Clang!
He looked to the floor at his feet.
Clang! Clang!
He frowned.
It’s coming from beneath us.
“Do you hear that?” whispered Rune, poking her head outside the bedroom. She held a dusty leather-bound spell book in her hands, and her hair was a tangle of red-gold in the candelight.
Unholstering his gun, he headed for the stairs. “Shut yourself into the casting room, and don’t come out until I return.”
Gideon didn’t wait for her to do as he said, knowing she would listen to him only if she wanted to. Instead, he descended to the main floor. By the time he reached the servants’ quarters, the sound had stopped. Rune hadn’t followed. He waited, listening.
It came again.
Clang! Clang!
It wasn’t mechanical, and the silence between each clang seemed sporadic. Sometimes the sound was harsher, sometimes softer, as if someone was striking something angrily, then despairingly.
It was louder now. Coming from directly below him.
The basement.
Gideon searched the servant quarters until he found a set of cramped stairs in the kitchen, leading down. He took them.
The basement was damp as a cellar. The walls and floors were made of rough-hewn stone. And with no windows to let the light in, it was too dark to see. He had to go back for a lamp.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
His footsteps quickened until he arrived at a door, certain the sound was coming from behind it.
CLANG!
Gideon took the safety off his pistol.
CLANG!
He turned the doorknob.
CLANG!
He opened the door.
The room was pitch-dark. The moment the door swung in, the sound abruptly stopped. Lifting his lamp, Gideon shone the light inside.
It was the boiler room. Warmer than the hall beyond, the space was full of iron pipes pumping water to the house’s upper levels.
Inside the room, wearing her red uniform, stood Laila.
Her wrists were manacled to the pipe beside her, and in her grip was a wrench—which she was striking against the pipe.
“Gideon?” Her dark hair curled in the humidity, and her eyes were ringed with shadows.
“Laila?”He stepped into the room, staring at her. “You’re supposed to be at the Rookery. What are you doing… here?” He glanced around the boiler room.
“I’m being punished for letting you and Rune escape.”
