“We’ll be going over there,” he replied simply, extending his gloved hand toward...the wall.
The actual wall.
Jade stared at the spot he had gestured to, finding only a bookshelf with scattered remnants of old books, a cold, cobweb-filled fireplace, and a massive painting of what appeared to be members of a family.
Fabric came down over her face and blocked her sight a split second before gloved hands grabbed her wrists and held them behind her back. She never should have looked away from the man for even a second. Jade thrashed and tried to pull away as an innate survival instinct rose to the surface, but the grip holding her hands was strong.
“Easy.” The word came out in a prolonged whisper right beside Jade’s left ear. Her muscles relaxed almost immediately, and the alarm in her mind quietened.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” The smooth whisper continued, and as Jade’s reaction eased, the man switched his grip from both her wrists to her left upper arm. “I just can’t have you seeing where we’re going.”
Jade swallowed past a dry throat, suddenly desperate for a drink of water, but she allowed the man to lead her in her blinded state. There was no reason for her distress. Whether she fully admitted it before or not, she trusted this man, even without knowing him. He had been helping her for months, putting her in the right place at the right time, pointing out who she needed to be watching, and helping the military protect the rightful heir to the throne. In fact, she more than trusted him—she relied on him. She never would have received the promotions she had in such a short amount of time without his information.
Though her right hand was free, Jade didn’t use it to try to escape. If he didn’t want to show her where they were going, she would have to go along with it. Her free fingertips brushed the grip of the pistol holstered at her waist, and the solid, sheathed blades of her knives rubbed against her outer ankles inside her boots. He hadn’t disarmed her.
Jade’s tension fully gave way with that realization, and she moved as the man guided her forward. He must have trusted her too.
Something scraped and creaked in front of her before the man spoke again.
“There’s six steps here. Careful on the way down.”
He held her arm more firmly, taking hold of her with both his hands at her forearm and upper arm, helping her balance as she descended the steps. The temperature dropped as they walked, and a heavy-sounding door thudded to a close behind her. The ominous implication behind it stabbed at her heart, but she doubled down on her decision to trust her informant and pushed the fear away.
Fourteen
The air down here wasstale and musty, with a lingering scent of dust hanging in the air. Their footsteps clicked on something hard like stone and echoed as the informant led Jade through what had to be a winding tunnel or series of tunnels. Every time he turned to the left or right, Jade made a mental note, but he had repeated the movements so many times that she feared she was mixing them up.
“We’re almost there.” A scent wafted through the dank air toward Jade; it had to be him. It smelled clean and crisp, like laundry fresh from a line in the baking sun. The pleasant aroma tingled Jade’s senses the same way his voice had. She’d encountered this man before.
After three more turns, he stopped, and Jade copied him. The slight rattle of a doorknob and the click of a latch met her ears, but this door opened silently, and a surprising gust of fresher air hit her. Light filtered through the shroud on her head, the warm golden glow of firelight.
The informant ushered her over the door’s threshold and shut it behind him as he removed her blindfold, and a quiet gasp escaped Jade’s lips.
The room she found herself in did not resemble the home she had just left, allowed to sit and rot and let time take it. It was larger than the sitting room of the house, serving as a more multi-functional space. On one side of the room, two sofas sat opposite each other with a low table in between, with two armchairs on the short edges. A dining table surrounded by six chairs took up the other side of the room, and various cabinets and cupboards lined the stone walls, interspersed with paintings to give the space a homier quality.
The lantern from the farm house sat on the table, undoubtedly used by her informant to guide them there. Vents near the ceiling carried the fresh air that hit Jade when she entered, and she lifted her face to the slight breeze.
“There is a series of ducts from the surface that brings fresh air down here.”
The voice behind her again tugged at her memory. When she turned to her informant, his back was to her as he took slow steps through the room between the table and the sofas. Two doors sat closed on the opposite wall, and Jade wondered if he was about to go through one of them. But he stopped. He brought his hands behind his back and clasped them together against his nondescript black clothing.
A tremor of nerves started to take hold of Jade again, her heart ramping up speed. How had she allowed herself down here with a man she’d never met before, and blindfolded at that? She was amuchbetter agent than that. As it stood, she had no idea how to escape this place if she decided she needed to flee.
But the tremor quieted, drowned out with her reminder to herself that she trusted this man implicitly, and curiosity replaced her anxiety.
“What is this place?”
The informant barely angled his face over his shoulder toward Jade, but in the wavering light, Jade saw little more than the line of his jaw. “A bunker. One of many that are interconnected. Built by a group of families in hopesof surviving the Hervarian raiders when they came through years ago.” A tiny huff escaped his lips. “A lot of good it did them.”
Jade’s brows furrowed, and she took a single, tentative step forward. “Why do you say that?”
“This place was untouched when I first came here. They never made it.”
Grief twisted Jade’s heart as she wondered about the family whose backup plan never came to fruition.
But she hadn’t come tonight to explore underground tunnels or learn about families who had lived decades before. Her informant had requested her presence, called her here, and, obedient to him as she was, she had come without knowing why.
“You said it was time for us to meet.” Jade used the same acting skills she employed when on assignment to exude a confidence in her voice that she didn’t quite feel. “Why?”
