Side by side, they approached the tapestry. Hal pulled it back, allowing Wren to squeeze through with the light. As she stepped into a corridor as dark as sin, the temperature dropped—a gradual slither across her body, like sinking into cold water. Her breath unfurled in white, uneven bursts.

Here was a place people went and never returned.

There was nothing here but furniture covered in white tarps, but a sensation settled beneath her skin like a too-deep splinter, and her magic buzzed, tinny and frantic, from her eardrums to her fingertips. It was a familiar, unnerving pressure. A whisper against the back of her neck. All her life, she’d been attuned to suffering, to the sour smell of fear and rot. This feeling, this undeniable empathy, had once compelled her to heal that boy with the broken arm. And now, it compelled her so strongly, she was paralyzed with fear. What happened here?

It felt like being on a battlefield all over again. Her throat constricted with panic.

“Do you feel that?” she whispered. “It feels like … someone else is here. Someone hurting.”

Hal appeared beside her, his voice almost soothing. “No. I only feel you.”

“Right.” Maybe it was nothing but stubborn hope, another trick of her addled mind. She couldn’t trust herself anymore. Wren rubbed her arms as if the friction could warm her. “We should keep going.”

To their left, an avalanche of loose brick blocked off what was once a narrow, spiraling staircase leading to the turret. So Lowry wasn’t lying about everything. Overhead, she could see an uneven slice of night sky and the snow whirling against it. No wonder it was so freezing.

There was nowhere to go but forward.

In a matter of strides, she hit a dead end. Her candelabra flooded the grout with wicked orange light. The so-called east wing was little more than an antechamber with no outlet. But it couldn’t be. She’d seen Lowry emerging with a sewn-up wound on his arm herself. They didn’t have time to waste, didn’t have time to search. While she’d confirmed Lowry was in his quarters, the possibility of him walking in made her edgy and anxious. Hal, meanwhile, calmly paced the length of the room. He placed his feet carefully onto each square tile on the floor.

“What’re you doing?”

He ignored her, and Wren glared at his back. During their earlier healing sessions, he sometimes avoided talking to her by pretending to be asleep or looking puzzled by her accent.

Under her breath, she muttered, “I know you understand me, Cavendish.”

He stopped dead in the center of the room. Kneeling down, he wedged his fingers beneath a stone tile, which slid away with a rasping grind. It looked as if he’d opened a portal into the Otherworld.

“How … did you find that?”