I hesitated, not a fan of heights on the best of days. “Is that thing safe?”
“Old Betsy here? Safe as houses,” Talbot said. He hauled open the lift door with a rattle and a creak. “In you hop.”
The contraption groaned and shuddered as we made our way up four flights. I caught a glimpse into a few nooks, each lined with greenery and glowing softly from within.
Betsy ground to a halt, and we stepped onto a walkway where only a thin railing kept us from a fifty-foot drop. I hurried after Talbot through an archway and into a corridor. He took a left, then a right down a second corridor, then another left.
“How big is this place?”
“Much larger than it looks from the outside.”
A man dressed in brown and black hurried past carrying a sack over his shoulder. He caught my gaze briefly but quickly looked away.
Human, if I wasn’t mistaken. “Who’s that?”
“One of the raven keepers. They make sure the messengers are fed and watered.”
“So humans work here?”
“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I suppose so.”
I gave him a beat of silence before asking the question that burned in my chest. “What about the radio? Who mans that?”
He slowed his pace and sighed. “Ah…yes…about that…unfortunately, the Onyx name can evoke strong emotions among the Arcanus, but be assured, the culprit will be reprimanded.”
Will be. Might be. I’d heard it all before, but my tormentors were never punished. Not unless I did it myself. “How? I mean, what’s the punishment for attempted murder in this place?”
He cleared his throat. “That really isn’t my department.”
“Then whose is it?”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“You’re perceptive.”
“You’ll need to speak with Heidi Embercrest, head of the Embercrest Coven and one of the Trinity Tower Masters. Don’t expect a warm welcome.”
Now that was more like it. “I’d expect nothing less.”
We entered a small room that smelled like incense. Shelves laden with bottles of all colors, shapes, and sizes lined the walls, and a small, silver-haired woman sat at a table, working a mortar and pestle. She looked up as we entered, tongue peeking out from the corner of her mouth.
“Darla, we have a head wound,” Talbot said.
She hopped off her stool and bustled over. “Come on, lovely, take a seat.” She indicated a second stool on the other side of her desk, and I slid onto it. “Goodness, look at you. Soaked through. We’ll see to that in a moment.” She unwound my bandage and grimaced. “Nasty.” She prodded the area around the wound gently, then frowned. “That must hurt like a bunny trap.”
“I have a high pain threshold.” My inability to feel pain was my secret—and it might come in useful here.
She continued to examine me for a few more seconds, and I took the opportunity to study her. Her petite stature marked her as a halfling—a breed of supernal who, if my history knowledge was correct, were all but extinct.
“Hmm…just as well you do have a high pain threshold,” she said, “because you’re going to need a stitch or two, and I’m out of numbing agents.”
“I can handle it.”
Fifteen minutes later, my head wound had been cleaned, stitched, smeared with some weird-smelling gunk, and bandaged.
