We didn’t speak as he tried to decide what to do. Finally, he opened the door. “Let’s go.”
We took the elevator to a subbasement deeper than Meryl’s office. I knew the place. It didn’t get used much. Not unless the Guild wanted someone to disappear. The doors opened on a dim hallway, burning torches casting sooty light against walls of granite blocks. It should have had a sign that said: HINT: DUNGEON.
Halfway down in the gloom, two Danann security agents guarded an oaken door with a cast-iron dead bolt. They didn’t move when we reached them. I felt sendings passing between them and Dylan. One of the agents opened the door.
“Make it quick,” said Dylan.
I squinted against the harsh light from the small room. A cot and commode took up opposite corners. A plain wooden table stood in the middle. In the lone chair, Meryl relaxed with her hands behind her head and her feet up on the table. The door closed. I listened for a lock to slide into place, but none did.
Meryl dropped her feet to the floor. “I hope you brought some C-4. I really want to blow something up.”
Just seeing her made my anxiety ease. As I came around the table, she stood, and I wrapped my arms around her. That meant I lifted her off the floor since I have a least a foot in height on her.
“Are you okay?” I said into her ear.
She giggled. “This is so lame, Grey.”
I released her and kissed her on the top of the head. She hates that. I love that she hates that. “Meryl, Ceridwen can ruin you.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Blah, blah, blah.”
I scanned the room and tapped my ear. “Can we talk?” I mouthed to her.
She pointed to a broken cup on the sink. “Yeah, we’re fine. They left a listening ward. If that’s the level of sophistication I’m dealing with, I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”
“What happened?”
She dropped back in the chair and jabbed her finger at the table. “Winny ap Hwyl happened. When I find that bitch, I’m going to kill her.”
“Who the hell is she?”
“Rhonwen ap Hwyl. An old friend. Former old friend. She used to be chief archivist here. I hadn’t seen her in years. She asked me to lunch and oh-gee-can-I-see-the-old-place. She stole the dagger the day she came to visit three weeks ago. I really am going to kill her,” she said.
“Why didn’t you just tell them that?”
She had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I didn’t sign her in.”
“The receptionists have been warning you about that for years.”
She slumped in her chair. “It wouldn’t matter anyway. I didn’t steal the damned dagger, and I sure as hell didn’t attack Belgor. Ceridwen isn’t going to let a little thing like the truth stop her.”
A thrill of realization went through me. “Your friend attacked Belgor. Anglicize the name Rhonwen ap Hwyl.”
She let out an impressed whistle. “Rhonda Powell. Winny ap Hwyl was Viten’s girlfriend. But how the hell did she survive a bullet to the head?”
“He made her a soul stone.”
“I’ll be damned. I didn’t think those really worked.” She paced behind the table, her face flush with excitement. “Holy crap! That’s why Viten was down here. I never understood why he didn’t just go to the lobby and run out the front door when he escaped his guards. Now I do. He came down to the archives to get his personal effects. He was going after Winny’s soul stone.”
The evidence tag from the Ardman file floated up from my memory. I rummaged in my jacket and found an ATM receipt with a pathetically low balance. I drew the ogham runes from the Viten evidence tag from memory. “This is where Viten’s personal effects were stored. Is it the same room where the Breton dagger was?”
Meryl shook her head. “No, that’s the one next to it. Now that I think of it, Winny asked to see the dagger’s storeroom specifically. Maybe she had the wrong location.”
“Could she have gotten in when you were distracted?”
She shook her head firmly. “The doors are keyed to my essence. Best security I know.”
I tapped the receipt. “How do I get into that storeroom?”
“No problem.” She placed her palm flat on the paper and chanted. Little shots of blue light dripped off her fingertips and faded into the paper. When she handed me the receipt, the paper was infused with her body essence. “Put this flat against the door and push.”
I stood. “I’ll get you out of here, Meryl.”
She glanced at the door and winked. “I mapped this place, Grey. Don’t be surprised if I send you a postcard from the Caribbean.”
CHAPTER 22
Dylan looked relieved when I left the cell alone, like he half expected Meryl and me to come out with guns blazing to make a getaway. We didn’t speak until we were in the elevator, out of earshot of the guards. “I need to know whose side you’re on,” I said.
He met my eyes, straightforward with no hesitation. “Connor, I know you’ve been through a lot, so I’m not going to be insulted by that question. I wouldn’t have told you anything if I wasn’t on your side.”
I hit the button for Meryl’s office floor. “I need to check something. I don’t want to ask you to lie if someone asks you about it. Do you want to wait here?”
He shook his head. “Before I answer that, I have to ask you something. If Meryl’s really involved in something, will you do the right thing?”
I clenched my jaw. “I am doing the right thing. She’s not involved.”
He glanced up at the elevator lights. “Then let’s go.”
I led the way past Meryl’s office to the maze of corridors where the storerooms were. Months ago, Meryl showed me the elegance of her ogham filing system since I never bothered to learn it when I was on staff. Because of the potent stuff in the archives, she had layers of security that ranged from baseline electronics to full-spell locks that only senior staff knew. She’s explained it to me several times, but I still don’t get it. A few wrong turns finally brought us to the room where the dagger had been stored. The first symbol on the ATM receipt matched the one above the next storeroom down. I pressed the receipt against the door, and Meryl’s essence seeped into the wood. The lock clicked open.
Inside, file cabinets and storage boxes spread out in orderly ranks in an uncluttered room. We found the proper aisle and cabinet. I placed my hand on the handle of a drawer, looked at Dylan, and pulled. I closed my eyes in disappointment. The drawer was empty.
I leaned against the opposite filing cabinet. Dylan withdrew a slip of paper from the drawer. “Evidence from the Ardman case?”
I took the paper. “The woman who stole the dagger is named Rhonwen ap Hwyl, a.k.a. Rhonda Powell. There’s no record she was here. To make it more fun, she’s a former Guild employee.”
Dylan pursed his lips. “And now you’re going to tell me that this drawer shouldn’t be empty.”
I gave him a half smile. “Now do you wish you had waited by the elevator?”
He shook his head. “Nothing is ever simple.”
I closed the drawer. “I want to see the entry log. Meryl says they never came in here.”
We wound our way to Meryl’s office. The Guild’s logging systems were open to inspection by security staff, and you couldn’t get a higher-level security staff than Dylan was. I rebooted Meryl’s computer and slid the keyboard to Dylan. “You have access to the log.”
He logged in, and the main Guildhouse menus came up. I accessed the archives’ logs. The dagger’s storeroom hadn’t been entered except the past week when I found Meryl replacing the missing essence amplifier. I spotted the likely date of her friend’s visit listed a few weeks earlier. Cross-checking it against the storeroom where the Ardman evidence was stored, the log showed the room had been accessed the same day. Meryl’s security signature had activated the lock.
Dylan pointed out the access-code identifier. “That’s a problem.”
I rested my fingers on the keys without typing. “If it wasn’t Meryl, how did she get in?”
Dylan walked to the opposite of the desk. “Powell must have somehow replicated Meryl’s essence to gain access. A glamour could work, but I doubt a security lock could be fooled by it like people are.”