Page 108

Then another.

Theo blinks. “Lila.”

There is the faint sound of footsteps tentatively making their way down the stairs.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I hiss.

We bolt.

Theo yanks open the door that leads into the closet we entered through. We ease inside and he shoves aside the tapestry that hides the crawl space opening.

“Go,” he breathes.

I hesitate for half a second. He gives me a you’re kidding look.

“I can’t help it,” I whisper shout. “It’s scary.”

He doesn’t waste time arguing. He slides in first, shoulders angling through the narrow entry. The footsteps upstairs are closer now—I can hear them even this far away from the stairwell, faint but distinct.

I crawl in after him and reach back for the panel. It doesn’t move.

“What the hell are you doing?” Theo whispers sharply.

“It’s stuck,” I whisper back, tugging harder. Nothing. I pull again. Still nothing.

He stops, twists halfway around, and worms back beside me as much as the walls allow. His arm rubs up against mine, then his shoulder, then basically all of him as he reaches past me.

“Move,” he breathes.

“I can’t move.”

He gets his fingers on the edge of the panel and yanks. The door slams shut with a sound that might as well be a gunshot in this silence. We both flinch.

The angle we’re in is unfortunate. He’s half-pressed against one wall, I’m half-pressed against him, and our limbs are pointing in enough directions to qualify as a diagram.

We try to un-wedge ourselves. Once. Twice. A third time.

We fail at every attempt.

Theo lets out a restrained, murderous exhale. “Okay. New plan.”

The only workable option becomes obvious at the same moment for both of us.

Theo lowers himself flat onto the tunnel floor. “Come on,” he whispers. “You have to get on top of me and shimmy down so you can turn around.”

I stare at him. “This is humiliating.”

“That’s not the word I would have used to describe it, but okay.”

I nudge myself sideways and end up practically sprawled on top of him before I can gracefully reposition myself. His hands come to my hips on instinct, steadying me so I don’t bonk my head on the ceiling trying to rearrange myself into a less undignified position.

I hear the moment they breach the door at the bottom of the stairs.

Theo’s breath is hot against my collarbone. My thigh is somewhere it definitely shouldn’t be. His pulse is wild under my palm.

I am sure mine matches his beat for beat.

In the room over, drawers open and shut, things scrape against the floor, paper rustles. Tillie’s voice comes through in sharp, frantic bursts, Giles’s in low, steady replies I can’t make out, just the tone—frantic, yet somehow still absolutely done with all of this.