Taking care to tread more lightly now, I stayed on the balls of my feet but maintained my speed. When I didn’t see Ange in any of the cells on this floor, I tiptoed down the winding staircase to next one, then the one below that. The further down I went, the more my trepidation increased.
The air grew danker and by the time I reached the deepest part of the Tolbooth basement there was very little light. In the last corridor, lined with more cells, there were only two flickering torches hanging off the wall. Water trickled down between the stones and even in the gloom I could see the sheen of slime clinging to the granite. There was a faint scuttling sound from up ahead: rats. If Ange was down here, her situation was very dire indeed. Only the worst criminals were kept in the worst cells.
Ignoring the shudder that ran down the length of my spine, I pushed on. There was a lump of rags in one cell which, when I stared, moved slightly. At first I thought it might be a human being but when a small questing nose and quivering whiskers pushed out from underneath it, I shook myself and moved on. I didn’t really want to know whether there was a body under those rags as well.
I was almost at the end of the line of cells – and losing hope that Ange was here – when I heard a sharp, feminine cry. Alarmed, I sprinted forward until I saw the shape of a woman through the bars of the last cell but one. We were some distance from the flaming torches; it was so dark at this end that it was difficult to see anything. There was another yelp and the sounds of a scuffle inside the tiny cell. Ange’s terrified face loomed out of the darkness just as another darkness, a deeper darkness, dragged her back. A wraith.
I didn’t waste any time. Abandoning my physical body without a thought, I detached my shadow and darted through the rusty iron bars of the cell. My sight adjusted almost immediately to the shadows. I just had time to see Ange being held against the wall by her throat before I flung myself at the wraith, barrelling into it and knocking it away from her.
It sprang up, facing me, arms aloft and hands curved into claws like some kind of monster. We stared at each other, one shadow to another, neither of us moving an inch or yielding a breath. I’d never come across another of my kind before, not face to face like this.
In the end it was Ange who broke the deadlock. She squeaked and scuttled backwards, pressing herself into the corner as if she could escape by merging into the walls. The wraith tilted his head slightly and pointed at her then at himself, as if to indicate possession.
I vehemently shook my head and shifted slightly to shield her from him. For the first time I understood why people found wraiths so menacing. Facing a dark shape, which had no facial features and was nothing more than its own wellspring of midnight black, was genuinely terrifying. I couldn’t read either his expression or his body language – but he couldn’t read mine either.
‘Saiya,’ Ange whispered, recognising my inert body standing just beyond the cell door. ‘Where is Becky? Please tell me she’s safe. Please tell me the goblins don’t have her.’ A ragged sob escaped her lips as if the thought of her daughter in the hands of the Filits was too much to bear.
I couldn’t do anything to soothe her; to answer her would mean abandoning my shadow and returning to my physical body. Even if it were only for a few seconds, the other wraith would be free to do whatever he wanted to her. It didn’t take a genius to recognise that he was here for no reason that I would like.
‘They keep asking me about the Stone. They say I know where it is. They say I have the key.’ Ange’s voice rose as her desperation increased. ‘They can’t get it. If they do, we’re all lost. Help me, Saiya. Help me!’
I sensed rather than saw the wraith fix his attention back on her. Something she had said was important to him. Ghrashbreg and the other goblins had mentioned a stone too but what was it and why would it matter? I needed to find a way to communicate with the wraith but I didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin.
I raised my hands to use some sort of rudimentary sign language. The wraith stiffened immediately as if I were about to attack him. I shook my head but he jerked towards me, indicating he’d attack me first if I moved again.
In the end, the decision was taken out of both of our hands. Muffled by the stone walls around us, but unmistakable nonetheless, came the sounds of heavy goblin boots hammering towards us from above. There were shouts and garbled yells. Whether an alarm had been tripped or my absence at Eric Quiddle’s cell had been noted was unclear but it was obvious that several goblins were hurtling towards us.
