Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8) Brad Magnarella (the red fox clan TXT) 📖

copper in many of my casting circles and for the same reasons. Hell, I was carrying a tube of the shaved stuff in my coat pocket at that moment.

Caroline looked from the entries to the lines on the map. “He could have installed them in the sides of the buildings,” she said, tracing one on the corner of Broadway and Stone Street with a finger, “then covered them over.”

“He was also able to turn the plates on and off. Send the energy to very specific places.”

I remembered our final encounter in the alleyway and how he’d deprived me of ley energy. When he’d done the same to the time catch version of my grandfather, Arnaud had inadvertently sent a current running back through me, allowing me to snag him and deliver him to the cell at 1 Police Plaza.

“He must have been tapped into the plates,” she said. “Probably through demonic sigils.”

“But what was the point?” I muttered in thought.

I was so absorbed in the map I didn’t notice that Caroline’s and my shoulders were touching until she moved her hand and tapped the St. Martin’s site. “I believe the plan was to direct the energy back to the source.”

A mental flashbulb went off. With a finger, I began drawing lines from every plate back to the center of the St. Martin’s site. “Arnaud was only activating the plates selectively, but activate them en masse and, bam, magnified output. The ley coming up, plus the ley from fractions of a second earlier.”

“Boosted energy,” Caroline agreed.

“But that alone doesn’t create a portal for Malphas,” I said. “The energy would have to be converted somehow. I don’t see anything on here about that, and the site was burnt to the ground the last time I was here.”

“Nothing on the other maps, either,” Caroline said.

“Arnaud was trying to buy the parcel, though. Probably with plans to construct something.”

“Either way,” she said, “I believe we’ve found our answer to how to stop Malphas.”

“Destroy the plates and ward the site.” It didn’t seem like it should have been that easy, but that would definitely deny Malphas his power source.

“That should also normalize the energy here.” Caroline began folding the map to take with us. “If you’ve noticed, it’s a little irregular.”

I had noticed, but it was far from the instability Arnaud had suggested. Probably a bluff to introduce urgency. It had gotten me moving, just not in the Let’s Make a Deal way he’d planned. I glanced over at him now with a skintight grin.

Nice try, pal.

“It will also make it safer to find your friends,” Caroline added.

While she tucked the map inside her cloak, I inspected the druidic symbol on my hand that once bonded me to the rest of the Upholders. Though I pushed power into it, I still couldn’t pick them up. Was that because Jordan had released me from its obligation, or because the others were no longer in the time catch?

I lowered my hand again. “The church is only a few blocks from here.”

“We can take Beaver Street over to Broadway.” When I looked at Caroline in surprise, she returned a cagey smile. “Scholar of urban history, remember? I know the layout of the city back to its founding.”

For a moment, she looked exactly like my classroom neighbor and friend. It was the light in her eyes, as if she were inviting me to come back with a quip, something I would have done those few years ago. The look also suggested that our shoulders touching a minute earlier hadn’t been an accident.

I quickly turned to Bree-yark. “You ready?”

“Let’s go,” he said, hauling Arnaud to his feet.

We descended from the turret and arrived on a floor that looked as if it had been Arnaud’s living quarters. But like the office, the space was ransacked. Dropsy’s light glowed over a wooden floor where dark patterns showed the former locations of rugs and furniture. Arnaud’s staring eyes gave no reaction.

The ground floor, where the day-to-day operations of Arnaud’s enterprise had likely been conducted, were stripped too. Probably by British soldiers appropriating materials, but I wondered why they hadn’t commandeered the building itself. The main door to the outside was ajar, and I pushed it open. As we filed out, the unpaved street felt warm underfoot, as if the sun had only set an hour or two earlier.

Bree-yark grunted what I was thinking: “Pretty quiet.”

“Dark too,” I said. “The last time I was here, the streets had oil lanterns.”

“Something’s off,” Caroline said, squinting slightly, “though I can’t say what.”

“The best kind,” I muttered. “All right, let’s play our parts so we don’t stand out. I’ll take Arnaud. Bree-yark, hang back a few paces. And Caroline, can you watch the rear?”

It was only upon asking her that I realized I was assuming leadership like I had with the Upholders—the role coming more naturally to me now—but Caroline was fae royalty. If she minded, though, she didn’t show it.

I seized Arnaud’s manacled wrists and assumed the role of a British soldier delivering his rebel prisoner somewhere. To avoid the fort and governor’s house, I marched up New Street before cutting toward Broadway. Under Caroline’s subservience enchantment, Arnaud matched my clipped pace.

Behind me, Bree-yark scanned the houses to either side, one hand holding Dropsy aloft, the other touching the hilt of his sheathed blade. Caroline, meanwhile, moved like an apparition, her hood pulled low to hide her face.

Block by block, the silence of the city persisted. Every building we passed was either shut and shuttered or else thrown wide. But in all cases they were dark. Even the stench of raw sewage, so prevalent the last time, was minimal now. The cool breeze blowing against my face smelled of salt and marsh.

What in the hell could have happened for the city to clear out? As the question moved uneasily through me, I refocused on our immediate objective—destroying the copper panels and warding the site. Then we’d search for the Upholders.

We approached the wide dirt lane of