Viggo in the lead. At the bottom was a corridor that branched left and right. Viggo hugged the wall with his back and peered out into the passage.
Light from a handful of flame torches danced against the stone walls on the left, illuminating a corridor that dead-ended after some forty feet. The voices were coming from a gap in a door halfway down it. Raucous laughter spilled out from the room beyond.
It sounded like a group of men playing a card game.
The passage to the right was swamped in darkness.
Viggo slipped silently into it, Fairbridge and Solomon on his heels.
The men’s voices faded behind them as the corridor turned.
Iron doors appeared, lining the walls at regular intervals.
Viggo realised they were looking at cells. Dozens of them, stretching into the gloom.
“The monastic prison,” Solomon breathed, hope thickening his voice.
Viggo moved to the nearest door and peered through the small barred window set into its surface. Empty. The next cell was the same. And the next.
“Over here,” Fairbridge called out in a low voice.
Viggo and Solomon joined him. The Brute’s stomach knotted. Solomon cursed under his breath.
Inside the cell were crates that looked identical to the ones Viggo and Evander had found in Brassard’s basement. They were stacked almost to the ceiling. One of the boxes near the door was partially open, revealing a glass and brassMagical Conduitdevice nestled inside a container packed with ice.
The next room was similarly packed with crates.
A faint sound stopped them cold as they moved to the third.
A whimper. It came from farther down the corridor.
They rushed towards it. Viggo felt his heart stutter.
Figures were visible through the bars, slumped against the walls of a larger cell. Some dozen men and women in tattered clothing, their faces gaunt, their eyes hollow. Several bore visible injuries; cuts, bruises, the unmistakable marks of magical torture. Others simply sat motionless, staring at nothing.
Viggo knew he was looking at some of the missing mages and researchers on Schmidt’s list.
But there was no sign of Ginny or Shaw among them.
A woman at the back caught his eye. She was younger than the rest—mid-twenties perhaps—with dark hair matted with filth and a face that might have been pretty before whatever horrors she’d endured. She was curled into herself, arms wrapped around her knees, rocking slightly.
But it was her clothing that caught Viggo’s attention. Beneath the grime and tears, he could make out the remnants of a fine dress. The kind worn by nobility or wealthy academics.
Viggo startled when she lifted her head and looked straight at him.
She blinked, then spoke in German, her voice shaking.
Fairbridge replied. “We are here to help,” the spy said gently. “What’s your name?”
The woman swallowed and licked her cracked lips.
