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The tip had been shoved into a crack between stones, leaving the pommel sticking straight up. It was a decorative piece, white as ivory and carved into two snakes twisting around one another.

I recognized it immediately as the blade from the vision.

My skin prickled, and every hair on my arms stood up. I leaned forward with interest, before Yves caught me by the shoulder and pulled me back.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I told him.

“Neither have I,” he responded. “And that is saying a lot, coming from a five hundred year old immortal.”

In the shade vision Mama had shown me, there had been nothing but a table and the people inside. I didn’t know what to make of it or why it was here. I needed to get a closer look to inspect it.

A narrow strip of bare stone ran along the edge of the design. It was the only way to enter the room without crossing over the spell lines. I followed the path with my eyes before stepping into the room, and saw the long slab table.

I gathered my dress in my hand so it wouldn’t disturb the lines and placed my foot on the dark patch of floor.

Yves seized my wrist. “What are you doing?”

“This is the place I saw.” I pointed to the table with my wand. “And in it, a dying girl was lying there."

His brows drew together, and I took a moment to explain exactly what I had seen. Honora. The Devouring woman. The girl with the black veins. When I was done, Yves’s jaw was set, and his lips were drawn in a hard line.

For a long while, he said nothing. The only sound between us was the rhythmic pumps and the water whooshing through the pipes lining the walls.

Slowly, Yves released my wrist. It meant more than I could explain that he trusted me.

The strip was scarcely wider than my boot. I went along it with my back to the wall and my skirt bunched in my fist. Yves, who was substantially taller and broader than I was, shuffled along the wall beside me. Condensation from the pipes running overhead dripped onto my shoulders and in my hair.

When we reached the back of the room, I discovered that the floor around the stone table was dark as well and safe to walk on, but it was a tight squeeze for both of us.

I tripped over a hole in the floor I hadn’t seen and shouted a curse as I began to tumble forward. Yves grabbed me before I could fall forward into the red spell lines and held me against his chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Your skin is clammy, and your heart is frantic.”

“Well, I did nearly fall into that spell.”

Yves didn’t seem convinced, which bothered me more than the fact that he was right.

“I’m perfectly fine,” I reassured him. “I need to inspect the hole I tripped over.”

Yves relented, and I peeled myself off his chest. Bending down, I saw that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but a shallow recess that had been carved into the floor around the table. I dusted away a bit of debris that had been covering up an inscription.

Roux.

The Demon of Ruin.

My relics had been vibrating since we’d begun our descent into the pump room. But now, they were shaking my satchel.

“There are three more of them,” Yves said.

Cold sweat broke out across my brow. He was right. I dusted them off and found they also contained names.

Amarielle. Dominique. Gorrath.

One spot for each relic.

Carved lines led away from the recess, up the legs of the table, and converged in the middle, where I found a small drain hole.

Had this been how Honora and the hooded woman saved her daughter?