From above, the walls looked shorter. Up close, some rose as high as ten feet. Giant mushrooms shaped like five-feet-high bay boletes, with pale blue caps the size of large umbrellas, clustered by the walls, their pores radiating a pale pink glow. The odd dark texture he’d seen from the top of the crumbling building turned out to be leaves—strange, purple-black plants no more than five inches tall, each a bunch of triangular leaves on short stalks. They blanketed the ground completely, spreading from the ruins like a puddle of spilled ink in an almost perfect circle, and they had to pick their way through thirty yards of them to get to the solid asphalt. He’d almost stepped on a rusty jagged spike sticking out of the dirt. Julie followed his footsteps, trusting his senses and another walking stick she picked up. Even so, they were barely ten yards in, and she’d stumbled once already.

The plants stank too. A heavy metallic scent that sat low, pooling near the ground. His nose would get used to it eventually, but for now he went scent-blind.

“Stop,” Julie whispered.

A needle of alarm pierced him. Derek froze in midstep, his foot hovering above the ground, carefully stepped back, and raised his hand. She put the walking stick into it. He crouched and used the stick to push the leaves aside. A metal bear trap lay open among the leaves, the old-fashioned kind with a pressure plate and heavy-duty steel jaws armed with metal teeth. A chain stretched from the trap, snaking its way between the leaves. He glanced in that direction and saw an old, concrete power post. It had to be fastened around it. He’d seen these traps before. They weighed over fifty pounds, and the metal teeth would go straight through the bone.

“Adams did something,” Julie whispered. “There is a blue stain of magic on the trap. It’s faint and hard to see, but I’ve got it now. It’s not witch magic; it’s something else. Something really old. The whole field is seeded with them. Let me take the point.”

They were sitting ducks out there. The faster they went through, the better.

He nodded.

A whine tore through the air, and a sharp spike of pain punched into his chest, exploding into white-hot, mind-numbing agony. Silver. The poison bloomed inside him, the agony ripping at him, spreading too fast. He didn’t waste time glancing at the wooden shaft protruding from above his heart. Dropping flat would do no good. No cover.

The second arrow whined, only half a second behind the first. He thrust himself in front of Julie. It sank into his stomach. Silver exploded inside him. The detonation of hurt almost took him to his knees.

“Run!” she yelled at him.