The Spirit Thief(73)
“Not even locked,” Eli said, running his hands over as much of the ornate gold work as he could reach. “The doors themselves have been sealed somehow.” He got down on his knees and tried to peer underneath, but the doors were set flush with the marble floor, without so much as a hair crack to look through.
“Nico,” Eli said, stepping back. “If you would be so kind.”
Nico nodded and shook her hands free of her bulky sleeves. Bracing her boots against the slippery marble, she slammed her palms against the metal and started to push. The doors groaned under the pressure and began to bow inward. Cracks sprouted in the carved gold, growing in cobwebby spirals as Nico pushed harder. With a soft, peeling crack, large sections of the gold began to flake off, revealing the dark metal beneath. The door squealed, and the marble under Nico’s feet began to crack under the pressure, but the iron core of the doors beneath the soft gold did not budge. Nico gritted her teeth and pushed harder still, growling under her breath. The stone supports around the doors began to creak. Grit fell from the ceiling. Small showers of dust at first and then fist-sized bits of stone started coming down like hail.
“That’s enough!” Eli shouted, ducking the falling rocks. “You’re going to bring the ceiling down on our heads!”
Nico stepped back, panting. The doors, though mangled and dented with two Nico-hand-shaped craters, remained defiantly shut. Miranda bent down and picked up one of the larger flakes of gold leaf from the debris scattered across the floor. “The great, golden doors of Mellinor,” she said and handed the piece to Eli. “Just a gilded fake.”
“Gold is an impractical material for making doors, anyway.” Eli crumpled the gold foil and deftly slipped it into his pocket. “Well,” he said, “I wanted to be quick about this, but I guess there’s no choice.”
Nico stepped aside, and Eli took her place in the marble crater that had been smooth floor a minute before. He laid his hands on the dented metal and began whispering in the gentle tone Miranda had labeled his spirit sweet-talking voice. He was barely two words in when he jerked back, clutching his hand as if he’d been burned.
“We have a problem,” he announced. “I can’t talk to the doors.”
“What’s wrong?” Miranda picked her way through the rubble toward him.
Eli gazed grimly up at the twisted metal, shaking his hands vigorously. “They’re terrified. So terrified, in fact, I’m surprised they’re still standing.”
Miranda looked at Nico, but Eli shook his head. “Not her. Demon fear is different, vindictive. This is enslaver work. Renaud’s scared them shut.”
Miranda raised her eyebrows skeptically and brushed her hands against the doors. As soon as her fingers made contact, white-hot pain shot up her arm. It went through skin, muscle, and bone and straight to the core of her spirit, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears. Her hands jerked away of their own accord, taking shelter in the cool, smooth cloth of her skirt. The burning remained, however, and with it an echo of terror so great that it made her legs watery. In the moment she touched the doors, one iron-clad command had overshadowed everything. It rang through the metal, greater than the fear and heavier than the pain, an unbreakable order: Don’t move.
“That bastard.” Miranda looked up at Eli, her face pale with fury. “We have to stop him. I don’t care if he’s after Gregorn’s Pillar or not. Anyone who would do this to a spirit can’t be allowed to live.”
“For once, we agree.” Eli reached up and began to unbutton his valet jacket, and then the white shirt underneath. “I hadn’t meant to use this just yet,” he said, “but I can’t let Josef find us standing around, can I?”
He turned, and Miranda cringed before she could stop herself. His jacket and shirt hung open, revealing his bare chest. A series of angry red burns ran in a swirling pattern from his collarbone to just above his navel. Before she could ask what caused such an injury, the burns began to hiss. Smoke rose up from the marks in a white plume, curling into a cloud that smelled faintly of charred flesh. The temperature in the room began to rise. It was a pleasant, dry heat at first, but it increased exponentially with every breath Eli took. The ball of smoke above the thief’s head blackened as the heat grew. Sparks flashed at its center, faintly at first, then more violently, until the cloud was popping like a greenwood bonfire. Despite the fire show happening less than a foot above him, Eli’s face was calm and his eyes were closed, as if he were asleep. The cloud was as hot as a smelter now, and Miranda took a step back as the hissing and snapping reached a crescendo. With a final crack, a tremendous blast of hot air and smoke shot out of the cloud, and every lamp in the hall snuffed out at once.