I’m guessing she isn’t the mastermind behind the king’s disappearance, Jaxi said.
You read romances. You don’t think you could plan a kidnapping?
Not with a doily sitting on my desk. That would smother my ambition, aggression, and desire for revenge.
Oh? Would that work if I simply draped the doily over your scabbard?
Ha ha. No.
“I wish we could chat with the queen,” Kaika said through the open doorway connecting the bedroom to the office.
“So she could ask what we’re doing snooping in her room?”
“I wouldn’t let her ask the questions.”
“I think it’s called an interrogation then,” Sardelle said, “not a chat.”
Kaika drummed her fingers on the doorjamb, then walked in. “I was hoping to find something useful here.”
Sardelle slid open the top desk drawer. Kaika went to the king’s desk. Perhaps a better idea. If threats had been delivered before he had been kidnapped, maybe he would have a record of them. But wouldn’t people have already checked in here? Those leading the search for him?
After finding nothing besides yarn and other craft materials in the queen’s drawers, Sardelle turned toward the walls again. If there had been secret tunnels out of the castle once, perhaps there were also secret passages and rooms within it. She reached out, trying to get a sense of the rooms next to the suite. On the outside wall, the one made of stone, windows overlooked the courtyard, but she detected a gap of about four feet between the bedroom and the next room over, one not accessible via this suite. She assumed a door somewhere led to it, but as she probed about more carefully, she did not sense an exit from that room, at least not a visible one.
Sardelle walked into the bedroom to examine the connecting wall with her eyes, searching for a lever or a switch or a painting hanging suspiciously askew.
You might want to figure that out sooner, rather than later. These security fellows are determined, and they’re getting close to the hole.
You’ve hidden it?
Disguised it as well as I could, but our friend with the dragon blood is on the search party. He’s having itchy feelings about my illusion.
Even if they left right then, Sardelle feared they would not be able to escape the way they had come. The guards were sure to notice three women popping up among the rocks. Being caught in the castle would not be good, either, not when Kaika had been reported AWOL and Sardelle was wanted dead for witchcraft. Cas would have a hard time explaining that sword too. They would all be charged as traitors who had come to wreak mischief. Or they would be shot outright. Sardelle knew absolutely nothing about the queen, other than her knitting preferences.
She moved a painting and checked behind it for buttons or switches. This wall was made from vertical wooden boards, so if there was a secret door, the cracks would not be easily visible. Though she sensed that gap between the two rooms, she could not start burning holes in the walls of the king’s bedroom. There had to be a law against that.
Cas walked in. “What are you looking for?”
“I think there’s a secret passage to a room behind this one.” Sardelle prodded the andirons in the fireplace, even though that was on the opposite side of the room.
Cas walked along the wall Sardelle had indicated, studying the floor. She stopped halfway along it, bent down, then pulled her sword part of the way out of its scabbard. Sardelle almost pointed out that it wasn’t purported to be a divining rod but realized Cas probably just wanted a light. A second later, Cas sheathed it fully and stood up.
“This is the doorway.” She nudged the floorboards.
By the time Sardelle joined her, Cas had found a switch. A click sounded, and a panel swung open.
“What gave it away?” Sardelle asked, peering into the darkness.
“There are some faint scrapes on the floorboards where the door opens.”
“Ah. Good thinking.” Sardelle should have thought of that too. Ah, well. She was a healer, not a tracker or carpenter.
Is that the excuse that will make you feel better about an obvious oversight?
You didn’t see the scrapes, either.
No, I was watching our friends outside. They’ve stopped hunting momentarily and are watching a flier head toward the castle.
Cas entered the dark shaft while Sardelle was communicating with Jaxi. A draft brushed Sardelle’s cheeks as a second door was opened. The draft did not smell of must, dust, or disuse. A green glow arose, Cas pulling out the sword for a light again. If her father ever showed up to reclaim that blade from her, he might have to fight her for it.
