Deathstroke said nothing as they climbed down the iron ladder.
If he still hadn't realized what they were about to face after coming this far, he hardly deserved to call himself a Gotham native.
Their destination was Arkham Mental Hospital, buried underground a century ago.
Like the Owl Song, the hospital had long since become one of Gotham's urban legends, a nightmare no child could escape in those early, impressionable years.
Deathstroke hadn't expected to come face-to-face with a ghost story from his childhood all these years later.
The feeling was just...
So fucking thrilling!
At the end of the underground passage stood a damaged brick wall. They squeezed through a gap in the bricks, and their flashlights illuminated an upside-down corridor.
Through a shattered window, Deathstroke saw an iron bed overturned on the ceiling. An IV stand was tangled in dusty gray curtains, like a skeleton that had been strangled to death.
He picked up a half-length portrait from the floor and wiped away the dust, revealing the name "Ezekiel Arkham."
The figure in the painting rested his crossed hands on a scepter, with an enormous signet ring on his right thumb. His face, however, had been torn away, leaving his features unrecognizable.
Bruce noticed the painting too. He leaned in to examine it and reached out to wipe the dust from the ring, apparently wanting a clearer look at its design.
The skeleton in the Wayne Family's secret chamber had worn a ring of the same design.
Someone had deliberately scraped the design off that ring, but Bruce could see it clearly in this painting.
An owl with its body in profile and its face turned forward.
The Court of Owls again.
Bruce had spent five full years investigating them, yet the information he had gathered was pitifully