I called fire to my fingertips, then pressed them against the lock. It instantly began to glow and, in very little time, was little more than liquid. I pushed the door open but didn’t immediately step inside. Instead, I threw a ball of fire into the darkness and flared it out.

What my flames revealed was a bedroom, and it was a goddamn mess. There were clothes everywhere—both over the floor and on the bed. Either Rinaldo was extremely messy, or someone had gotten here before us.

There was an en suite to my right, but it, too, was in shambles, with drawers pulled out of the cabinet and razors, soaps, and aftershave bottles strewn all over the crisp white floor tiles; some of the bottles were broken, perfuming the air with their pungent scents.

I sent my sphere of light into the hallway and carefully followed. The one additional room on the floor was another bedroom and en suite. It, too, looked as if it had been hit by a cyclone. I headed back to the door, then stopped and swung around, my gaze scanning the clothes again. Was it my imagination, or were those clothes identical to the ones scattered all over the other bedroom?

I went back in to check. It wasn’t my imagination.

“Anything?” Sam said.

“Negative,” Jackson said.

“Also negative,” came Adam’s comment.

“Emberly?” Sam said, his voice a little sharper.

“Nothing but a goddamn mess and two identical sets of clothing.” I thumped the wall in frustration. It seemed luck had once again turned a blind eye.

“How the fuck could he possibly have known we were on the way?” Jackson said, sounding every bit as angry as I was. “With Frederick out of the picture and PIT not informed of the operation, there’s no way he should have gotten any sort of warning.”

“Unless it was the mere fact of being unable to contact his thrall that set off alarms,” Adam said. “If the state of this place is anything to go by, we didn’t miss him by much.”

“It doesn’t matter whether we missed him by a minute or an hour,” Jackson growled. “We still fucking missed him.”

“Enough,” Sam said, his tone curt. “Em, what do you mean by two sets of identical clothing?”

“Just that. There’re two bedrooms, and each one holds the exact same clothes—same cut, same style, same colors.” I paused. “After talking to the rats, we’ve come to the conclusion that Rinaldo might actually be two people.”

“Indeed? And when were you planning to inform us of this conclusion?”

“The minute I thought about it,” I snapped back. “Between Rory almost getting killed and then me getting kidnapped, informing PIT of anything kinda took a backseat.”