‘No,’ he said firmly.‘But I think they expect us to.’
‘Lucky we’re not trying to.’I stepped around Raleigh, over Kay, and pressed on, but Raleigh caught up and pulled me back once I reached the turn that would lead me to the cellar.
‘Wait.It’s not that simple.There are tunnels all through the castle, designed so we could escape in case of an attack,’ Raleigh said.
I nodded.The castle had shown me them once before.
‘She knows about them,’ he continued.‘I’ve taken part in enough of her sieges to know she’ll have placed guards at the closest entrances, and the closest from here is in the armoury.’
I suddenly realised who else could have known the intricacies of Raleigh’s castle.Why the castle’s enchantment hadn’t already expelled the intruders.The spell might have been placed to protect Raleigh, but it was powerless against the one who’d helped shape it.
Raleigh stared down the dark corridor to where the winding stairs to the crypt lay at the end of the hall.It took me a moment to realise the candles hadn’t bloomed to life as they usually did.The unlit wicks jutted sharply in the gloom.I felt it again then, the same visceral, seeping wrongness that permeated the entrance hall.We weren’t alone.
‘Do you think she’s here?’I whispered.
‘She’ll be wherever Lukas disappeared to,’ Raleigh said.‘Somewhere close enough to step into battle the moment victory looks certain.’
I thought back to those frantic early moments in the entrance hall.The court, Lukas included, had appeared on the first floor landing.She’d be close to there, then, watching and waiting for our friends to fall.And yet of everyone we’d abandoned, my thoughts turned to Yann, who I’d sent into the upstairs corridors in search of my room.Would the enchantment guide him safely, if she was up there with him?Or had I simply sent him to die in her arms?
‘Do we turn back?’I asked.
‘We can try to fight with what we have and hope it’s enough.Or …’ Raleigh chewed his lip, then dropped his voice so low I had to watch his mouth to make sense of the words.‘There’s an entrance in the crypt she might not know about.It was blocked when I showed her the routes.It’s a risk, but if you’re willing to take it, we can enter the armoury from there and reverse whatever ambush she’s planned.’
I didn’t trust myself to speak quietly enough that we couldn’t be overheard.We were out of options.Reversing the ambush was our best chance of survival if we wanted to draw attention away from the humans, but if the lurking forces were camping in a room full of weapons, the chances were still slim.I nodded anyway, then squeezed Raleigh’s hand.This is where it would end.
I held my breath as we passed the armoury, hoping my tread was as quiet to those waiting inside as it was to my ears.At the top of the final set of stairs, Raleigh guided my hand to the rope balustrade that wound its way along the spiralling wall, though I could see it perfectly clearly.We descended slowly, silently into the dark, until we reached a stone archway engraved with long-faded lettering.
Stone slabs were laid out along the length of the room, some headed with statues, carved in the likeness of kings and princes long forgotten.The floors were a mess of engravings, immortalising the wives and daughters and spare sons entombed under our feet.A few were punctuated with shrivelled flowers, the sweet scent of their decay lingering in the stagnant air.They must have been left relatively recently, even if they were as dead as everything else in here.Grief clawed at me.I’d barely spoken with Raleigh about his relatives.I wish I’d thought to when I still had the chance.
‘This way.’Raleigh urged me down the narrow strip where no names were carved.At the end of the room was a kind of altar, adorned with the statue of an ancient Saxon king.He was the first of the Linford line, born a thousand years before Raleigh.The likeness had been remarkably preserved, save for a stump raised high in one hand, which I suspected had once been a cross.Raleigh mounted the altar and stretched up to take hold of the outstretched hand.It buckled under his weight and a mechanism activated in the wall behind him.From the faintly pleased sparkle in his eye I could tell this was some ingenuity he’d built himself.He watched expectantly for my reaction as the stone wall opened, but I couldn’t look at him.Because behind him, the shifting stone parted to reveal a solitary figure and every ounce of fear I’d tried to keep contained flared to life at once.
We’d been outmanoeuvred.I should have realised it the moment the corridor refused to illuminate our way.There was no battle upstairs to swoop in and claim victory over; the only battleground that mattered was wherever Raleigh went.Why would a commander send sentries to ambush him when they already had him isolated?Raleigh could fight sentries.He couldn’t fight his sire.
The Queen tilted her head and smiled.‘You’re so easy to predict, Raleigh.’
Raleigh threw himself from the altar and was at my side in the time it took me to blink.Every muscle was tensed, ready to pounce.She was unarmed, but it was no comfort.None of her army had been armed, and if it weren’t for Moira we all would have been dead twice over.
The Queen stepped from the shadows, perfectly calm, looking as beautiful as she had on the night of the ball.Lukas emerged behind her.The cracking on his neck had snaked further acrosshis skin, black rivers worming across his face.Raleigh had been right about the armoury at least; Lukas had armed himself since we last met.The sword at his hip was adorned with the Rostenburg crest.
‘I must say, that little coup of yours was quite the feat,’ the Queen said.‘Who would have thought so many of my court pitied you enough that they’d turn against me?’
‘That had nothing to do with me,’ Raleigh said tightly.
‘Oh, I know.They’ve been plotting it for years, and I don’t think for a second you would have been able to keep that a secret from me.So sweet of them to rally behind you, though.’She took a step off the altar.‘Tell me, would you like to know how many of them died for you?’
I flung my dagger out in front of me.‘Don’t come any closer.’
The Queen rolled her eyes away from the silver as though bored.‘Take care of the pet,’ she commanded.
‘Gladly.’There was no humour in Lukas’s voice this time.
The hiss of steel echoed against the stone as he drew his sword, but he could only come so close as long as I kept my dagger aloft.I didn’t know how long I could hold it.It felt hot through my gloves.I wanted to hurl it into the dark, as far from me as I could as a gnawing anxiety started to creep in, but all my focus had to remain on staying where I was.
So I was utterly unprepared when Lukas threw his sword at me.
Raleigh shoved me out of the way before I really understood what was happening.The sword whistled over our heads and clattered against the statue of Raleigh’s great-grandfather.My dagger flew from my hand and skidded out of sight.The atmosphere immediately felt lighter.But Lukas was upon us.He hoisted Raleigh off me and shoved him towards the Queen.
I scrambled to my feet, faster than I thought I could, and washalfway down the aisle before he reached me and threw me to the ground.
