“I’ll get the bodies,” Kit said. Gyre started a little at the thought, but it only made sense. Hopefully there’s no one watching inside. Leaving them out here makes it more likely someone will trip over them and sound the alarm. His scar itched, and when he went to scratch it, his finger tapped irritably against his mask.

Gyre climbed down, waiting at the bottom of the ladder until Kit returned carrying the dead Auxie woman. She lowered the corpse carefully by the arms until Gyre was able to catch it around the waist. Blood still oozed from the broad gash across the woman’s throat, and her blank gaze made Gyre shudder. Don’t. Get. Soft.

Kit let the other Auxie’s body down, and Gyre piled the two corpses against the wall. Kit herself jumped to the ground, eschewing the ladder and landing with catlike grace. With his nighteye, Gyre could see the darker stains spattered across her black clothing.

“From this point, we’re going in blind,” Gyre said. “Any ideas on how to actually find this stasis web?”

“Given how heavy it is, it’ll be on the bottom floor,” Kit said. “And it’s big enough that they won’t have just tucked it in a corner.”

Gyre turned in a circle, but one way seemed as good as another. He picked a direction and started walking. This floor of the warehouse was divided into many smaller rooms, all carefully closed and locked. Kit darted ahead of him, checking the doors.

“Think we’ll have time to search some of these on the way out?” she said. “Raskos must have a lot of interesting things stored up.”

“Let’s just get this done,” Gyre muttered. Kit gave an exaggerated pout.

As he’d hoped, the corridor led to a stairwell, iron steps corkscrewing downward. Gyre descended carefully, wary of creaks and groans, and was relieved to find that the bulk of the warehouse was a single open space. A network of catwalks ran above it, with circular landings around the massive stone pillars that supported the roof. Below that, the main floor was a jumble.

Even with nighteye, it was hard to get a sense of just what Raskos had been collecting. There were boxes, barrels, and sacks, piles of stones and bricks, but mostly there were bits and pieces of arcana. Long metal tables were covered in smaller artifacts of every possible description, crystalline shapes embedded in dull ceramic or iridescent unmetal, ancient tools with no clear purpose or broken pieces of who knew what. In between were larger objects resting on wooden pallets. Some seemed tantalizingly familiar—an unmetal pod, bigger than a man, with delicate crystal vanes on either side, or a sort of chair with three wheels and a tall protruding spike. Others were just lumps, veined with crystal, complex and incomprehensible.