Camille pulled her glass to her. “Delilah’s right. It’s not because you’re a woman, you know. That’s not why Roman won’t let you down there. The three of them . . . they’ve dealt in torture before. Smoky’s got the physical strength to handle the demon and the emotional makeup. So does Vanzir. And Roman . . . he’s probably tortured more people in his life than we can count.” She said it simply, but her words still chilled me to the core.
Roman and torture . . . the two went hand in hand, really. He had been a warlord. He was son of the vampire queen. While he had his good side, and while I did not doubt he was a fair man, I couldn’t ignore the fact that he had been a scourge to his enemies. And the word enemy was fraught with meanings. One man’s enemy is another man’s savior, as the old Y’Elestrial saying went.
Camille frowned. “Bring me a punch bowl, Derrick, and the clearest spring water you have.”
He shrugged, but acquiesced. Camille settled at a nearby table, motioning for him to put the bowl in front of her and to fill it with water. As he did so, she shook her head as Morio frowned and started to say something.
“I need you to help me, damn it. So just do it.”
Morio shrugged. “All right, but I think it’s a mistake.”
“Then if it is, we’ll know soon enough.”
Trillian repressed a grin and sidled over to where Delilah and I were standing. “And that’s how our marriage works, my dear sisters-in-law. In case you ever wondered who runs things, it’s your sister. Camille’s word is our command.”
I tried to smile but was too deep in my own dark thoughts to manage it. “What’s she doing?”
“I believe she’s going to attempt to scry.”
Delilah let out a little gasp. “I hope to hell she’s not trying to see into the safe room. I just have a very bad feeling about what’s going down in there—not for our guys, but for the other side. It’s not going to be pretty at all.”
“I’m not, so don’t sweat that.” Camille glanced up at us. “I’m doing my best to pick up whatever I can about Nerissa. There’s no way my magic could reach into the safe room anyway—it was built to keep the strongest magic at bay. I’m not going to waste time trying to eavesdrop on them. Like you said, I really don’t think I want to know what’s going on down there right now, you know?”
Delilah nodded. I wished I could agree with them, but I desperately wanted to be there, to make the Varcont eat his words.
Another moment and Camille dropped into a deep trance as she stared into the water. Morio was standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, feeding her extra energy. You could practically see it wrap around the pair, weaving like a silver trail of mist, or silver plumes from the tail of a peacock as it zipped this way and that around them.
Camille closed her eyes, her voice lilting over a simple chant.
Moon Mother, grant me the sight.
We need your help this night.
Please hear my call, hear my plea,
And bring the gift of vision to me.
There was a brilliant flash in the room as the silver mist plunged into the bowl and spread through the water. Camille opened her eyes and leaned forward, gazing at the surface of the now-churning liquid. She let out a long breath on it, and the water immediately calmed into a placid pool, sparkling with silver light.
A moment later, she let out a little cry. “I see her. I can see Nerissa. She’s . . . she’s chained in a stark room. Red rock, red brick? The walls are red and they’re made of some sort of stone. She’s clothed, though she looks pretty banged up. And she’s just sitting there, staring—there’s a window in the room, with bars on it. Not glass, but an open window. She’s staring up at the window. I can’t see much else, but it looks like there’s a plate of some sort on the ground next to her and what looks like the remains of a meal. She . . . she’s crying.”
I was at her side in a flash, trying desperately to see what Camille was seeing, but all that I saw in the bowl was the water with a mist across the surface of it. “Can you speak to her?”
“I don’t know . . . let me try. Nerissa . . . Nerissa, can you hear me? This is Camille . . .”
She waited for a moment, then glanced back at me. “I think she might have heard me in the back of her mind. She jerked around and looked at the ceiling.”
“Tell her we’re going to come save her. Tell her I love her!” I was desperate to make contact, to feel like somehow she would know that I was on the way.
“Nerissa, Menolly is here. She loves you. We’re doing everything we can to save you. Hang on. Just hang on.” Camille paused another moment, then let out a sigh. “The scene faded. I think she may have heard me, but I can’t be certain.”
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream for Camille to get her back, but I knew magic didn’t work that way—it wasn’t a telephone. Magic was far from exact, and with Camille, for it to work without backfiring when it wasn’t death magic was a minor miracle in itself.
“Thank you,” I whispered, unable to say anything more.
At that point, the door to the basement opened and the men reentered the room. I glanced at their faces. They looked grim, but there was a satisfied smirk on Vanzir’s face that gave me hope.