I grunted in agreement and gripped the Eye’s case. There was nothing in the bath or on the basin, so I continued on and opened the mirrored shaving cabinet. There were a few old medicine boxes stacked inside, along with a half-used box of earbuds and a rather dusty-looking bottle of micellar makeup remover. I picked up the closest box—antibiotics, prescribed to one Hattie Jones. I checked the rest, and discovered the same name, but none of them increased the intensity of the Eye’s response. I handed one of the boxes over to Mathi, then rose onto my toes and swept my hand across the top shelf. Nothing but dust.
I stepped back, opened the under-sink cabinet, and then knelt to examine it. There was nothing inside—nothing but more dust bunnies, anyway—and yet the Eye flared brighter, casting a ruddy glow throughout the room. Whatever it was sensing, it was damnably close.
I pressed my fingers against the rear wall. It gave, suggesting it might be a false wall. I felt around, found a corner with a small angular cut, then slipped a finger through and gave it a gentle tug. The whole back wall came away, revealing the building’s frame. Almost immediately, the building’s pain sharpened. I frowned and deepened the contact, flowing into the fragmented rivers, seeing so many breaches across the entirety of the building that tears stung my eyes. But this pulse,thispain, was centered on a spot of burning agony that lay against the outer wall; a large hole had been punched through both the frame and the external cladding and, into that breach, a cold iron box had been inserted.
I swore, softly but venomously. Cold iron had long been used by humans and shifters to repel, contain, or harm ghosts, fairies, witches, and other so-called “malevolent” supernatural creatures. A side effect of this meant it also repelled those magics used by them, which in this case was the lifeblood of thebuilding. Maybe the renovations weren’t the reason for its dying song; maybe this fucking thing was slowly tearing it apart.
“Problem?” Mathi said from behind me.
“Cold iron box inserted into the wall.”
“Haven’t heard of someone doing that for centuries. Anything in it?”
“Don’t know—about to check.”
I leaned in a little more and felt around until I found the latch. Surprisingly, it wasn’t any sort of modern lock but rather a simple latch slide. Perhaps, given the false wall and the unlikeliness of anyone looking past it, the owner simply hadn’t bothered.
The door swung open; inside were several yellowed scrolls, each one sealed with red wax. I drew a knife and touched the tip of it onto each one; light flickered brightly down the fuller and there was a soft puff of smoke that suggested a spell had been killed. I placed the knife to one side, tugged the scrolls out and handed them to Mathi, then swept my hand through the box’s innards again. At the very back I found a small leather book. I repeated the process with the knife, then dragged out the book, checked there was nothing else, then closed the door and slid the latch back into place. After a slight hesitation, I deepened the contact with the old building again and carefully rerouted the rivers, leaving the areas that touched the iron dead and unconnected, but allowing the rest to flow unimpeded. I couldn’t repair all the breaches—I simply didn’t have the time—but this would at least stop the continuing agony and perhaps allow a little bit of healing over time. After replacing the false back wall, I pushed to my feet.
“Anything interesting in that book at first glance?”
“Can’t say, because it’s not written in any language I know, and I do know a few.”
I stopped in front of him and peered at the upside down pages. “That looks like gibberish.”
“Might be code. Maybe the key is in the scrolls you found. We should leave.”
I nodded and motioned him to lead the way. We’d just reached the bottom of the stairs when the soft scrape of a key in the lock echoed. Mathi glanced briefly at me, then immediately broke into a run; his steps were light, almost inaudible, mine not so much. There was a curse from the other side of the door, and it was flung open just as we reached the cellar. Mathi motioned me in first, but I shook my head and pointed to the frame. He nodded in understanding and went down the stairs fast. I closed the door then quickly connected to the building again, weaving the fading song of the door into the slightly stronger frame. It probably wouldn’t hold them for all that long, but we didn’t need long.
I went down the stairs slowly in an effort to contain the noise of my steps, then hurried over to Mathi. Locryn had just finished dismantling his harness and leapt back down. Mathi threw my coveralls at me and, once I had tugged them back on, motioned me to precede him. He followed, closing the trapdoor behind him. A heartbeat later, there was a loud crash; the basement door had just been forced open. I clambered back up the stone ladder once Mathi was clear and hastily fused the trapdoor to the surrounding frame, then jumped down and scurried after Locryn.
The thumping of something heavy against the trapdoor chased us into the deeper tunnels. We didn’t speak; didn’t say anything until we were back at the pavilion and safe.
As the grate was wedged back into place, Brega said, “I take it there was some excitement down there? I’ve never seen Locryn so flushed before.”
“He definitely earned his fee today,” Mathi said. “I’ll throw in a bonus for the hasty footwork in the cellar too.”
“Ah, that is mighty generous of you,” Locryn said. “Now strip off the coveralls and gloves, and let’s all get the fuck out of here, just in case they’ve got some hounds or rats out trying to track us.”
“Hounds can’t trace through water, can they?” We’d certainly run through enough of that muck to counter the possibility.
“No, but a rat could. Their sense of smell is extremely sensitive, and it’s usually unfazed by water.”
“It’s unlikely they had one on watch,” Mathi said, handing Brega his coverall and gloves. “But it’s also better to be safe than sorry.”
“Indeed,” Brega said. “Now go, both of you, while we clean up the area to erase any possible evidence we were here and lock down the grate.”
Mathi called the Uber, then thanked them and opened the door, ushering me through. We’d obviously been underground for longer than it had seemed, because the faint blush of evening had spread across the sky and the earlier promise of frost was stronger in the air.
“How do you think they saw us?” I said, crossing my arms against the cold.
“Probably the Eye’s light. The bathroom blind wasn’t pulled all the way down.”
I frowned. “There would have been a half inch gap, if that.”
“Which is enough for light to shine through. Obviously, whoever was watching that side of the building was, unfortunately for us, paying attention.”
I grunted. “Will today’s excursion bring your father’s wrath down?”
