I don’t dare speak, but as his body heat disappears, my anxiety heightens. I reach out, finding Aarya’s coat sleeve, and grip it like an anchor. But she’s having none of it. She grabs my hand and yanks me forward, placing my palm firmly on the cold stone wall, as if to say “Hold this,” and moves away from me. I want to ask Ash what he’s found, but before I work up the nerve, light reappears inside the archway.

Ines cautiously peers around the doorway and Aarya pulls out a knife. But whatever Ines sees must be nonthreatening because she walks through with confidence. Aarya and I follow her into what appears to be an abandoned shoemaker’s shop. There are workbenches littered with shoe-shaping tools and shelves showcasing boot designs that I can only guess are hundreds of years old. Ash stands in the center of the forgotten room holding a lit candle, scanning everything with purpose, and it instantly becomes clear why—there is no exit other than the one we just came through, so unless the bouncer vanished into thin air, he must have used a secret door.

Ines pulls a candle out of her jacket pocket and lights it. It never occurred to me to keep a candle on me, but it’s now obvious that was an oversight—the light from real flame is superior to that from a flashlight and you never have to worry about the batteries failing you at a critical moment.

In the light provided by the two candles I take closer inventory of the edges of the room, searching for signs of a door. On the far wall Aarya inspects tools that hang from iron hooks, Ines moves to the fireplace, and Ash kneels down, running his finger across the ground.

“This place is spotless,” he whispers. “Not a boot print on the ground or dust on a bench.” It hadn’t occurred to me, but now that he mentions it, it makes the room seem off. It has none of the grime that the other stores and apartments did. I’m assuming it’s purposeful, that it keeps other Strategia from being able to track the path to the secret door, like footprints in snow.

“Let’s just hope we can find that door before a Lion pops out of it,” Aarya says, and even though it hadn’t crossed my mind, I’m now very much aware of that threat.

“I’m surprised you don’t already know where the door is,” Ash says under his breath without so much as glancing at her.

If I wasn’t sure something was going on between them before, I am now. I head for one end of the shelves of shoes to inspect it while Ash heads for the other end.