Page 184 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Through the bond, fury joined her fear, which meant she was fighting. That fury was the only thing keeping me sane as we crept toward the last bend before our rooms, household soldiers at our backs.

Camrick peeked around the corner and mouthed, More of Coryanthus's men.

I was in for another fight.

But then, something scratched at the window five paces behind me. My attention snapped to the sound of claws scraping glass, catching the sight of a small silhouette forcing its way through the narrow gap where the window had been left ajar.

Muffin fell to the stone floor below the window, scrambled, and immediately threw himself at my shins with full-bodied desperation. His fur was standing in a full ridge from neck to tail. The sound coming out of him wasn’t quite a growl and wasn’t quite a cry—the same sound that had sent me running after Lunette when the mercenaries had grabbed her what felt like a lifetime ago.

“I know,” I said, pausing to lean down. “I’m going—”

Muffin sank his fangs into me hard enough to be extremely clear about his opinion on me taking another step.

Camrick lowered his sword slightly. “Is that—”

“Yes.”

Then Muffin was off, a tan streak arrowing toward the left, where he stopped and threw himself against the wall. With a thud, his little body rebounded off it, and he scurried to his paws again.

He looked back at me with green, unblinking eyes, and did it again.

There was nothing there. Bare stone, the same as it had always been.

As it had always appeared.

I crossed to the wall in two strides and struck it with a pulse of magic. I felt the unmistakable give of the illusion falling apart.

By all the magic.

My parents hadn’t even known about this entrance to the tunnel out of the keep. The illusion must’ve been in place for more than a century.

Muffin made another pained whistling sound, begging me to open it for him so he could charge in and save his lady. This ridiculous, beloved creature had no business being braver than half the men I’d met.

“All right,” I said, trying to calm him. His entire body was shaking.

Camrick was already assembling the guards, rolling his shoulders, getting ready for a fight in the hall. “Go,” he said. “We’ll go through the front.”

Before I could respond, a woman with brunette braids piled high on her head slipped through the same window Muffin had used. It was Anne, the servant/spy I’d asked Reina to have assigned to Lunette.

She was the most disheveled I’d ever seen her. Hair falling out of her updo, dress torn and dirty from what must’ve been a difficult climb—especially in a corset.

“She’s in her room,” Anne panted. “She sent me. Coryanthus took her there by the king’s order.”

If I hadn’t despised my brother before, this sealed the deal. Did he even know that he’d been double-crossed yet? I looked at Camrick, and he nodded, understanding passing silently between us.

I wasted no time lifting the latch. The cold black mouth of the tunnel yawned before me. Muffin didn’t wait. He plunged into the darkness without a backward glance.

“Start breaking down that fucking door!” I ordered with one final glance at Camrick.

The last thing I heard was “Yes, Prince Regent!” before sliding into the dark.

The only light streaming into the tunnel was from the latch I’d left open. Rough, flaking rust bit into my skin with every step down the ladder. If I moved too quickly, the ancient iron let out a low, protesting groan. It had to have been more than a century since this was last seen to. I hurried as much as I could, careful not to be heard, until the ladder simply ended from rot—leaving ten feet of open air between me and the floor below.

I dropped the distance to save magic, allowing a small cushion of shadow and my knees to take most of the impact. My pride took the rest, my hands catching stone inches before my armor could announce me any more loudly.

I straightened slowly in the dark, ears alert for any hint of movement.

The scuff of steel on steel and steel on stone. Soldiers trying to be quiet and failing. I let my sixth sense, the one for magic, reach outward. I found multiple magical auras.