The wraith sprang away, elongating his form and sliding out of the bars to flit down the corridor. I flung my own shadow backwards, merging it with my body.
‘Becky’s fine,’ I hissed at Ange. ‘She’s safe.’
She let out a half-strangled sob before opening her mouth to ask me more. There wasn’t time and I jumped in before she could speak. ‘Why have you been arrested, Ange? I need to know.’
‘They think I know something about this Stone. I don’t know anything! They keep mentioning my family but…’
I held up my palm in warning and she fell silent. A heartbeat later, five swarthy goblins appeared at the far end of the corridor. I fell to my knees in a gesture of submission and pasted on a terrified expression. I was getting pretty adept at playing the role of scared little girl.
‘A wraith,’ I babbled. ‘There was a wraith here.’
The first two goblins pulled out guns before I finished my sentence. ‘Where did it go?’ snarled a third one, her thick accent bellowing across the expanse of corridor.
‘I don’t know! It vanished into thin air. It grabbed me and pulled me down here. It was right in front of me and holding my arm then…’ I swung my eyes around wildly as if expecting the wraith to reappear. As far as I knew he was still cowering in one of the dark and empty cells; as far as I was concerned, he was on his own. I didn’t doubt that he’d been here to end Ange’s life; the question was why. Clearly it had something to do with this damned Stone that everyone kept talking about. Maybe it was some kind of jewel.
The nearest goblin grabbed one of the torches from the wall and thrust it in the direction of the first cell while his buddy waved his gun. I could have told them that shooting a wraith’s shadow wouldn’t do them any good; they’d need something along the lines of the magic that Gabriel de Florinville had employed. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel a great desire to point this out. All that was in my mind was to get out of here before someone like Ghrashbreg decided to show up. He couldn’t be far away.
‘The Gneiss bastards must have sent it,’ spat one of the female goblins from the rear of the group. They jumped to the next cell and frantically waved the torch around. ‘They know.’
‘They can’t know.’
‘They can if someone’s told them. If one of us has betrayed the cause.’
What the hell was going on? Part of me felt as if an abyss of secrets had just opened up at my feet and I was teetering on the edge. Whatever the Filits were up to, they appeared to be close to achieving it. Perhaps that was why they were all so suddenly loose-lipped. I’d seen the proximity of success cause that kind of problem many times before. But whatever this Stone was that they were after, they didn’t have it yet.
I reached out, curling my fingers round one of the rusty bars in front of Ange’s cell ostensibly to help me stand up. The goblins continued their slow search towards me while, unseen by their eyes, Ange reached out and gripped my hand tightly, understanding reflected in her touch.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed in a barely audible whisper.
I nodded and stood up just as the first goblin reached the cell I’d seen the other wraith dart into. A flicker of a shadow caught my eye and, while the goblin jerked his hand into the cell and waved around the torch to search the darkness, the wraith’s form danced across the ceiling and out over the goblins’ heads. I hesitated for a moment, debating what to do. Then I lurched forward, making the goblins stop in alarm and start yelling.
‘Cease! Stay where you are!’
‘With that thing running around?’ I gave a high-pitched shriek. ‘No way! It’s obviously after that prisoner. I want to get as far away from her as possible!’
While the wraith paused in the doorway leading up to the staircase as if watching me, I jogged forward to make it clear that I’d rather be beaten by the goblins than be caught by a wraith. The guards exchanged glances and the wraith disappeared, taking his chance while he could.
‘We need to move the prisoner,’ one muttered. ‘Ghrashbreg will have our heads if anything happens to her before—’
‘I don’t care what you do with her!’ I screeched. ‘Just let me get out of here! I only came to visit my brother and I’ve been accosted by a freaking wraith!’
The lead goblin winced and pointed at me. ‘She’s making my ears bleed. Get her out of here and then get the other woman. We’ll take her up to the ground floor where there’s plenty of light.’
The other goblins blanched; as a simultaneous action, it was quite impressive. ‘But the wraith—’