"Oh God—"
He disappeared before I'd even finished the sentence, then reappeared a heartbeat later. He did not look happy. "The book has gone."
I closed my eyes briefly, relieved and yet not. Because while they'd at least taken it without harming Tao or Ilianna, they couldn't read it or find the keys without me—if my father was to be believed, anyway.
Would they come back here the instant they realized that?
"Yes," Azriel said.
I glanced up at him. "So you really can read my thoughts?"
"Sometimes," he admitted, a glimmer that could have been amusement flaring briefly in his eyes. "But I have discovered over the years that human thoughts are often not worth listening to, so I usually don't bother."
"I'm not human."
"No, you are not."
And again that glimmer rose. Damn, I thought, a hint of heat touching my cheeks. He'd heard those thoughts.
I cleared my throat and said, "What took you so long to find me? I must have called your name a hundred times when I was being questioned."
"There were impediments—barriers that prevented me getting any lock on your location."
I remembered the rainbow shimmer. "The cell had some sort of magical halo around it. It almost killed me when I tried becoming Aedh."
He nodded. "What restricts your shift would also restrain my connection with you. Until you were clear of that halo, I could not answer your call. The earth is restrictive as well."
"Why?" I asked. "And if that's the case, how do people involved in accidents underground ever get moved on?"