“Do you want me to examine your prisoner, or do you want to stand here in front of the woman you kidnapped and argue about rule breaking?”

She scowled, but didn’t stop me from tugging a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses from the pages. The nosepieces were warm, and sweat smeared the top of both lenses. I used my shirttail to wipe them clean, then slipped them on.

The tunnel dimmed further, but certain figures brightened. Lena appeared backlit, as if sunlight flickered just behind her body. The vampires glowed as well, a silvery light more reminiscent of the moon.

“You’re pushing too hard,” Doctor Shah warned. She was a faded shadow, utterly without magic save for the small burning light on her temple. “Have the voices returned?”

“Not yet,” I lied.

I glanced down. I would have expected Smudge to glow like fire, but his magic was different. A simple white light surrounded him like a comet, the tail extending toward me. I unhooked his cage and held it at arm’s length, using the cuff of the jacket to protect my fingers from the heat of the bars. No matter where I held him, the tail pointed to my chest.

How much of Smudge’s magic flowed through me? That connection would explain why he understood my plans so easily.

Lena was a product of libriomancy, too, and as I looked more closely, I saw flickers of white light stretching away from her. One led to Doctor Shah, while another, weaker thread connected her to me. A third extended through the wall at a slight upward angle. Perhaps that was her connection to the trees above, some lingering thread to the pine she had slept in last night, or to the branch she had grafted to my oak in Copper River.

I examined Chesa next. Unlike the rest of us, Chesa was surrounded by two competing magical auras. One was similar to Granach and Kyle. The other matched the white, comet-like light coming off of Smudge, complete with a faint tail pointing toward whoever was controlling her. “Which way is north?”

Granach pointed off to the left. My guess had been off by a good ninety degrees or so. I clipped the cage back onto my belt loop, then stuck singed fingers in my mouth. “What are you so worried about, Smudge? She’s not getting out of that cage, and nobody else is trying to kill us right this minute.” To the others, I said, “Our killer is west of here. Is there any way to take Chesa aboveground? I could triangulate a rough location.”

“It would be difficult,” said Granach. “What else can you see?”

“I’ve never used these glasses before, but the magic matches my own. I think this was done by a libriomancer.”