I tucked my hands into my armpits to keep them as warm as I could. We’d be in a great deal of trouble if we couldn’t find a place to bed down. And in the vast, untamed wilderness, that didn’t seem very likely.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Not-Entirely-Uninhabited Ruin
My foot ached abominably, but at least that meant it hadn’t gone numb. I steered my thoughts away from the possibility that it would have to be cut off if the situation worsened.
“So, why twelve?” I asked.
“What?”
“Why was it so important for Jack to find eleven duplicates? Or any duplicates, for that matter? You never did get around to telling me.”
“Decoys.”
“Right. Of course.” It was obvious, now that I had enough pieces to put together. “Jack thought the assassin would target her, too, once she started defending the king. She wanted to confuse whoever it was.”
“It was my idea, actually. Mine and Clem’s. Jack was going to go off on her own, but we wouldn’t let her. She finally agreed to let us come as long as she could be in charge of it all.” He paused as we helped each other over a twisted tangle of roots. “It wassupposed to just be the three of us, but then we met Kit and Harry and Max, and things got a wee bit out of hand.”
“And then after the business with the duchess…”
“Things got very out of hand.”
I stumbled over a tree root that arched just high enough above the ground to catch my foot, wrenching my ankle. I managed not to fall on my face, but after that my ankle complained when I put any weight on it. It was the same foot that was already half-frozen, and my limp grew more pronounced. Still better than injuring the other foot. Sam put a hand on my arm to steadyme.
Our hike was growing more difficult as the darkness deepened. If I’d broken my ankle rather than spraining it, it would have been a disaster.
“Do you think there’s any chance we’ll find shelter soon?” I asked.
“We might.” Sam’s cautious tone belied the already-limited optimism of his words. “Even if we don’t find the castle, someone might live nearby—the burn would be a good source of fresh water. There could be a hunter’s lodge, or a hermit’s hut, or—”
“A ruined tower!” I cried.
“I suppose,” Sam said with more than a hint of skepticism. “Although I don’t know why anyone would build a tower in the middle of the forest. No roads to guard, the visibility through the trees would be terrible—”
“No, I mean I see one. Over there.” Between the trees, through the haze of falling snow, I’d caught a glimpse of a curved stone wall with a ragged top.
The remains of the round keep were nestled in a bend of the brook. It might have stood taller in the past, but at some point everything higher than about fifteen feet had been sheared off, with a slope of mossy irregular rocks fanning out from one side. It looked as if a giant had kicked it over. Possibly that was exactly what had happened.
“This makes no sense,” Sam said. “What’s it doing here?”
“Oh, you find all kinds of nonsensical things in the middle of a forest. Take gingerbread houses. Ridiculous place to put them. The ants get in after a day and never leave.”
Sam regarded the structure dubiously. “Are you saying a witch might live in there?”
“Who knows? Either we go inside, or we spend the night in the snow. I just hope it doesn’t belong to bears. They get annoyed if you sleep in their beds or eat their porridge.” Unreasonably so, in my opinion. If you’re perishing with hunger and find porridge that’s been left to sit out all day long, I think it’s fair to assume no one has any plans to eat it. Two out of the three bowls had been inedible anyway. But they tossed me out the window before I had a chance to apologize or explain.
The light had almost faded by the time we made our way inside. I was happy to see solid walls, although the ceiling had a large hole in it where a stone staircase, grooved in the middle by the passage of innumerable ancient feet, wound its way up the wall to the nonexistent upper floors. Between that and the gaps where the windows had been, it wasn’t much warmer than the outside. A chandelier of icicles dripped from the remains of an arrow slit. But there was enough wall to keep the wind at bay and enough roof to keep the snowfall off our heads. In fact, other than some small drifts beneath the window holes, the place was surprisingly free of snow.
It was also, however, clearly inhabited. Although no one was present at the moment, there were signs of recent use. No bowls of porridge had been left unattended, which was a pity; we could have used a warm meal, stolen or otherwise. But tucked beneath the stairway, out of the way of any drafts, we found a bedroll of much more recent origin than the building itself, along with a few other odds and ends—blankets and pillows and a basin for water.
I walked over and poked at the bedroll, which proved to be exceptionally thick and soft.
“My goodness,” I said, peering at it in the dim light. “Is this a feather mattress?”
Sam looked uneasy. “Surely we shouldn’t stay here.”
“I don’t see that we have much of a choice.” In another few minutes, the light would be gone. “Look, there’s only a couple of possibilities. Maybe someone lives out here because they don’t like a lot of company. If they object to us coming in out of the snow, we can deal with that when they get back. I think most people would understand our difficulty.” Asshole bears aside.
