Broken Veil (Harbinger #5)(75)

One by one, her companions descended to the ground. Her chest felt like a hand had reached in and squeezed her heart.

Adam looked back up at the tempest. “What will we do with the ship?”

Juliana, weapons in each hand, invoked the ship’s Control Leering, and the tempest lifted up higher, protecting the passengers in the hold. It would draw attention from the sky ships searching for them, but if they succeeded in saving Sera, that wouldn’t matter. The fog had coalesced, and now the other side of the street was hazy. It was like a cloud settling over them, swallowing them up.

“That’s the building,” Caulton said, orb in hand, gesturing.

Cettie pushed the poisoner bag behind her. She could sense the Fear Liath’s mind, its evil, lurking in the shadows and the mist. It was not trying to prevent them from entering the building. What was it doing, then? Why had it been posted as a guardian?

She didn’t know, but that didn’t stop her from moving forward. She led the way into the building. The light from Adam’s lantern chased away some of the gloom.

The door had already been ripped off the hinges, probably for use as firewood. Heaps of charred wood had been stacked in the main hall. The building looked like it had once been a factory tenement, but it was abandoned now. Pieces of sky showed from holes in the roof overhead. The rubbish and debris on the floor made walking a dangerous act. She tried to move quietly, but the others hadn’t had her training. They were making too much noise.

What would her mother do when she realized they’d come? Would she try to kill Sera rather than release her? Cettie breathed in through her mouth, unable to fully block the stench, and shoved aside the distracting thoughts. Caulton pointed to an iron trapdoor beneath a broken wall. The ground around it looked like it had been trampled by a lot of people.

“She’s still down there?” Cettie whispered.

Caulton nodded once.

Cettie licked her lips. “Is Lady Corinne down there? Can you ask it that?”

Caulton stared at the orb, and she felt his nudging thoughts.

“Yes,” he answered, then squinted. “And no. The orb shows that it’s someone who is disguised as Lady Corinne.”

So Cettie’s mother was waiting for them. Or would they catch her by surprise?

Adam raised the lantern higher, and Cettie bent down and pulled on the handle of the trapdoor. Trevon joined her and helped her set the heavy piece of metal down gently. An overpowering odor of human refuse filtered up to them. Stairs led down into the darkness.

A snuffling noise sounded behind them, by the broken door they’d used to enter the building. Cettie whirled, seeing a hulking shadow in the mist.

The Fear Liath had found them. Was it going to attack them now?

“Its weakness is light,” Cettie said to Adam. “That makes it vulnerable.”

The miasmic fear of the creature had permeated the air. Everyone looked tense, on edge, fearful. Aunt Juliana held up her pistols as she turned to face the creature.

She sent it so we won’t think clearly, Cettie realized. The creature was part of a trap. She had no vision to guide her of what would happen next. No notion of how they might avoid the trap but save Sera anyway. And so she started down the steps into the darkness. Adam followed her with the light, and the others followed him. The room beneath them was a huge cesspit. She’d been terrified of them as a child. The entire lower floor of each building in the Fells was used to hold human waste. She saw angled slats in the upper walls and filth staining the walls below them. The other buildings emptied into this one, it seemed. There was evidence of rake marks. Some broken handles. The lowest of the low scraped dung for a living.

“By the Mysteries, the smell,” Juliana said, gagging.

“Over there.” Caulton pointed to an iron door set against the far wall. Cettie could sense a kystrel at work behind it, amplifying the feelings that were already natural. Loathing, disgust, dread, hopelessness. That room emanated every terrible thing. And Sera was inside it.

Cettie led the way to the door. It was locked. She sensed the presence of . . . of children. Like the ones she’d cared for and protected in the Fells. The ones who’d kept her ghosts at bay, if only for a while. Her Dryad-kissed thoughts brought all those desperate moments back to her.

Children? Her mother was using children to torment her?

Cettie felt the injustice keenly. She had to clench her fists to stop from pounding on the door in anger. Once she had mastered herself, she reached into her poisoner’s bag for the thin bar and tools she’d need to unlock the door. In a moment, she’d released the tumblers. Acting quickly, she returned the tools to her bag and opened the door.

The faces of the huddled children beyond gazed at her fearfully. They were chained to the wall. Each one was gagged. Some had tears streaming down their cheeks. Her heart quailed for them. And then she saw Sera lying on the ground, unconscious and possibly drugged, her dark hair covering part of her face. She wasn’t wearing a royal dress anymore, but her gown wasn’t soiled or ruined.

The feeling of dark magic—kystrel magic—hung in the room, mixed with something else. The power of the Mysteries, and perhaps even that of the Fear Liath upstairs. The kystrel music drowned out the others, making it impossible to discern the various strands. Someone was invisible. Cettie held up her hand to those behind her, warning the others to stay back.

“I know you’re here, Mother,” Cettie said into the void as she stepped into the room. The light from Adam’s lantern pushed back some of the murk. He stood behind her in the doorway.