The east gallery’s iron gate was sealed when we reached it.
Oryn stood outside it looking at something on the floor with an expression that had evacuated all of its usual warmth and become purely professional and grim. When I reached him I looked down and understood why.
The stones in front of the gate were warm. Not the ambient warmth of a heated castle, but specifically, directionally warm, radiating from the center of the corridor outward in a pattern that followed the lines between the flagstones.
Exactly like the lines of light from Caelan’s blood lock. But red instead of white.
“She got here first,” Oryn said.
“That is not possible,” Caelan said. “The gate was sealed.”
“The gate was sealed from outside.” Oryn crouched and held his hand two inches above the heated stone without
