Nash jumps off his horse and gives the reins to Theo. “Once we understand what is going on, we can make a plan to rescue Gwyneth,” he tells me as his hand lands on the small of my back and he pushes me toward the tunnel. Malachi kneels down and crawls inside the dark tunnel. There’s a damp, musty smell emanating from the hole that I don’t think too hard about.
I drop to my hands and knees and follow Malachi, Nash just behind me, getting a prime view of my ass.
We crawl for a few tempos, and the oppressive tunnel narrows further. Something scuttles over my hand. I lift it and stare into the beady eyes of the creature, which I can just make out in the poor light drifting in from the exit. “Well, aren’t you a pretty thing?” I mutter.
“Who is she talking to?” Malachi shouts from up ahead.
“The tunnel spiders,” Nash says.
“Wait, she’s not running around screaming like a maiden?”
I roll my eyes. “We are in a tunnel. There’s no room to run around, plus the spiders aren’t something to fear. There are a thousand terrifying things in this life, but they aren’t one of them.”
“You are most unusual,” Malachi comments.
I place my hand on the floor and gently push the spider so he doesn’t get trampled on by Nash behind me. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
We shuffle for what feels like half an annus. It’s more likely a few tempos. Light shines from up ahead, giving me hope we are at an end—until I notice the metal bars lining the hole. Oh no, I can’t back out of this tunnel and there is no turning around. Sweat slicks my palms, and just as I feel panic setting in, Malachi puts a hand out and pushes against the bars, which give way. Huh, I wonder how often they sneak into the palace knowing that those bars are all but decorations?
We spill out into a room lined with bottles and wooden kegs. we’re in the palace’s alcohol store. Now it all makes sense.
I dust off my knees as Nash stands next to me. “Now where?” I ask.
Malachi puts a finger to his lips and jerks his head. I mime zipping my lips closed and follow him through the hundreds of bottles. There's a large closed oak door at the end of the room with a big metal lock above the handle.
Malachi opens his satchel and pulls out an ornate key. He puts it inside the lock and it clicks open.
“You have a key to the wine store?” I whisper.
Malachi offers me a cheeky grin over his shoulder. “I have a key to everywhere. This is a skeleton that will open any door in the palace.”
This knight is an expert at finding the danger that I run from every diurnal. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of his book and welcome the chaos. He drags open the door and darts his head out, checking for company.
“Come on,” he whispers, sneaking out of the door. I follow with Nash at my back as we walk down a curved hallway. Malachi puts the key into another door and pushes it open. We pile into a shadowy room and Nash closes the door, plunging us into complete darkness.
“Where are we?” I wonder.
“On the other side of this room is access to a secret set of steps, which will lead to the room Gwyneth is being held in,” Nash tells me as he grabs my hand and threads his fingers through mine. He tugs me along in the darkness. How can they see where they are going? Do knights have special vision? I want it. Who am I kidding? The sunlight just makes it so I can see the disaster I cause. Nope, I’ll keep my blindness.
“You are thinking very hard back there,” Malachi comments.
“How do you know?”
“Because you are being quiet,” Nash tells me as he releases my hand.
“Where are you going?” I ask, waving my arm around, trying to find a knight to clutch.
“Don’t move, we are just shifting the caskets,” Nash tells me.
“Caskets? Like dead people? Are we in a tomb?” My heart thumps in my chest. Dead people freak me out. “I don’t have an exemplary track record with dead people,” I tell them. “There’s a reason they forbid me from attending funerals in Strongfair. When they said to prepare the funeral pyre, they wanted it to float. It’s not like I knew, and it turns out neither stone nor bodies float—at least not straight away—but they turn up later, all bloated and ugly. It was a whole thing. I’m not sure they’d even let me attend my own funeral.”
Malachi’s laughter pierces the air and I spin in the direction I think he’s in and reach out. My hand grazes glass and something trips me up. I’m overdue for a clumsy tripping incident, so I don’t know why anyone is surprised.
My hand pushes against the glass, and I let out a little yelp as something large sounding smashes to the floor.
“Did she just smash a casket?” Malachi asks.
“We can’t see it, so it didn’t happen,” I reason. A choking sound pierces the air. “Who was that?” I whisper.
