Upstairs, the blue light had been enough to keep it away—the blue light that had tasted of power. But down here, down in the shadow of the black, breathing stone, that light was diminished. Down here, now that it had put out the torches she’d ignited, there was nothing to stop it, and no one to hear her. It had not forgotten, even in the twisted pathways of its memory, what had been done to it on that stone table. With a dripping maw, it smiled.
