accessed from the Archives. We’ve got to try to get in there!”
Gavin frowned. He didn’t remember hearing anything about this.
Had there been a briefing, and he’d just forgotten?
“When we get back to the house and have some privacy, I’ll contact Jormoi, see if he knows anything about this,” he said gruffly, annoyed with himself.
Esme looked downcast. “I know it was just a theory, but she thought it would be helpful.”
Dammit.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“It’s a good lead,” he reassured her, wishing she wasn’t so quick to pick up on his emotions, or at least was better at separating out his annoyance with dismissal of her. “And it could be important,” he added. “But now that we have our shiny new passes, let’s keep following up the clue you found yesterday.”
Declan nodded. “Hopefully, finding the song will pan out, because while that guy was a jackass, he was right. I’ve never heard of anybody from the outer rings being allowed into the Archive.”
“Then let’s finish retracing the boys’ trail,” Esme agreed with the decisive nod of her head.
“We can’t be certain that your musician just wasn’t taking a break when we passed by the neighborhoods last night, Declan mused. “But it seems more likely they’d be near the warehouses than in a residential district. Let’s try there first.”
As the afternoon shadows lengthened Gavin wished he’d had a few more of Mistress Beaton’s oat cakes, but Esme’s eager expression pulled him along as they wound deeper into the district.
Even the smallest of the grand houses had been left far behind, shops with brightly painted signs announcing their wares had given way to occasional stalls, until even those were gone and nothing but big blocky stone buildings remained.
No enticingly arranged windows here, just stout grates punctuating the facades, high and low, to provide ventilation.
The streets were filled with sour faced people as they hurried from one errand to the next, or lead carts filled with goods, wheels squeaking against the cobbled road.
“It’s like a maze down here,” Esme murmured. “They could be anywhere.”
Gavin looked around, nostrils flared for the slightest scent familiar from the massacre ground, hearing stretched as far as it could go.
They passed another block, and another.
Was that it?
“There!” Esme cried and she rushed out of his grasp down the twisted street.
“She’s got to stop doing that,’’ Declan said as the two of them tore after her.
Gavin overtook her quickly, reached around her waist to halt her headless dash.
“I hear it,” he told her, but her eyes were wild with hope. “But we can’t just go running in like that.”
She didn’t hear him, heard nothing but that tune.
“Esme, we found them, but now we need to think about the next step.”
Relaxing into his grip, she nodded. “You’re right. I just don’t want to lose them. Not again.”
“We won’t.”
Together they slipped through the alleys until they found the place from where the sound emerged.
A long low building, no different in appearance than any of the other warehouses, steel grates set into the outer wall.
And from one of the lower grates the song trilled, the tune repeated over and over again.
Esme whistled back, an answering melody that wove between the notes.
The first tune broke off suddenly, and silence filled the air.
“I’m not sure you should’ve done that,” Declan said looking around warily.
Gavin agreed but kept his thoughts to himself. If any damage had been done, it was too late to do anything about it now.
Esme shook her head. “If you’d been locked away in the dark, you’d want to know someone was coming for you.”
“We’d actually hoped that someone would come.” A tall man, dressed in a black uniform and facemask, no other decoration to be seen, stepped out from the building.
“Let them go!” Esme cried out.
Gavin pulled her back, tucked behind him.
The man shook his head slowly. “I hate to disappoint a lady, but none of you will be going anywhere.”
With a sickening thunk, the street behind them was closed off by a metal grill.
Six more similar sounds came in quick succession, and Gavin knew they’d walked into a trap.
“How did you know we were coming?” he asked the figure who still stood quietly before them.
“One of our subjects dreams of the future. It’s taken years of testing and refinement practice, but she’s been most useful.”
“No, no, no,” Esme chanted softly behind him.
The man bowed slightly. “She even recognized you, Diahann. I’ve been looking forward to resuming your tests.”
The shock that ran through Esme echoed in his bones and Gavin