Merlin was the son of an angel, but he wasn't an angel himself. He couldn't see souls. He could, however, read passive surface thoughts, if they were loud enough. Young Valkyrie's thoughts on this China Sorrows were more than loud enough, and the old sorcerer's eyebrows drew sharply down.

"The fool," he muttered. A fool he needed. Merlin shook his head and sighed. "There's magic in this structure," he explained to Tanith. "It's made of magic." He smiled, and it was at once patient, almost teacherly, and grim. "Places like this can be extremely useful as storehouses of magic, and Raphael will need as much as we can offer him to heal Gabe. I'll be offering him as much of mine as I can afford. If any of you are willing to do the same, we won't say no. But we won't need nearly as much from ourselves if we can get it from the building itself, and we can't spare the time it would take for me to decipher the sigils alone."

He could do it, of course, but these sigils--they were far beyond the hidden wards in the gaol. Those were used as if the people creating the manacles hardly even knew they were there, or the intrinsic principles of their creation. The woman who had made this safehouse understood the language and construction of magic far beyond that. It would take him time Gabe could not afford.