was a sense of excitement, rage, and then a dull, seldom-felt terror and a rush of sharp, frozen images of violent death, confusion, terror, and searing agony.
My hand flinched back from the phantom sensation of its own accord, and for just a moment the memories of my burning took on tangible form. I hissed through my teeth and held my hand against my stomach, willing the too-real ghost of pain away.
“Harry?” Murphy asked.
What the hell? The impression the death had left was so sharp, so severe, that I had actually gotten bits of the troll’s memories. That had never happened to me before. Of course, I had never tried to pick up vibes in the Nevernever, either. It made more sense that the substance of the spirit world would leave a clearer spiritual impression.
“Harry?” Murphy said again, more sharply.
“I’m all right,” I said through clenched teeth. The imprint had been more clear than anything I had ever felt in the real world. In Chicago, I would have thought it was only a few seconds old. Here…
“I can’t tell how old they are,” I said. “My gut says not very, but I can’t be sure.”
“It must have been weeks,” Thomas said. “It takes that long for bones to get this clean.”
“It’s all relative,” I said. “Time can pass at different rates in Faerie. These bones could have fallen a thousand years ago, by the local clock. Or twenty minutes ago.”
Thomas muttered something under his breath and shook his head.
“What killed them, Harry?” Murphy asked.
“Fire. They were burned to death,” I said quietly. “Down to the bone.”
“Could you do that?” Thomas asked.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t make it that hot. Not at the heart of Winter.” Not even with Hellfire. The remains of perhaps a thousand creatures lay scattered about. I’d cut loose once in the past and roasted a bunch of vampires—and maybe some of their victims with them—but even that inferno hadn’t been big enough to catch more than a tithe of the fallen defenders of Arctis Tor.
“Then who did it?” Charity asked quietly.
I didn’t have an answer for her. I rose and nudged a smaller skull with my staff. “The littler ones were goblins,” I said. “Foot soldiers.” I rolled a troll-sized thighbone aside with my staff. An enormous sword, also of that same black ice, lay shattered beneath it. “These trolls were her personal guard.” I gestured back at the gate. “Covering her retreat to the tower, maybe. Some of them got taken down along the way. The others made a stand at the tower’s base. Died there.”
I paced around, checking what the tracking spell had to say, and triangulated again. “Molly’s in the tower,” I murmured.
“How do we get in?” Murphy asked.
I stared at the blank wall of the spire. “Um,” I said.
Charity glanced over my shoulder and nodded at the spire. “Look behind those trolls. If they were covering a retreat, they should be near the entrance to the tower.”
“Maybe,” I said. I walked over to the tower and frowned at the black ice. I ran my right hand over its surface, feeling for cracks or evidence of a hidden doorway, my senses tuned to discover any magic that might hide a door. I had the sudden impression that the black ice and the slowly pulsing colors inside were somehow alive, aware of me. And they did not like me at all. I got a sense of alien hatred, cold and patient. Otherwise, I got nothing for my trouble but half-frozen fingers.
“Nothing here,” I said, and rapped my knuckles on the side of the tower, eliciting the dull thump of a very solid object. “Maybe the trolls just wanted to fight with their backs to something solid. I might have to go all the way around checking for—”
Without any warning at all the ice of the tower parted. An archway appeared, the ice that had hidden it flowing seamlessly into the rest of the tower. The interior of the tower was all shadows and slowly shifting lights that did little to provide any illumination. Inside was nothing but a spiral staircase, winding counterclockwise up through the spire.
I glanced from the archway to my chilled fingers and back. “Next time, I guess I’ll just knock.”
“Come on,” Charity said. She shifted her grip on the war hammer, holding it at something like high port arms, handle parallel to her spine, heavy head ready to descend. “We have to hurry.”