Page 155 of The Mirror of Beasts

“If we can’t get to her room the normal way, we can try to crawl there through the vents,” I said.

“Neve is probably the safest person in this entire building,” Emrys said. “How do we know they haven’t gotten her out yet themselves?”

I set my jaw. “We don’t, which is why we need to see for ourselves. Once we have her, there’s an open Vein in the attic we can use to escape.”

Emrys seemed confused by all this information, but he gamely nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Let’s fly, Bird.”

I took his hand when he offered it, trailing after him as we made our way along the hall, back to the stairs that would lead us to the first level of the estate. At the top of the stairs, I looked down the hallway, but Nash’s stone body was shrouded in smoke.

It was a warning of what was to come.

The first floor was on fire.

The hunters had triggered several of the curses, and lines of fire had forced them to move down a single, narrow path through the hall into the foyer.

“Release me! Release me!”

I spun, searching the drifting clouds of smoke for the source of the voices screaming like sirens.

“Damn you!”

I lunged away from the nearest wall—from the mirror hanging there. A hunter launched himself at the glass, trying to shatter it from the inside. As the smoke rose, dozens more faces appeared there in the mirrors covering the walls, moaning and begging.

“The spells are holding,” Emrys said, the silent for now hanging between us. “Let’s go.”

The carefully laid spikes had doubled in size, becoming a tangle of thorns across the hall. I followed Emrys’s exact steps as he wove a path through the eerie glow of the scattered flames. I was forced to release his hand so we could climb over and around their deadly points.

With only a gasp of warning, Emrys shoved me to the outer edge of the hall. He forced us both down into a crouch behind one of the spikes jutting up from the floor. A moment later, three of the hunters staggered past us, their ghostly bodies flickering in and out of material forms.

“Wh-What did they do to us?” one gasped out.

The hunters trapped in the mirrors pounded against the glass, screaming their voices hoarse. The new arrivals jumped as the smoke parted to reveal the traps.

“Bloody hell!” one of the hunters yelped, backing up. “I told you it was the wrong way—”

“There!” came a woman’s ragged cry. Four sorceresses materialized out of the billowing smoke at the end of the hall, whipping fresh lines of fire at the hunters. They crowed as the flames caught one of the hunters just as he took on physical form.

The victory was short-lived. With a snarl, the hunter nearest to them threw a dagger, then another—the sorceresses at the front were quick enough to dodge, but the one in the back, a statuesque blonde, caught a dagger in the throat, choking on her own blood as she fell to the ground.

With wrenching screams, the sorceresses charged, forcing the hunters farther back toward the entrance. Emrys took the chance to pull me up and lead us forward again. We slowed as we passed the fallen sorceress; her emerald eyes gazed back at us, emptied of life.

With a grimace, he pulled the blade free from her flesh with a gruesome spurt of blood. Wiping the weapon off against his jeans, he handed it to me. “Take this.”

I couldn’t muster a protest.

Once we were through the spikes, we kept low and hugged the right side of the hallway. Billowing red mist poured through the atrium, overwhelming my sense of the space as it wove through the silver smoke. The clash of blades and shouts met us at the entrance to it. Kasumi’s voice rose above all the others with her call of “Push them back!”

Lights from spells flashed on the floors above us, sparking bright and fading quickly. A rider tore through the crimson veil, his armor glowing silver as his horse galloped forward and leapt, climbing on nothing but air to the second floor. A sorceress followed at a run, her face streaked with sweat and her dress torn. The end of her wand blasted out spirals of magic, her shouts of rage echoing in my ears. With a swirl of her wand, she created enough spiraling wind to launch herself after the rider.

My heart raced faster than my feet until the adrenaline left me feeling unsteady. I gripped the dagger as hard as I could, worried that the sweat coating my palm would allow it to escape my hold.

Emrys ran to where the stairs should have been. Remembering the way they vanished before, only to reappear at Kasumi’s command, I began to search the floor for a sigil.

“The stairs were here when I came down!” Emrys said. Something seemed to occur to him. “I think there’s another way up—”

I tried to run after him, but the mist was too thick, too disorienting. A burst of panic moved through me as I lost sight of him, only to find his shadowed form a moment later.

But that shadow became two, and as I approached, a scene took shape in the mist.

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