Priceless

scent of urine, feces and death.
    Alex grumbled. “Stinks.”
    “Buddy, you got that right,” I said, taking shallow breaths.
    “At the bottom is the cells where they kept the children,” Milly said, her voice choking up.
    Kept, as in past tense. Shit.
    It was India though who spoke next, surprising me, her voice steady despite the words. “They killed all the other kids.”
    My arms tightened around her instinctively. I couldn’t help it. “Do you know how many?”
    Her little shoulders shrugged. “I think there were at least three others. One cried all the time, then there was the boy next to me, his name was Jake, and there was another one kid on the other side of me, but that one didn’t say anything. Ever.” As she spoke, her eyes grew wide and dilated.
    I shared a glance with O’Shea over her head. Three kids. The other three missing kids.
    I tucked her head into my shoulder. “Okay. Try not to think about it.”
    “We have to come back for them,” O’Shea said.
    Of course we did; I wasn’t in the habit of letting kids stay missing, not if I could take them home to their parents, even if they were no longer alive. Closure was closure, plain and simple.
    We stepped into the dark stairwell, the only light O’Shea’s flashlight that faded and flickered every time he brought it close to Milly. It was good enough, though even I jumped a few times at the shadows when they’d flicker and dance on the walls.
    “Don’t worry, we disabled all the booby traps ahead of time,” Milly said.
    That explained it. “Before you even got here?”
    “I knew you’d be ahead of us, so I convinced the Coven to disable all the dangers far enough in advance that no unsuspecting human would stumble into them.”
    “But you know that isn’t possible. No human would have stumbled into them.”
    There was a rustle of cloth, and then O’Shea put Milly down. She looked over at me. “They have stayed so secluded that they don’t even know how their magic relates to the human world anymore.”
    My brain struggled to wrap around the thought. To be so close-minded that you weren’t even aware of how your magic interacted with others was beyond ridiculous, it was potentially a death sentence.
    The five of us crossed the veil with no problems, going from a dark and cool cave to blinking from the harsh sunlight burning down on us. A sneaking suspicion filled my mind. “Where are we?”
    “New Mexico,” Milly answered. “Not too far away from where your friend’s bar is.”
    “Son of a bitch, that damn fucking Doran screwed me over!” I trembled to think how much faster I’d have been able to get to India, would have maybe even saved those other kids, if he’d given me this location instead of the roundabout way. There would have been no need for the climbing gear, or battling the Harpies.
    Milly touched my arm, took India from me and tucked her into the camouflage Hummer that was parked next to the cave. “Don’t think about what might have been. We got India out. That’s what matters, remember?”
    I stalked over to the Hummer and scrounged around inside, finding several blankets, then went back to gather up the remains of the other kids. O’Shea tried to come with me, but I shook him off. “No, stay here with Milly and India.”
    “And if you run into that cloaked guy? What then?”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Milly perk up, and I angled my body to block her view.
    I tried for nonchalant and failed. “I’ll run away. Really fast.”
    He snorted and turned his back on me, which shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I refused to analyze the simple truth of the matter, but I was starting to trust the ex-agent. My heart swirled with emotions. So much had happened in the last couple days that even I, who was used to this sort of shit going down, struggled with it.
    Moving quickly, I slipped across the veil and back into the castle’s dungeon. The first two kids were so small, curled up in fetal positions as they hid from the death that claimed them, that I easily wrapped them in a single blanket. So frail and tiny with weight loss, they were no burden to pack out together, and I did my best not to think about the pain of their deaths, or how much their parents missed them.
    On the next trip, I went to the cell I quickly realized held Jake, India’s friend. On his shirt he had a nametag, sewn in over the right side of his chest, a soccer ball underneath it. He was still in his soccer gear