“You’re right,” Cas said. “It’s another room. Chilly. Nobody laying fires in the hearth in here.”
Sardelle joined her inside what looked to be an old nursery with a handsomely crafted but dusty crib along an inner wall. A couple of child-sized dressers also occupied the space along with a desk built for an adult. It rested against the outside wall, one with a shuttered window in it. This room couldn’t be that secret, but there were not any other doors in it, not visible ones.
Cas went straight to the desk. It and its chair were the only pieces of furniture in the room without dust on them. A soft click came from behind them, Kaika scooting into the room with a lantern.
“Wood boy is in the suite,” she whispered.
Sardelle grimaced. She had let the search for the secret room distract her.
“He didn’t see me,” Kaika added, nodding to Sardelle. “What’s this?”
“The pamphlet creation station, apparently,” Cas said, stepping back from a drawer. It was filled with small hand-stapled booklets, all with the same cover of forest-green with a silver triangular symbol on the front and leaves at each of the points. “Another craft project?”
Sardelle had never seen the symbol before, but when she leaned in closer and could read the title, her heart lurched. The Order of the Heartwood Sisterhood, Charter and Mandates.
Jaxi!
Oh, it’s my favorite of the secret, all-women orders listed in that book we were researching. The one dedicated to protecting innocent young men from the advances of lusty female dragons.
It must have evolved into more than that.
Take a pamphlet. Maybe they’re recruiting.
Sardelle did remove one and slip it into her bag. When she and Jaxi had been researching possible organizations that might have been responsible for following Sardelle around the city and trying to blow her up, this name had been one of three possibilities. Granted, it had seemed the least likely, but that had been before they found this stash.
“Looking for some bedtime reading?” Kaika asked.
“I believe this may be the organization that’s been trying to kill me,” Sardelle said.
“To kill you?”
“Before we left, some women in dark cloaks were following me around, and then someone blew up the archives building while I was in the basement.”
“Oh, I heard about that. One of my colleagues was asked to go investigate. Huh. I knew you were on the wanted posters around the city, but I didn’t look that closely at them. Witches, uhm, the idea of magic makes my eye twitch. My trigger finger too.”
Sardelle shrugged. She hadn’t been looking for sympathy.
“Guess it wasn’t that smart for Zirkander to send you here where you might get captured then,” Kaika said.
“I believe he sent me so we wouldn’t get captured. Also, I’m pleased to be asked to help. It’s what I was trained to do.”
“Help?” Kaika eyebrows rose.
“Yes. I’m a healer and a student of history, as well as a sorceress.”
“Hm.” Kaika picked up one of the pamphlets. “As a history student, do you know anything about this organization? Is it new or something old?”
“It was founded at least a thousand years ago, but its mission may have evolved. I’m going to have to find a library and do some research.”
“What was their original miss
ion?”
Jaxi made a snickering sound in Sardelle’s head.
“According to one book, to keep young village men from being lured away by female dragons for mating.”
Kaika blinked slowly a few times. “Was that a big problem once?”
“Not from what I’ve read, but I wasn’t there. I’m not quite that old.”
Kaika frowned down at the pamphlet. “It’s a stretch, since we haven’t stumbled across any clues yet, but I had the thought that they might have something to do with the king’s kidnapping. But I don’t know of any female dragons that have been lusting after him.”
“As I said, I would like to research the organization more to see what they’ve been poking their fingers into lately, but that does sound unlikely. I would be more inclined to believe that it was the Cofah who wanted him out of the city. With all that secret weapons research they’re doing, they must be preparing for a big attack on someone.”
“And we’re their recalcitrant former imperial subjects that rebelled.” Kaika rolled the pamphlet and rested the end against her chin, scowling at the desk, or perhaps into space. With her voice uncommonly soft, she said, “I’m worried that we’re going to learn he wasn’t kidnapped at all, but shot and his body stashed somewhere it would never be found.”
Even though Kaika did not seem to be the kind of person who required—or ever wanted—comforting, Sardelle risked putting a hand on her shoulder. She did not push it away.
