Watching her sister, whose arms were shaking with soreness, creep her way down the side of the Tower, Celie’s whole body instantly slicked with sweat. When Lilah was about halfway down, the table in the Tower slid across the floor with a loud scraping sound, and Lilah dropped toward the roof with a jolt and a scream. Celie rushed forward to try to catch her, but Lilah managed to land on her feet, though it looked quite painful.
For a moment the two sisters just stood there with their arms around each other, panting. Then Lilah untied herself, and they carefully picked their way over the roof tiles to the balcony and let themselves down into the rest of the Castle.
The silence of the Castle was even eerier now. The thick walls and heavy oak doors had never allowed much sound to carry, but there was a quality to the quiet that was unnerving. Not only was the Castle no longer watching and listening, but there truly were no people at all.
“Is the Council gone, too?”
Lilah’s whisper startled Celie, who was using the mirror-wand to look around a corner at yet another empty corridor. They were nearly to the kitchens and had not seen a single soldier, nor Councilor, in the hour they had been creeping through the empty Castle.
“Maybe they’re all gone,” Celie said as she led her sister across the corridor and into the kitchens. “Maybe we’re the only ones left.”
“Not quite. There’s a few of us still hanging around,” said a dry voice.
Celie and Lilah stopped in shock. There were two Councilors sitting in the kitchens, eating what looked like bowls of very lumpy porridge. It was Lord Feen, and it seemed that Lord Sefton had been released from the dungeons. He was the one who had spoken, and now he rose and bowed to the sisters.
“Please join us, Your Highnesses,” he said, without a hint of threat or sarcasm.
“No, thank you, Lord Sefton,” Lilah said stiffly. She grabbed Celie’s arm and started to pull her back the way they had come.
“We won’t hurt you,” Lord Feen said softly. He looked even older than he was, his face so creased and gray that it was painful to behold, and his hands were shaking. “We’ve already done enough damage.”
Pity swelled Celie’s heart, seeing how … broken Lord Feen looked. Then the pity was replaced by anger: How dare he look repentant! No, not when he had just stood there watching as Prince Khelsh admitted to trying to have her parents killed and threatened Rolf. Not when Lord Feen simply watched as Khelsh killed the Castle!
Lilah tried to pull her away again, but Celie shook her off.
“Traitors!” It was the first word that came to Celie’s lips. “You horrible traitors! How dare you even speak to us? How dare you sit here inside the Castle and eat our food? You deserve to die!”
“Celie!” Lilah took hold of Celie’s waist and tried to drag her away.
Celie fought her off, struggling away from her sister, which moved her closer to the two men. She stood there shaking and looking at them through the mess of her tangled hair.
“Celie, please come away,” Lilah whispered.
Celie found it interesting that her normally polite-to-a-fault sister did not apologize to the two lords, or even look at them. She took another step away from Lilah, toward the table. Lord Feen actually drew back a little.
Lord Sefton, however, just laughed. It was a grim laugh, with no amusement in it that Celie could detect.
“Your sister is right to shout at us,” Lord Sefton said to Lilah. Then he turned to Celie, and she saw that his handsome face now had lines, and there were gray strands in his dark hair. “In fact, Your Highness, your condemnation is correct in all things: we are traitors, and we should leave the Castle.”
“Then why don’t you?”
Even Celie was surprised by the coldness in Lilah’s voice. She turned to look at her older sister, and saw why Lilah was trying to get her to leave. Lilah’s face was red with anger and a host of other emotions, and there were tears streaking her cheeks.
“We can’t,” Lord Feen said. “Khelsh and the Lord Emissary have all the doors guarded. They are looking for you, but they have said that they will kill anyone else who tries to leave.”
“So you’re cowards,” Lilah said with a sniff. “I’m not surprised. Let’s go, Celie.”
