<span style="font-style: italic">“A rat has slipped in,” </span>Udo had said,<span style="font-style: italic">“We can’t have that, now can we?”</span>The words echoed in Adina’s mind, still grating on her an hour later. She screwed her eyes shut and pressed her balled fists to the sockets until she saw sparkles behind her eyelids.<span style="font-style: italic">focus!</span>she told herself.<span style="font-style: italic">you need to get this right.</span>She was back in the room she’d “acquired” earlier that evening and she’d spread the contents of her satchel across the highly polished surface of an antique writing desk. There was the scrap of Isolde’s dress, which Erlind had pressed into her hand before leaving, there was a beautiful silver and ivory hair brush that she had stumbled across amongst Isolde’s belongings. Several long strands of her blond hair were still tangled in the bristles, their roots remarkably still intact. Instinctively, she’d known there would be a need for something of that kind and, rather than attempt to extract the hairs, she had shoved the whole brush into her bag.<br/><br/>The old leather book lay on the desk in front of her, open to a page of cramped Hebrew letters. It was the Rabbi’s handwriting. She’d recognise it anywhere. The black ink was faded, making it appear the brown-red of dried blood and there were smudges here and there but the ritual was still readable. And she was certain this was the one they would need. A summoning ritual, one that would open a portal to take them to wherever it was that Darcy was holding Isolde. It was the darkest kind of magick she had come across in the book and in the reading she had done about the subject since the book had been passed on to her. It was blood magick. All those who wished to travel through the portal would need to shed some blood to show their dedication and to bind the portal, the doorway between locations. A drop or two would do. She plucked the scrap of material from the desk and held it between finger and thumb. Isolde’s skin had touched the dress, it was likely that her perspiration and therefore her life force would have settled within the fabric. Adding their blood to Isolde’s dress would strengthen the ritual, she was sure.<br/><br/>But before they could open the portal, they needed to find Isolde. Nothing in this book told her how that could be done but her mind had been ticking over, examining the problem with all sides and she was fairly sure she knew a way it could be done. Water gazing. Seeing visions in the surface of the water was what had sent her on this journey, it had shown her what she needed to do. All she needed to do was focus the energy of the water, convince it to show her Isolde’s location. That was where the hairs came in. Submerging the hairs from Isolde’s brush into the bowl of water before gazing would surely show them what they needed to know. She needed to run it by Erlind before going ahead with anything though. This was a team now - and that included the Nazi pig who had called her a rat - and there was strength in numbers.<br/><br/>She glanced at her watch, she still had three hours before Erlind had requested they meet in the dining room for breakfast. It wasn’t a great amount of time but even three hours sleep was better than none at all. She had a feeling she was going to need her strength.