“Is the wood delivery boy still out there?” Cas had rifled through the other drawer and the dressers and apparently not found anything interesting. “How are we going to get out of here?”
Not through your hole.
What?
They found it. One guard is running down the tunnel to see if someone got in, and the other is heading back to the front gate. There’s a lot of shouting going on.
Sardelle closed her eyes. “We’ll have to…” She trailed off as the buzz of a flier’s propeller reached her ears.
Kaika turned off the lantern and opened the shutters above the desk. The room looked out over the grassy lawn in the rear of the castle, as well as a landing pad where a flier was parked to one side. Lanterns burned all along the pathways, and pairs of guards ran down them, the clank of their weapons and armor drifting up to the window. The wall rose too high for Sardelle to see the rocky promontory behind the castle—or the men investigating the hole—but she did not doubt that they were there. More guards occupied the towers and the wall than had before. A few were pointing toward the sky, but most were running, urgency speeding their legs.
“They’re starting a search of the castle,” Cas said.
“Because their boss is coming home.” Kaika pointed to the night sky.
The lights of a two-person flier had come into view. A pilot wearing goggles, a leather cap, and a scarf was guiding it toward the landing pad, and the sight made Sardelle think of Ridge. The person in the back wore a scarf and cap, too, so it was hard to determine features, but locks of long blonde hair had escaped and fluttered behind the woman.
“That’s the king’s personal flier,” Kaika said. “I don’t know where the queen needs to fly about to, but it looks like she’s taken it over.” Her lips thinned with disapproval.
Sardelle was tempted to ask if Kaika had met the queen and what kind of woman she was, but they needed to think about escaping. Some of the guards likely knew about this room and would check it. If not, the queen certainly knew about it.
There are soldiers in your hallway. They’re searching the rooms, and they’re debating whether to search the king’s suite next. They’re moving quickly. They want to catch the intruders before the queen is on the ground and starts asking how there came to be a hole in the brick wall in the cellar.
“There are guards in the hall,” Sardelle told the others. “We can’t go out that way.”
“I heard them,” Cas said grimly.
Kaika risked poking her head out the window. It seemed brazen with the lawn below awash with light and more lanterns moving about on the walls, but they were three stories up, and the wall remained in shadow this close to the roof.
“There’s a bunch of ivy on the wall out here,” Kaika said. “Maybe the vines are strong enough to support our weight. Hm. I also have some rope. Look, this part of the building extends over to the battlement. We’re a little above the walkway. Maybe we can climb across and swing down to land on it. There are a lot of men on the wall, but if we time it right… and get lucky… we might be able to climb over the side and down to the rocks before they catch us.”
Those vines aren’t as sturdy as they look, Jaxi said. Just ask your acrobatic lover.
Noted. Thank you. Sardelle was too busy grimacing at the image Kaika had painted for a lengthier response. The idea of them making it across and down without being spotted sounded incredibly optimistic. As did the idea of making it across and down without falling. The flier was hovering over the yard now, its thrusters activated as it prepared to lower to the landing pad. Sardelle pictured falling from the wall and splatting to the ground right in front of the queen. That hadn’t been how she imagined her introduction to the royalty of this century.
“Maybe we could hide in here until things quiet down,” Cas said, sounding like she found the odds against them too.
A thump came from the bedroom.
“Don’t think we have that option,” Kaika said.
Sardelle sensed two armed men searching the bedroom, one looking in the closets and one… heading for the secret panel.
“They’re coming,” she whispered. “In here. The window is the only option.”
Kaika was already swinging out through it. Not hesitating, she disappeared around the edge. Cas hopped onto the sill and followed. In the bedroom, the secret door swung open. The guard strode straight into the passage between the rooms.
