The scream came from above and to the left, and it was a man's, and there were no men down here.
I had Wren up before the echo finished. Ilse was already moving, sword clearing the sheath in one clean motion, putting herself at my flank without being asked and without looking pleased about it. Brunhilde didn't move at all. She stood at the edge of her stalled frost with her head tilted, listening to a sound that had come and gone and left the bone underfoot ringing faintly with it.
"That wasn't a person," she said.
"Yeah, I got that from the part where there aren't any."
"It was a copy. Something down here heard a man die and kept the sound." Her hand settled on Glacies Aeterna's grip. "It is using it to find out how many of us there are."
Cade, Wren said. The ceiling.
I looked up.
