Eryx.
The blood on the stairs was hers.
I crouched at the bottom of the hidden steps and looked at it in the torchlight. Small amount. Head wound most likely — she had fallen and hit something on the way down and whoever had been waiting at the bottom had found her unconscious and taken her from there.
She had gone looking for the children herself.
Of course she had.
I pressed my fist against the stone floor for a moment then stood up.
"The passage," I said to the man behind me. "Where does it connect."
"We followed it as far as the old well room, sir. Stone wall after that. But there's an air current coming through which means—"
"There's another door," I said.
"Yes sir."
"Find it."
He moved.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs in the dark and looked at the small dark stain on
