Chapter 18 · Cages Under the Guild

The stairs down smelled like burnt copper and old fear. Evira took them three at a time, one hand on the stone wall to keep from tripping. Her blood was still singing from the rift she'd torn open two floors up. Marcus was bleeding out somewhere behind her and she didn't have time to think about that.

She didn't have time for anything except the voice that had come through the rift.

Felix.

The basement opened into a corridor lit by sick yellow bulbs. The smell hit her harder down here. Chemicals. Sweat. Something else underneath that made her stomach twist. She'd smelled it before in the slums when the plague wagons rolled through.

Death. Slow death.

The corridor branched left and right. She closed her eyes and tried to feel which way her blood pulled. It was a stupid thing to try. She didn't know how to use this power. She'd ripped open one rift by accident and nearly bled herself dry doing it.

But Felix was down here.

She went left.

The first cell she passed had a woman in it. Thin. Hollow-eyed. She didn't even look up when Evira stopped at the bars.