The column of light pulsed above the altar, but Lucian didn't reach for it.
Not yet.
He had learned patience in the Springs, in the long hours of meditation that felt like doing nothing until they felt like everything. The pendant wasn't going anywhere. The ruin, however, was very likely to kill them if he moved too fast.
Behind him, Cora watched the entrance. Margie watched the walls. And beside them, leaning against a broken column, was the reason Alistair had insisted on sending backup.
Her name was Drusilla. She was old—older than Alistair, older than Margaret, older than anyone on the team had ever met. Her hair was white, her face lined, her eyes pale with the kind of sight that came from decades of hunting things that shouldn't exist. She was a scholar of the Old Bloods, one of the few remaining experts on races that had vanished before the Veil was even a concept.
Alistair had called her a consultant. The team had called her a mystery.