Afraid she would fall if she rushed out the window, Sardelle lifted her hand, trying to think of a way to delay him. If she pushed the dresser in front of the door, he would know someone had been in here. Instead, she focused on the lock. Engineering was not her specialty—as Jaxi would be the first to point out—but she did her best to bend the metal of the latch, hoping it would stick. Then, with her heart beating at triple speed, she climbed onto the sill and peered in the direction the other women had gone. There were numerous vines with ivy leaves tangled all about them, but they did not appear sturdy enough to hang from. Kaika and Cas were creeping along a ledge—more of an architectural decoration—no more than an inch wide, leaning their weight into the wall and using the vines for handholds.
You’ll catch me if I fall, right Jaxi?
I don’t know. I was amused by that image of you tumbling to a heap at the queen’s feet.
The guard grunted and shoved his shoulder against the hidden door, leaving Sardelle no more time to debate the climb. She stepped onto the tiny ledge, only the tips of her toes able to perch on it. Her small pack suddenly felt heavy as it hung from her shoulders, pulling her balance backward. She couldn’t imagine how Kaika was doing this. Not only was she taller and heavier, but her pack full of explosives had to weigh three times as much as Sardelle’s pack. Kaika had made it to the next window along the wall and was looking inside, probably worried about guards in the bedroom. The curtains had been drawn when they had been in there earlier, but someone might still glimpse a person climbing past on the ledge.
Seeing the window reminded Sardelle to close the shutters behind her so the secret nursery would appear untouched. So long as nobody counted the pamphlets in the drawer.
With her toes already trembling from supporting her weight, Sardelle crept after the others. She used her power as she could, strengthening the ivy so the slender vines would not snap and using air currents to push at her back, to help keep her weight leaning into the wall.
A soft gasp came from farther along the building, past the bedroom window. Kaika’s foot slipped off the ledge. She had hold of one of the vine
s, but the ivy was snapping, pulling away from the wall. Sardelle froze and moved the air currents in Kaika’s direction, cupping her from below and pushing against her from behind. With the assistance, Kaika managed to get her foot back onto the ledge. She paused to regroup, taking a deep slow breath, then looked toward Sardelle.
Sardelle, her calves now shaking from the effort of maintaining the awkward position, managed a short nod in her direction, then checked on Cas before returning to her own careful climb. Cas was the smallest and lightest of them all and was not having much trouble. Good. Sardelle had all she could manage to continue along the ledge on her own without worrying overmuch about the others.
As Sardelle reached the bedroom window, the flier touched down. The curtains were still drawn, and she lunged across, hoping nobody was glancing in that direction. She could sense one guard still in there, checking under the bed. As if three women with swords and rifles and packs could hide under a bed.
You never know. Tolemek and Ridge were getting cozy under that bed earlier tonight.
Must have been a big bed.
Kaika had reached the corner of the building and was contemplating the jump to the battlement. There was not a gap, so she merely had to leap down, but two guards were jogging along it. If they looked up at the corner of the building, they were sure to spot Kaika, shadows or not. For now, their focus was toward the rocks outside of the castle. Sardelle wondered how many people were standing around the hole they had made, but she did not break her concentration to check. She was already struggling to focus on the climb and not the words of a conversation floating up from the landing pad. The flier’s propeller had been stopped, and she could clearly hear the queen making comments as a guard captain explained the hubbub to her.
“Someone’s inside the castle?” she asked. “Any idea who?”
“No, my liege. He may be a Cofah spy, but we’ll find him. He won’t escape.”
Cas had caught up with Kaika at the corner of the building. They were waiting for Sardelle before they tried to time a jump. She did her best to coerce her cramping calves and trembling toes to hurry the last ten feet along the ledge. She had to duck under a thousand-year-old leering dragon head to manage it and almost lost her grip. She pushed at herself with an air current again, trying to regain her balance, but a portion of the old ledge crumbled beneath her foot. Struggling to keep the calm necessary to use her power, she grasped at the ivy with both hands and flattened her face to the brick as her right foot now dangled in the air. The sound of the tiny shards of rock trickling down the wall below her seemed horribly loud to her ears.