I stepped carefully through the hole into the cell. Shadow reached for me, even as I strengthened the spells in the wall, tightening the thing’s leash and choking it back, inch by inch, until it was pinned in place and helpless.

A young werebear crouched in the far corner. She was thirteen years old at most, and looked to be in good health. Her loose-fitting red jumpsuit was dirty, and her ragged hair had been cut short. She sniffed the air. She might not be able to see me very well, but she could smell my presence just fine.

“It’s all right. We’re going to get you out of here. Where are your parents?”

“No entiendo.”

“Me llamo Isaac. Soy de los Porteros.”

She cocked her head. Either I’d bungled the Spanish or else she didn’t know what the Porters were. Possibly both.

I sat down a short distance away and examined the magic they’d forced into her body to prevent her from changing forms. The text was identical to that of the pearls in the guards’ badges, but it was concentrated in the throat. They’d inserted or injected it beneath the skin, tagging her like an animal.

I reached out, and she flinched away, one hand jerking up to cover a dark scab on her neck.

They’d probably put a tracking chip in there, too. I considered trying to use my enchanted mirror to pluck it out, but trying to open a portal into a child’s throat was dangerous enough. When you added that damned pearl to the equation, I’d almost certainly end up killing her. “Deb, we’ve got to find another way of opening these doors. Any suggestions?”

“Ask him.” Lena hurled a large, muscular man to the floor in front of the cell. She held a second guard by the collar. He struggled like a kitten in his mother’s jaws, with the same lack of success.

The girl’s flinch told me everything I didn’t want to know. “¿Te hizo daño?” I asked, as gently as I could.

“A mí, no. A mi hermano.”

I stepped out of the cell. “Where is this girl’s brother?”

The man on the floor groaned. “Three cells down, on the left.”

Lena brought her bokken to the throat of the guard struggling in her grip. The wood was needle-sharp, and had drawn a visible trickle of blood. “I know what you did to him. What I do to you depends on the choices you make in the next few minutes. Open these doors.”

“What’s she talking about, Franklin?” The second man started to rise. Deb drove her heel into the middle of his back, pressing him against the tile.

Lena shoved Franklin toward the door. He pulled a metal baton, spun, and swung hard.