Page 55 of Silver in the Bone

And down.

I slowed, but Betrys nudged me on. The stench of straw, rat droppings, and mildew met us at the threshold, a dire warning of what we would find inside the chamber.

As Caitriona stepped inside and removed a heavy ring of keys from a hook on the wall, the candles lining the narrow walkway flickered with sudden fire. They burned away the thin layer of mist trapped in that darkness, and in their struggling glow I made out six distinct iron-barred cells.

Caitriona opened the nearest one, guiding a clearly exhausted Neve inside. The sorceress eyed the way Caitriona gripped her wand, looking like she wanted to say something. They’d taken our weapons before we’d mounted the horses, but now they removed our restraints to separate us from our bags. My heart dropped like a stone when I felt Betrys pull at my workbag.

“I’ll cut the strap if I have to,” she warned. “You’ll get them back, I swear it.”

I glowered but handed it to her, using the moment to duck into the same cell as Neve. It would be easier to make some sort of escape if we weren’t all separated.

The door slammed heavily behind us and locked with a sound that seemed to reverberate to the back of my teeth. Emrys and Cabell were forced to share a cell directly across the walkway from us.

With no promise of when they might return, Caitriona and the others left, their heavy footsteps battering the stairs before fading altogether.

“Really?” I called after them, banging my hands on the bars. “A dungeon? Seriously?”

“Tams,” Cabell said, sounding spent. “Please. Screaming at them didn’t work in Giza or Athens, and it’s not going to work here, either.”

“Exactly how many dungeons have the two of you been in?” Emrys asked.

The memory of those two jobs with Nash was enough to turn my mood even uglier. I blew out a hard breath through my nose, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning a shoulder against the cold metal.

Neve leaned back against the side of our cell with a weary sigh.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

“Define okay,” Neve said, giving me a look of exasperation.

“I meant are you hurt?” I asked. “What was that spell you cast?”

“Don’t know,” Neve said, the words heavy with fatigue. “I panicked and it just happened.”

Cabell and I shared a silent look of understanding. If his curse could be triggered by extreme stress or emotion, it stood to reason that a sorceress’s power worked the same.

Something at the back of the cell caught Neve’s eye. She stumbled toward it, kneeling where a root, coiled into the shape of a fist, had breached the stone wall.

“No way,” she breathed out. “Scarlet elf cap and turkeytails? Oh, Neve, it’s your lucky day.”

“Really? Turkeytail?” Emrys asked, straightening.

“Calm down, soil sniffer,” I said, “it’s fungi, not buried treasure.”

By the time I came to stand beside her, Neve had already carefully extracted several small mushrooms from the root.

“Are either of those types edible?” Cabell asked. “Because I could really use a bite of something.”

“How can you eat after what we just saw?” Emrys asked, aghast.

“His stomach is the most powerful motivator he possesses,” I said.

“You say that like your motivator isn’t esophagus-melting instant coffee,” Cabell said.

“That’s what I said!” Emrys crowed. “And no, not edible. At least not without cooking them first. Turkeytail is usually consumed in powder form—”

“No one cares, Dye,” I said. “Well, except for Neve, I guess.”

“Fungi are amazing,” Neve said, her voice breathless with a stunning amount of excitement, given her obvious exhaustion. “Amazing.”

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