“Do you see anything?” Osha whispered almost too faintly to hear.
“Six doors.” Wynn struggled to answer. “Second door ... on the right. Three guards.”
Nausea began to cripple her.
She quickly fought to see anything more, but she couldn’t reach past any of those doors. When she tried, there were too many layers of Spirit outlines, and her stomach clenched as if she might heave up her breakfast.
The one thing she hadn’t seen—wouldn’t see during the day—was the black shadow of an undead’s presence.
Everything in Wynn’s sight blurred and twisted, and vertigo overwhelmed her as her will failed. She shut her eyes and crumpled.
Two hands caught her shoulders as she fell.
“Wynn!” Osha breathed in her ear.
At Shade’s soft, short whine, Wynn felt herself pulled back against Osha’s chest. She barely opened her eyes and then regretted doing so.
There was Shade, a glistening black form haloed in blue white, and the dog’s irises burned with so much light that everything else in Wynn’s sight began to spin. A sudden memory rose in her head.
Not an image—a sensation like a warm wet tongue dragged repeatedly over her face, as if her eyes were closed, though she still stared at Shade’s burning blue irises. Her eyes had been closed—at another time—when she’d used mantic sight to track Chap in the forest of the an’Cróan.
Shade lunged in so quickly that Wynn grabbed the dog’s neck in panic—and Shade’s tongue lapped her face as she shut her eyes. Wet warmth dragged over her eyelids.
Nausea lessened as Wynn leaned against Osha while clutching Shade’s neck.
She had never learned how Shade knew Chap’s trick for smothering mantic sight. Perhaps Shade had learned of it from one of Wynn’s own memories, and it had become useful several times. As the last of the vertigo faded, disappointment welled in its place.
“Not enough,” she whispered. “I didn’t see enough.”
“Quiet now,” Osha whispered.
Before Wynn could move, she was picked up and carried off as any light from the cold-lamp crystal winked out when Osha’s hand closed over it.
Wynn doubted those three supposed guards, so far down in that main chamber, could hear them. But it was better that Osha was being cautious, and she waited to speak again until he settled her on the floor halfway down the back passage.
“Only three guards below?” Osha asked as he opened his hand and let the crystal’s light out. “Do you think the guarded door is where the duke goes?”
Wynn nodded. “Perhaps, but we should leave here. Whatever is down there, no matter what we think, is important enough to be guarded at all times. And we don’t know when or how often the guards are rotated.”
Trying to get up, Wynn braced a hand on the passage wall, and Shade ducked in to give her additional support as Osha grasped her other arm.
“There is nothing more we can do until Chane wakes up,” Wynn added.
Osha’s expression darkened. “Why?”
“Because he grew up in a keep and might know something of use ... because he’s stronger than any of us ... and he cannot be killed by normal means.”
Osha’s scowl only deepened, though Shade rumbled at him.
“This is all dangerous, more than you can imagine,” Wynn warned. “And it will get ugly. We need our numbers ... everyone.”
Osha appeared no less sour, but he finally nodded.
Chane opened his eyes.
“Oh, finally!”
He squinted and then flinched in his bed upon seeing Wynn hanging over him with a lit cold-lamp crystal in her hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.
Chane sat up too quickly, swinging his legs off the bedside, and almost hit Wynn’s forehead with his own. He was still slightly disoriented as he glanced around the room. Beyond Wynn was Osha, watching him. Shade sat on the floor a little closer, and then there was Nikolas....
Chane’s fingers closed tightly on the bed’s edge.
The young sage stood flattened against the room’s closed door, and his eyes stared back in fright.
“Nikolas,” Wynn said softly. “I told you, there’s nothing to fear from Chane.”
Chane turned to her. Even sitting on the low bed, he barely had to look up to see her face.
“It’s all right,” Wynn said. “He knows. It was necessary to tell him because of what might come ... for there’s an orb in the keep ... we think.”
Confused and stunned, Chane’s eyes never blinked as she rushed onward. By the time she finished telling him about Aupsha, Jausiff, the duchess and duke, and all else concerning a sect that had protected and lost an orb, he almost forgot she had revealed what he was to a young, somewhat unstable sage. Almost.
Chane was not pleased and glanced at Nikolas again.
After what the young sage had suffered from Sau’ilahk, the last thing Nikolas needed to hear was that he had unknowingly kept company with another undead and led it to his home. Then something else Wynn had said sank in regarding what she had done.
“You used mantic sight ... without me or Premin Hawes,” he accused.
“Osha was there,” Wynn answered defensively. “And Shade brought me out with no trouble. If anything, it went better than ever before, so enough!”
Chane chilled inside. He knew he should focus on the important things she had told him, that there was likely an orb here. That should have been more critical than anything else, but he could not let go of other issues.
So much had happened, far beyond his possible imaginings, and while he lay dormant and useless all day, Osha had been the one at Wynn’s side. And Wynn had revealed his nature without his knowledge or permission. Life, or any semblance of it for him among the living, kept becoming more complicated around her.
Something in his mouth tasted acrid.
“What did you see beyond the door?” he asked.
“Three guards, likely Suman, in the level below the keep.”
She went on, though there was little more to tell.
“You believe the duke has an orb?” he echoed. “And he is ... using it to some purpose that is affecting him and the surrounding area? What is he doing?”
Wynn shook her head. “I don’t know, but I think what we suffered last night might have been from the orb being opened ... or opened too much or too long. For what little we’ve overheard, no one here has experienced such effects before last night.”
So far no one else present had spoken. That was no surprise from Nikolas, for what Wynn had done. Shade seemed the least disturbed, but one could never be certain of her reactions until she demonstrated such. As to Osha, he simply watched, narrow eyed.
“We have to get the orb,” Wynn said. “So I’ve been waiting for you to ... wake up.”
At least she had been sensible in that.
“How many Suman guards, total, throughout the keep?” she asked. “I’ve seen different faces, but never more than two or three at a time.”
“Sherie says eight ... that she knows of,” Nikolas answered, and when everyone else turned his way, the young sage swallowed. “I asked her, after you told her what you’d learned.”
Chane ran a hand over his head and pushed hair back from his face. He hated the thought of accepting help from the elf, but there was little choice. Shade could harry guards—even highly skilled ones—and keep them in a panic, even if she could not put any of them down. But that would not be enough for the numbers they faced. They would need Osha as well.
“All right, first we must—”
At rushing footfalls in the passage outside, Chane lost his train of thought. Before he could react, Wynn went for the door as Nikolas backed out of her way. Wynn barely opened the door when it was shoved wide.