Chapter 31 · The Missing Choir

"The door was locked," Nora said. "I checked it twice. The children were inside, and then they weren't."

Mira tightened the strip of cloth around Silas's arm. Blood had soaked through it again, dark and sticky against his skin.

"Start over," Mira snapped. "No guessing. No screaming. Tell me exactly what you saw."

Nora stood three steps inside the surgery room, one hand pressed to the cut along her ribs. Her face had gone gray. "The locks held. The windows were barred. No one came through the stairs. Then the song stopped."

"And the children vanished?" Silas asked.

His voice was rough from holding back the sickness. He still sat on the edge of the table, shirt open, his skin marked by the clean line Mira had cut beneath his ribs. Black fluid glistened in the glass basin beside him.

Nora swallowed. "Not vanished. Taken."

Mira looked at Silas. "You said the lower ward was sealed."

"It was."

"You said no one could open that door without your key."

"No one can."

"Then someone used your key."

Silas pushed off the table. His knees almost gave out.