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His annoyance thickened on the air, but after a few seconds, the air shifted, and a small first aid kit appeared between me and the two men. I opened it and saw two liquid-filled syringes. I mentally crossed all things that itwasan antidote rather than something that would finish off what the Dahbree had started and injected the two men.

A few minutes later, Lugh’s fingers twitched more strongly, and his breathing eased. I glanced at Cynwrig. He nodded fractionally and half opened his mouth, but whatever he was trying to say remained at the back of his throat.

“You have proof of life,” came the stranger’s comment. “Now give me the ring.”

I spun a thick wall of air around the three of us to ensure that if the shadow shot at us, the bullet would be torn away, then cast the ring toward the speaker.

Thick fingers of air immediately snatched it away.

“Thank you, Bethany.” He paused, and then added, “Expect us to be in contact if you have, in any way, deceived us.”

“That is the ring I was led to,” I said evenly. “There’s no guarantee it’s the one either of us was searching for, though.”

He didn’t reply, but the sound of his steps rode the breeze, getting ever more distant. I glanced toward the cottage. The black-clothed stranger had also disappeared. I wished we could, because I had no idea how long it would take for them to discover I’d given them the wrong damn ring.

I returned my attention to Lugh and Cynwrig and waited as they regained movement. The minute they could walk, we moved on.

“I take it the ring you handed over wasn’t the Ring of Ruin,” Cynwrig said eventually.

“It was part of the hoard the lich was protecting.” I paused. “How the hell do these people keep finding us? Sgott was the only person who knew we were coming here, and it’s unlikely anyone could have successfully bugged his phone. And I haven’t spotted an airborne shifter.”

“Maybe they’re tracking your phone,” Lugh said. “They’ve obviously got people working inside the IIT, so it would be easy enough to do.”

“I turned my phone off before we came here this morning though, so it would have been near on impossible to pinpoint us so precisely.”

“Perhaps it’s not the phone they’re tracking but you yourself,” Cynwrig said.

I frowned at him. “How can you bug a person?”

He smiled. “In the old days, it would have been done via a small transmitter placed on or in an item of clothing. They’ve been replaced by bio trackers.”

“Bio trackers are fucking expensive, though,” Lugh said. “And they’re extremely rare on the black market, aren’t they?”

“They’re rare because there’s only one company that makes them, and they keep meticulous records, which makes them almost impossible to steal,” Cynwrig said. “Of course, almost impossible is nothing more than an inconvenience to Myrkálfar.”

And there were Myrkálfar working with the Looisearch. “So, what are they exactly?”

“In their original form, they send a low-level electrical current through specific parts of the body to measure resistance and determine whether the electron response is indicative of optimum condition.”

A type of miniaturized internal medical scanner, then. “And the non-original form?”

“Every bio tracker can be adapted to use the body’s natural electromagnetic field to fuel a constant, low-level but unique signal that can be tracked. If Jalvi or one of her kin accessed our stash, it’s likely whoever that was atop the waterfall has the tuned receiver.”

“Then we need to find and remove the tracker.”

“It would have been injected under your skin. We’ll need a proper scanner to find it.” He paused. “Was there any point over the last few days where someone brushed against you a little too hard?”

“No, but I was attacked by a shifter, and the bitch was pecking at my neck.”

“That’s probably when it happened.”

I raised a hand and brushed the back of my neck but couldn’t feel any sort of lump or bump. “Is there any way to block the signal? Or at least weaken it and make it harder for them to track us?”

“Copper or even foil is good for blocking radio signals,” Lugh said. “Might work for biosignals.”

“Worth a shot,” Cynwrig agreed. “We’ll stop at the first open supermarket we see and grab some.”

Lugh nodded. “And then we’ll head straight for the forge.”