I shoved one knife into its sheath and quickly gathered the air around my fingers. As another blow whispered past my chin, I flung the gathered ball of air. It hit her midsection and lifted her high, sending her crashing into the top end of the shelving unit and then down to the floor. As bits of pottery and metal rained down on top of her, Lugh appeared, grabbing her by the back of the neck and throwing her hard against the wall. She hit it with a grunt, dropped back to the floor, and didn’t move.

Lugh checked her pulse and then stepped over her and strode toward me. “You okay?”

I thumbed the blood away from my cheek and nodded. “Yeah.”

He gently caught my chin, moving it to one side so he could examine the wound. “That almost looks like a knife wound.”

“She wasn’t armed. She was just fast.”

“Probably caused by a fingernail then, which is never a good thing when we’re dealing with rats.” He stepped to one side and waved me forward. “There’s a medikit in cabinet two. Go use it while I gather and restrain our captive.”

I nodded and walked down the aisle, noting the area under the stairs once again looked solid. Lugh had obviously hit the close button as he’d galloped to the rescue.

I headed over to the filing cabinets and discovered someone had thoughtfully numbered them. While I found the medikit and disinfected the wound, Lugh placed the shifter onto an office chair, then rolled her around the metal table, depositing her close to the wall.

She was thin, with a pinched face, sharp nose, and short, somewhat spiky gray hair. I might have only met one rat shifter, but she definitely fit the mold. The upper left sleeve of her pale leather jacket had been sliced open, and while blood soaked its edges, the flow wasn’t strong enough to suggest I’d hit anything vital. Of course, that was neither here nor there, because if she didn’t get treatment soon, the cut would fester and blood poisoning would quickly become a rather deadly problem.

“We going to treat her wound?” I asked.

Lugh wrinkled his nose. “She’ll need a steady infusion of sodium nitrate to rid the toxin from her body, and that’s not something medikits carry. It has to be done at the fae hospital.”

Sodium nitrate—a preservative found in many processed foods, and which could be deadly in large amounts to humans and most fae—was rather weirdly the only thing found to stop the progression of silver poisoning in shifters. It apparently worked by flushing the deadly compounds from their organs and tissue.

“Then we’ll need to release her sooner rather than later.” We really had no other option, given none of us were supposed to be here.

He nodded as he walked over to the nearest shelf and picked something up. It took me a second to realize it was handcuffs.

Amusement twitched my lips. “Why on earth would Nialle have handcuffs here? Or shouldn’t I ask?”