This time Celie went with her sister. She wanted to continue to yell and scream at Lord Feen and Lord Sefton, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Lord Feen would just sit there cringing and looking so lost and old, and Lord Sefton seemed to welcome the punishment. Besides which, she could feel Lilah trembling, and wanted to get her sister out of the Castle. If Khelsh really was watching all the doors, they would need to plan their route carefully.
Of course, there were doors that Khelsh and the Emissary didn’t know about. Celie was betting she could find at least two that they had never seen before.
“Wait! Your Highnesses! Where are you going?”
Lord Sefton held out one hand to them.
“We’re going to join our brother and his army,” Lilah said loftily. “Outside.”
“Please stop,” Lord Sefton said with real fear. “Aren’t you afraid—”
Celie turned again and looked at him, stopping Lord Sefton in midsentence.
“I will never be afraid to walk the corridors of my Castle,” Celie said. “Even though Khelsh has murdered it. While you sat and watched.”
The sisters turned to leave again, but Sefton called them back once more. “The Castle isn’t dead.”
Celie and Lilah froze. They looked at each other, but Celie didn’t dare to look at Sefton. She didn’t want to find out that he was lying, trying to gain her favor or make himself seem less of a coward.
“Nothing could truly kill Castle Glower, not unless you took it apart stone by stone. Maybe not even then,” Sefton said to their backs. “He could only put it to sleep.”
Lilah turned, but only partway. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “Come, Celie.”
“You should believe him,” said Lord Feen. “He has some wizardly training.”
Lilah turned all the way around, pulling Celie around with her. “You do?”
“I scrubbed out of the College of Wizardry my final year,” Lord Sefton admitted with a self-deprecating grimace. “But I know a thing or two, and I wanted no part of this scheme. I know how dangerous black magic can be.”
“How did you get out of the dungeons?” Celie put one hand to her mouth, feeling like a fool for not remembering that she had wanted to go down and speak to him, to find out if he was on their side.
“I let him out,” Lord Feen said. “There was no point in keeping him down there. We’re all in a giant dungeon of our own making now.”
“The Castle is not a dungeon,” Celie said heatedly.
At the same time Lilah said, “Not dead?”
Then Lord Sefton’s words sank in, really sank in, and Celie collapsed onto the nearest stool.
“The Castle isn’t dead?” Now it was her turn to ask.
“No, Your Highness,” Lord Sefton said gently. “It’s not.”
“I told you, Lilah,” Celie said, with a hiccup that she refused to allow to turn into sobs.
“Do you know about the spell that Khelsh used, Lord Sefton?” Lilah was more direct, while Celie tried to recover herself. “Could another wizard undo it?”
“I think so … yes, Your Highness, I believe it could be lifted, if the wizard knew what he was facing,” Lord Sefton said.
“Excellent,” Lilah said. “Come with us.”
“Lilah,” Celie said, grabbing her sister’s sleeve and forcing her to lean down to hear Celie’s whisper. “What if he’s lying? What if he’s trying to trick us?”
“Then we’ll just lose him in the Castle somewhere, and let him starve,” Lilah said, not bothering to whisper.
Celie let out a short laugh and got to her feet. So did Lord Feen.
“No,” Celie said, and then blushed at how curt it had sounded. No matter what he had done, Lord Feen was the most venerable membe
r of what had once been her father’s trusted Council. “I’m sorry, Lord Feen,” she said in a gentler tone. “But you can’t come with us. We’re going to have to crawl through a tunnel—” She stopped, not wanting to reveal too much about her planned escape route, in case Feen or Sefton did betray them.
“Oh,” Lilah said, understanding where Celie intended to lead them.
“Yes,” Celie said to her sister. “I don’t think anyone knows about that one but you, me, and Rolf. It’s the safest way.”
Lord Feen sat down, nodding his head. “I understand, Your Highness. It’s best that the three of you get out, and quickly.”
“Thank you,” Celie said. “Come if you mean to come,” she said to Lord Sefton, and then she checked the passage outside the kitchens before gesturing for Lilah and Sefton to follow her.
