Bright Blaze of Magic (Black Blade, #3)(56)

We reached the bottom of the stairs, which opened up into a long hallway. Felix pulled out his phone and checked the time.

“Twenty minutes until Devon is supposed to meet Victor,” he whispered.

He sent a quick text to Devon, telling him that we were inside the warehouse. A few seconds later, his phone lit up with a new message.

“Devon is in position on the far side of the lochness bridge,” Felix whispered again. “He says that he’ll cross the bridge and be on the street in front of the warehouse right at nine o’clock, just like Victor wanted. Oscar is staying put in the alley down the street to watch Devon’s back.”

“All right then,” I whispered back. “We need to find the others and free them before that happens. Come on.”

We crept down the hallway, once again stopping every few feet to look and listen. The deeper we went into the warehouse, the more faint murmurs I heard, although the voices were too far away for me to make out the exact words. Felix looked at me, nodding and clutching his sword and phone tight. He heard the murmurs too. Together, we moved on.

We reached another door at the end of the hallway. I picked that one open as well and we stepped out into the main part of the warehouse. We were on the second floor now, on a wide concrete balcony with a metal railing that ringed all four sides of the warehouse. I motioned for Felix to get down on his stomach, and together, the two of us slithered over to the edge of the balcony and peered down at the first floor of the warehouse.

Cages lay below us.

Three large cages took up a good chunk of the front of the warehouse. All the cages were lined with thick bars covered with a tightly woven mesh—ironmesh, if I had to guess—and all were filled with people and pixies. Most of the folks trapped inside were dirty and bloody, with cuts and bruises on their faces, arms, and legs, but my heart lifted when I saw that all of them were wearing silver Sinclair cuffs on their wrists. Far more guards and pixies were still alive than I’d dared to hope, given the destruction at the Sinclair mansion.

Draconi guards sporting blood-red cloaks and hats patrolled around the three cages, but not as many as I would have expected. If I had been Victor, I would have had more guards in here, watching my prisoners. But he had most of his men posted outside, waiting for Devon to show up with the black blades. Of course he did. Victor thought that the Sinclairs were beaten and that he’d already won. He was wrong.

“Look!” Felix whispered in an excited voice, pointing at one of the cages. “There’s my dad! And Reginald too!”

Sure enough, Angelo and Reginald were in one of the cages. Reginald was talking to a group of pixies that were huddled together on a wooden bench, while Angelo was looking at a cut on the face of one of the Sinclair guards.

“Look!” Felix whispered again, pointing to another cage. “I see Deah and Seleste too!”

Deah was sitting on a wooden bench, curled into a tight ball, her knees against her chest, with one of her shoulders slumped up against the mesh-covered bars. No cuts or bruises marred her body, although she kept grimacing and rubbing her sprained ankle. Meanwhile, Seleste was moving from one side of the cage to the other, aimlessly circling like a goldfish in a bowl, her gauzy white dress fluttering around her.

Some more of the tightness in my chest eased. They were okay and Victor hadn’t hurt or tortured them. This part of my family was still alive.

But my heart dropped when I realized that I didn’t see Mo or Claudia anywhere in the cages. I looked once, twice, three times, but they weren’t down below with the rest of the Sinclairs. So where were they?

“Hey,” Felix muttered, echoing my troubled thoughts. “I don’t see Claudia or Mo. Do you?”

I shook my head, and we both scanned the rest of the warehouse for them. Rows of wooden crates took up the back half of the building, and I spotted a long glass window set into one of the walls on the opposite side of the building. The window looked like it was part of some large office, and I leaned down a little more, trying to see through the glass. I could tell there were people in there, although not how many. But some of them were guards, given the red cloaks swirling around their bodies.

One of the guards moved away from the window and I spotted the edge of a man’s shoe—black and patterned with white hibiscus flowers. The same kind of shoe that Mo had worn to dinner last night.

I waited, my breath in my throat, hoping that the shoe would move, wiggle, or give me some other indication that he was still alive. But it remained still on the floor. I hoped that meant that Mo was just unconscious or tied down. I wouldn’t let myself think the worst—I would not.

“There,” I said, pointing the room out to Felix. “Mo is over there, and I’m willing to bet that Claudia is in there with him.”

He nodded, then checked his phone again. “Ten minutes until Devon is supposed to meet Victor.”

“Let’s go,” I whispered. “We need to get into position before then.”

He nodded and we eased away from the railing, crawled back over to the wall, and got up on our feet again. I pointed to a set of stairs leading downward, and Felix nodded and fell in step behind me.

We tiptoed down the stairs. Luckily for us, the stairs led down to the back of the warehouse, well away from the cages and guards near the front. I slid into a pool of shadow behind a row of crates, with Felix beside me.

“Now what?” he muttered.