“I was trying to visit Althea without being seen. She’s down in the dungeons, and I’m worried about her. All palaces have secret passageways, right? The maids use them all the time. That’s how they pop in and out without being seen. I think this goes all around the palace, but I’m not sure.”
“A secret passageway.” I didn’t like this at all. “Does it go to my room?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Like I said, I haven’t gone far. I just found it.”
“Okay, then whatdoyou know?” Lucas asked.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Nix said, raising her eyebrows. The torch began to bob away into the distance.
Lucas and I looked at each other. It was obvious we were thinking the same thing: This could be how the killer accessed the palace undetected. Who else knew about these hidden walkways?
“Come on, let’s go see where it leads.”
I hesitated. “Guys, guards patrol every hour, on the hour, and they keep tabs on my location. If I’m not back in the queen’s chambers before then and they can’t find me anywhere else, it’s going to be a whole thing.”
Nix and Lucas nodded. “Got it,” she said. “We’ll be fast.”
We walked deeper into the tunnel. It was dark and grimy and smelled like damp stone and something mossy. I wanted to tiptoe, just in case we ran into something gross, but we were moving fast to beat the guards.
The hidden passageways followed the exterior walls of the castle, with the occasional trail branching off somewhere deeper within, but we decided to stick to the most straightforward path.The last thing we wanted was to get lost or stuck—or who knew what else.
A couple of the turns from the main pathway even seemed unfinished or were deliberate dead ends that extended only a couple of feet before ending. I ran my hand across one of them. It felt smooth, like plaster, not like the rough stone everywhere else.
“Looks like those were covered over at some point,” Lucas whispered when we passed one of the nooks.
“Or this was never completed in the first place,” I suggested. “Maybe whoever designed the tunnels intended to but didn’t get the chance.”
Lucas nodded. “Could be.”
Nix turned and held the light up to us. We both flinched away from the glare.
We continued around a corner, inching our way along the wall. The farther we got from where we’d started, the more cautious we became and the more every distantdripsound startled us. Nix began to have doubts, fear lacing her voice. “On second thought, maybe we should go back,” she suggested. “We can try again tomorrow. I’m sure Althea’s fine. Let’s go to the library and see if they have any old maps of the building. Maybe we’ll find something there. Don’t you think?”
Neither Lucas nor I said anything; we just ignored her and kept walking. There was no going back now.
Lucas led on, searching the ground for any clue, no matter how insignificant. But so far, there was nothing other than dirt and cobwebs and tiny pools where condensation had dripped down the cool stone walls.
Nix was leaning into me so hard that I was having troublekeeping my balance. I put my hand up to brace myself against the wall, and then we both lost our footing and began to trip over each other’s feet. “Careful!” I shouted a second too late. We both tumbled to the ground. My knee hit the stone, sending a sharp pain through me. “Ow!”
“What happened? Are you all right?” Lucas rushed to kneel down and check on us. He shined the light on us.
“We’re fine. MJ fell,” Nix said.
“You were yanking on me!” I retorted.
“It doesn’t matter. As long as you’re both fine.” He held his hand out to each of us to help us get up. I got to my feet and rubbed my sore knee. It’d be bruised tomorrow for sure.
Lucas swung the light all around us. “Nix is right. Maybe we should call it a day and try again tomorrow.”
“Wait,” I said. “Give me that.” I reached for the light. “I think I saw something. Did you see that?”
“See what?” Lucas asked, handing me the torch.
I held the light up to the spot where I thought I saw—well, I wasn’t sure what. A glimpse of something. A hollow or different pattern on the stone of the wall, maybe. I kept searching, and then, there it was. “Look!” I knelt, no longer caring about the pain in my leg. I inched the light closer to the wall. “Can you see it?”
Lucas bent down to see. Nix was still busy brushing herself off and fixing her skirts. My heart felt like it was pounding in my ears with excitement.
“Wonder where that goes?” Lucas asked.
