But we moved faster this time, our heads down and bodies angled. I felt Oliver’s fear as clearly as my own, pulsing over our bond—a sudden certainty that we were, yet again, walking into a trap. That we were helpless flies clambering up the web and directly into the spider’s maw.
The road led us around the exposed, craggy limestone before finally spitting us out before an old fortress wall. The heavy stone base rose up, bisected by two stairwells leading to the church itself. We darted for the nearest set. Higher, higher we went—Oliver skipping two steps at a time and me gasping to keep up—until we finally reached the summit of our climb.
And we almost toppled over, for now we were fully exposed to the erratic wind. It careened into me, and if not for Oliver twirling around at the last moment, I would have plummeted right back down the stairs.
But he caught me, and his fingers slid around my wrist to grab tight and hard. . . . Then we heaved ourselves against the wind and toward the nearest door.
When at last we stumbled into an opening below the bell tower, I almost crumpled to my knees from the sudden lack of wind. The gusts continued overhead and resounded deep within my eardrums.
Oliver pointed warily ahead, to a dark doorway beneath an arch of gray stone. Gold letters above said crypte.
“Well,” I said between pants, “at least that was . . . easy . . . to find.”
He snorted, a harsh sound, and looked backward toward the city. I followed his gaze. Marseille sloped below us. But all I could see at this angle were red rooftops and distant mountains.
Oliver’s fingers laced through mine, and he tugged me beneath the crypt’s arched entrance into a shadowy entry room. Two white statues flanked another doorway, but it was too dark to see farther than the glow of the statues. I moved to a sconce beside the entrance and carefully eased off a candle. Then, in a low voice, I asked, “Should I cast an awareness spell?”
Like Daniel’s goggles, the spell would alert me to the presence of the Dead—or the living too. But since spirits and bodies were more likely to be found in a crypt, the Dead were what I sought awareness of.
“Cast the spell,” Oliver said, his gaze whipping forward and then behind. He actually seemed tenser than I was. I squeezed his hand once, reassuring, but other than a flash of gold in his eyes, he did not relax.
So I let him keep guard while I focused on drawing in my magic. It trickled in from my fingers and toes, warming my veins as it slithered into my heart. Then I whispered, “Sentio omnia quae me circumentur.” The words of the spell slid off my tongue like a snake. I feel all around me. I feel all around me.
And my magic expelled, like a throbbing, living fisherman’s net, before finally settling many feet away.
“We’re alone,” I murmured. “Let’s light this candle and proceed.”
Oliver nodded, and after searching the other sconces, he found a matchbox. Once the orange flame of the candle flickered before my face, strangely warm against the cool air rolling in from the darkness ahead, we set off.
Then we were through the second archway. “At least it’s not big,” Oliver declared.
I squinted, straining to see what his demon eyes could, but all I found were flagstones like those in the foyer and a low, vaulted ceiling. The candlelight flickered and made shapes in the shadows around us.
Ice ran down my neck—and it was not from the crypt’s cool air, but from fear. After chasing through the quarries beneath Paris, I had had quite enough with dark damp places.
Yet fear had never stopped me before.
“If it’s not big,” I said, “then it will not take long to explore. Do you see anywhere worth starting?”
“More importantly,” he countered, handing the candle to me, “do you have any specific ideas for what we seek?”
“All Elijah’s letter said was that you told him a joke in this crypt. About Jack and the beanstalk.”
“Which I didn’t do,” he muttered. “So we have assumed that a single throwaway comment is a clue. Wonderful.”
“But you said yourself that the Black Pullet is a chicken-type monster—”
“A cockatrice more like,” he inserted.
“—and just as the chicken in Jack and the beanstalk offered its master endless wealth, so does the Pullet. Elijah’s letter must have pointed us here for a reason, Oliver.”
“We shall see soon, I suppose.” Oliver eased into a careful walk into the darkness. “You go right, El. I’ll go left—I can see well enough in the shadows.”
I gulped, watching his figure fade away. He might have declared it a small space, but it was also pitch-black and with only one doorway in or out.
If Marcus wanted to trap us, this was an excellent place in which to do it.