Dark shapes scurried away from the light, and the source of the smell soon became obvious. A body lay in the center of what once must have been a wastewater junction. I couldn’t immediately tell if it was old or young, because most of its features had been eaten away by the rats. Its clothes were in tatters, but the remnants looked old and worn, and its hair—or what remained of it—was shot with gray.
A vagrant, I thought, continuing to hold my nose as I walked forward. The closer I got, the more the dragon writhed, and the more my stomach turned. The rats had been feasting on the vagrant’s body for a while, because intestines had spilled out over the old brickwork, gleaming like sausages in Valdis’s unearthly light.
"Do you still feel the presence of the book?" Azriel said softly.
I thrust up my arm so he could see the Dušan. She moved serpent-like around my arm, her eyes gleaming with an eerie lilac light.
"Interesting," he said. "The Dušan do not usually react to stimuli outside the gray fields."
I didn’t reply, concentrating on the Dušan as I held out my arm and swung around in a slow circle. Her twisting became more intense as I pointed to the right wall. I stepped over the vagrant’s legs and walked on. The Dušan’s reaction became stronger and stronger, until my flesh burned with her energy.
I stopped. The only thing in front of me was a wall … or was it? My father had said the book was veiled, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was cloaked in shadows. I ran my hand over the wet stained wall, searching for any unusual markings in the cold bricks. My fingers brushed against a perfectly round indentation and the Dušan’s head swung around, staring at it.
That had to be it.
I stuck a finger into the hole. Something sharp pricked my finger and I instinctively jerked back. A droplet of blood beaded the tip, but it didn’t actually look as if anything had bitten me. I frowned, remembering my father’s words. Only one of the blood will be able to find or see it. I shoved the finger back into the hole. After a heartbeat, there was a soft clicking noise and a small rectangular section of the wall receded, revealing a small chamber. In it sat the book.
I reached inside and picked it up, but the minute I did, there was a huge whooshing sound and three metal gates dropped down from the ceiling, forming a very solid cage.
The bastards had set a trap, and I’d just sprung it.
Chapter Six
AS SOON AS THE THICK METAL BARS HAD clanged home, a rainbow shimmer flared up around them, quickly encasing us on all four sides as well as above. I knew that shimmer—it had been present in the cell, too. It was a veil of magic that prevented me from reaching for the Aedh. To do so would only send me crashing to the floor in writhing agony—or so I’d discovered the last time they had me trapped.
"You have to get us out of here," I said, turning quickly to Azriel. "I can’t shift shape when that veil is in place."
"And I can’t transport you out of here when it is present," he said, his expression grim. "So let’s hope this works."
He raised Valdis and swept her across the nearest barrier. The sword screamed as she bit through the air, the blue flames incandescent by the time metal hit metal. Sparks flew and Azriel’s arms jerked as the sword’s speed slowed abruptly. Still, bit by bit, Valdis was cutting through the bars, hissing and screaming every inch of the way. Metal melted, running like water down the bars to pool at their base.