She continued, but she couldn’t shake a strange feeling of apprehension. The hair stood on the back of her neck, and she tensed, as if waiting for something to leap out at her from the shadows.
Clearing her throat, she hurried up the stairs.
A creak sounded from somewhere downstairs—like the groaning of wood—and she stopped cold.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she crept to the side of the staircase, peering down below.
There was nothing there.
She strained her ears but couldn’t hear anything else.
It was probably nothing, she reasoned. Probably the servants are moving around downstairs. She was just being paranoid.
“Lady Elizabeth?” A trembling voice called.
Fiza.
“Fiza!” she called back. “Are you alright?”
“Thank Lucifer you’re here,” Fiza called, her words a broken plea. “Please help us!”
Heart lodged in her throat, she set the chunks of obsidian down on a windowsill in the hall, vowing to return for them later. Hands empty, and pockets lighter, she edged towards the staircase.
Elizabeth looked warily down the stairs, but there was nothing out of the ordinary—the landing below was empty, and she couldn’t see anything at the bottom of the stairwell.
“P-please.” Fiza’s voice broke.
Needing no further urging, Elizabeth burst into action, sprinting down the stairs and nearly throwing herself over the bannisters as she rounded the corners. She ran through the halls, heading towards the sound of Fiza’s voice.
“Lady! I fear we don’t have much time.” A long pause. “They’re coming.”
Elizabeth ran faster.
She arrived in the great hall, skidding in her haste.
Fiza stood in the centre of the hall.
“Fiza? What’s going on?”
Elizabeth took stock of her maid, searching her for injury.
“There you are,” she heard a dark, cold, feminine voice say before everything went black.
***
Cold water splashed her face, jolting her awake.
She was in Caspian’s dining room tied to a chair.
Maud held the bucket, leering at her, and Fiza paced behind her. They had cast off their human forms and looked monstrous, with gills and slimy blue-gray skin. Their demon forms had webbed fingers and black, bottomless eyes.
Maud leered at her, baring teeth.
Maud and Fiza.
What sort of joke was this?
“Fiza, please tell me what’s going on.”
