But it wasn’t just the exposed furniture that told us the room had been recently occupied: a fire licked lazily from a stone hearth as tall as Bram.
“I guess this is where they set up shop,” I said, taking it all in.
Romanian beer and plates containing the remnants of a meal were scattered on the surface of the old wood tables like modern relics.
“Where are they?” Bram’s voice coursed with frustration. “And where is Maeve?”
It was the question that had run like blood through our veins since the minute we realized she’d been taken.
Where is Maeve?
“Let’s keep going,” Poe said, moving back toward the hall. “We’re close.”
I knew what he was getting at: almost every room in the castle had a fireplace: they’d chosen this one for a reason.
We figured out why when we reached the room next door.
It was a kind of chapel, an actual altar at one end, several wood pews lined up in front of it. A gold cross hung behind thealtar, ornate candlesticks — absent the candles — on either side of the carved wood mantel.
There was a fireplace here too, but no fire.
Bram stopped in his tracks and looked around. “What the fuck?”
“It’s a chapel,” I said.
Bram scowled. “No shit. Why is there a church inside of the castle?”
“Religion was an important part of daily life in the thirteenth century,” I said. “It wasn’t uncommon for complexes like this one to have a chapel, although I’ve always read that they were separate buildings. I’ve never heard of one inside the main castle.”
Not that I was an expert on thirteenth-century Romania.
“It gives me the fucking creeps,” Bram said.
Poe moved deeper into the room, toward the altar. “This was more than a chapel.”
I didn’t know what he meant until I joined him behind the altar, which was when I saw an open door cut into the wood paneling.
Cold air wafted from the darkness inside, but otherwise, I couldn’t see a thing beyond the opening.
Poe took a step inside. “There are stairs. Going down.”
“Tunnels?” There was something dark and complicated in Bram’s voice that I understood.
Our story with Maeve had started in the tunnels under Blackwell Falls.
Now a dark voice in my head wondered if this was where it would end.
13
ETHAN
I gaveher the full twenty minutes like I promised. Then we started down the main tunnel leading away from the cell where I’d been keeping her.
Nick was nervous, past the point of trying to hide it. I’d second-guessed the decision to bring him more than once — I wasn’t sure the kid had what it took — but with Anton dragging his bad leg around like a fucking anchor, some kind of backup was a necessity.
“Have you ever been this far in here before?”
Nick’s voice practically cracked when he spoke and rage moved through my body like a wave.
