I wondered what “usual” was. And whether that meant few dared to even raise a complaint against Ruadhán.

A gentle curtain of rain began to fall, but if the weight of clouds was anything to go by, the curtain would soon become a torrent. “You having much luck there? Because you have thirty seconds before the sky opens up and we get drowned.”

There was a soft click as the lock opened, but before I could turn, he slipped his hand around my waist and pulled me back against his strong, sinewy body.

“You always were impatient when it came to entry,” he whispered, and brushed a kiss against my neck.

A wave of delight shivered through me, but I somehow manage to catch the sigh of pleasure before it could leave my lips and instead thrust back with an elbow.

He laughed and jumped back out of the way. “I’d offer an apology for taking advantage of your inattention, but we’d both know it would be neither sincere nor true.”

A smile tugged at my lips. “You’re incorrigible.”

“When it comes to luscious women, that is most certainly true.” He pulled two pairs of silicone gloves from his coat pocket and hand me a pair. “You want to check if there’s any spells clinging to the door or the handle before we go in?”

I pulled a glove onto my left hand and tucked the other into my pocket. I had no idea if holding the knife with silicone gloves on would make any difference to the way it reacted to magic, but I wasn’t about to take the chance.

The minute I drew it from the sheath, light flared down its length. There wasn’t just one spell here, there were multiple. I touched the point to the middle of the metal door, and there was a short, sharp explosion. A sulfurous, slightly metallic smell briefly stained the air. I touched the knife’s tip to the door handle and got the same result.

As the rain began to pelt down, I warily grasped the handle. When nothing happened, I turned it and then pushed the door open. It revealed a short corridor with a second door to the left and third ten feet directly in front. Both were closed.

I couldn’t see any more spells, and the knife wasn’t reacting, but I kept it out regardless. Better safe than sorry when walking into a spellcaster’s lair.

I stepped inside, then paused again. The flooring was vinyl, and though it had been laid over the top of real floorboards, their song had long ago been silenced. They couldn’t tell me if anyone stood in the rooms beyond either door.

“I can’t hear movement or conversation,” Mathi murmured.

“No.” But that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone here. For all we knew, there could be a goddamn army in either the room ahead or on the second floor.

I forced my feet on. When we reached the first door, Mathi cast a gaze my way, eyebrow raised in question. I lightly touched the knife to the middle of the door and, when nothing happened, nodded. He turned the handle and carefully pushed the door open, revealing a small laundry. It contained little more than a wash basin, a very old, very rusted top-loading washing machine, and, on the window side, a string line on which two pairs of men’s socks and half a dozen men’s underpants were strung.