Sienna’s about to leave Millie’s room—she really is—but something catches her eye. A pile of pale-blue paper sits beside the typewriter, face down, the faint echo of ink showing through. Sienna is not the kind of person to read someone else’s work, that’s what she tells herself, but her feet are already moving, her hand already lifting the top sheet.
I look up, surprised to find myself in the dungeon of my own castle, the ground rattling with the tremors of giant steps beyond, the beating of dragon wings as loud as my heart.
Sienna frowns. She has no idea what Millie’s writing about, but it’s clearly not the ending of Julia Petrarch. She puts the page back and starts for the door, hand halfway to the handle when Jaxon’s voice comes spilling down the hall.
“Come on, Mill, you know it wasn’t me.”
“I don’t, in fact.”
Sienna freezes. How bad will this look, standing in another writer’s room, holding a piece of paper that says “GET OUT,” as if she’s about to leave a second note? Not that she left the first one—but who would believe her? She backs away, folding the paper and putting it in her pocket as she retreats toward the hidden passage.
Jaxon’s voice dips lower. “I don’t sneak into girls’ rooms,” he says. “Not unless I’m invited. I’m like a vampire. You YA authors are super into those, right?”
Sienna scrambles to find the secret door, but her palm lands on solid wall.
Jaxon must have moved toward Millie, because she says, “Eww, you’re so sweaty.”
At last, she finds the hidden spring.
“I’m gonna hop in the shower before I start writing,” says Jaxon. “Plenty of room in there for two.”
Sienna presses down on the catch, willing the secret door not to groan as it opens. Even though that line deserves it.
She hovers, one foot in the hidden passage.
“Thanks,” says Millie. “But I better get back to work.”
Shit, shit, shit, thinks Sienna, willing the girl to go with him.
“That’s right. Miss Three Thousand Words a Day.”
“Rain or shine,” she says in a singsong voice.
“Fine, fine. But if you change your mind...” Jaxon’s voice trails off as he heads for his room. Sienna watches in horror as the doorknob starts to turn under Millie’s hand—
“Oh, shit,” she says to herself. “I forgot my tea.”
The knob springs back. “Silly Millie,” she murmurs, before her steps trail off down the hall, away from her room.
Sienna counts to ten, twenty, thirty, then steps back into the room, the hidden door closing behind her as she crosses the rug. Her heart races as she escapes into the hall.
She moves briskly toward the stairs, nearly tripping on the runner. Reaching the landing, she steadies herself on the gong, then forces herself to take the rest of the stairs more slowly. Despite the party trick with the pen, Sienna’s always been a stickler for following the rules, and the whole thing has left her head light and her hands shaking on the rail.
And yet.
There was a thrill to it, too, a humming energy, like the kind she feels when she’s got a good idea, and even though she doesn’t have one yet, she’s suddenly eager to get to work.
Alone.
Enough stalling.
Voices ripple through the house, but Sienna heads for the front door, past the foyer table, where Jaxon’s sweaty hoodie is hanging from one of the antlers, like it’s a coatrack.
Men are such slobs, she thinks, putting the house and its problems behind her as she escapes into the fresh air.
Interstitial
Wow. What a twist! I like to think I’m good at writing those. But I never could have seen this coming.(Hold for applause.)I should have written something, shouldn’t I?(Look down at award, pensive pause.)You know, a lot of my dreams have come true over the years. But this one. I was beginning to think this one wouldn’t. But here we are. And for [insert winning title], no less!