They would need to backtrack to get to the tunnel, and she muttered under her breath as she used the mirror-wand to navigate back around corners and down dark corridors where she and Lilah had just been. They would have to pass the base of the Spyglass Tower, and work their way over to the ladies’ solarium on the southeast side of the Castle. There was a secret passage there that led to the royal bedchamber, so that the queen could come and go in privacy. And from the royal bedchamber, there was a dank little tunnel under the floor that went straight under the outer wall of the Castle.
Directly into the moat.
But if one could swim, and hold one’s breath for a half a minute or so, one could swim under the grate at the end of the tunnel, and then out into the moat. And then to safety.
“You can swim, can’t you?” Celie asked Lord Sefton as they all crammed into a cupboard to wait for a pair of Vhervhish guards to march by.
“Swim? Yes. Why?” Lord Sefton sounded distinctly nervous.
“You’ll see,” Celie said, opening the cupboard door a crack to make sure the guards were gone, and then waved the others after her as she hurried down the passage.
They reached the solarium without seeing anyone but that lone pair of guards. Celie moved the arras on the wall aside and pushed on a brick that was slightly darker than its fellows. With a scrape, a section of the wall turned on a central pivot, and Celie squeezed through with Lilah and Lord Sefton following. His lordship barely made it through, and she worried that the tunnel would be too small for him.
Rolf had two theories about some of the secret passages of the Castle: They had either been made for Fair Folk, who were much smaller than mortals, or people were growing larger and larger as the generations progressed. Celie didn’t much like to think about that first theory. If the Castle had been meant for magical creatures, what had happened to them? Something terrible? What if they were just gone on holiday? Would they be angry when they returned to find mortals in their Castle? Whatever the case, the oldest parts of the Castle, the secret passages, tunnels, and some of the doorways, were narrower and shorter than normal-sized people were entirely comfortable with.
Celie snaked along the passage with her sister and Lord Sefton, until finally her outstretched hands ran across the wooden door that led into the royal bedchamber. She slid her fingers along the left side until she found the little latch, and then clicked it open. She opened the door only a crack, peering out to make sure they hadn’t surprised Khelsh in the act of jumping on her parents’ bed or something, and then stumbled out into the room. The dim light in the royal bedchamber was so much brighter than the secret passage that they all stood and blinked for a while.
Once their eyes had adjusted, they went to the fireplace, and Celie took hold of the unlit torch from the sconce by the mantel and turned it around twice. One of the large stones that made up the hearth dropped down with a grating sound, revealing the dark mouth of the tunnel.
Lord Sefton looked down the tunnel, his face going pale. “It’s certainly … narrow,” he offered.
“And dark,” Lilah said grimly. “And there’s no way to carry a light. Also, the far end is submerged, because of the moat, so we’ll have to swim the last bit.”
“I—I see.”
“Just go,” Celie said. “Somebody go.”
Someone, probably Rolf, had put her father’s crown back on the pedestal near the fireplace. She could not stop staring at it. What if she took it? It would be one more slap in the face for Khelsh, if—or really when—he decided to declare himself king. She and Lilah really should take the crown now, when they had the chance.
“Celie, come on!” Lilah was doing her best to hiss at Celie over her shoulder despite the cramped space. Lord Sefton was ahead of her and hopefully hadn’t gotten stuck.
Reluctantly, Celie crawled into the tunnel, kicking back at the rock that hid the entrance so that it slid into place. She instantly fought the urge to scream as the dank walls closed in on her. She was small enough to have plenty of room to maneuver, but she guessed that Lord Sefton’s shoulders were brushing the walls on either side.
She started forward, bumping her head into Lilah’s bum, which was why Lilah had made Lord Sefton go first. Lilah grunted, and called to Lord Sefton to move, please.
They crawled with interminable slowness, and all the while, Celie could not get the image of the crown sitting there, abandoned, out of her head. The trickle of water could be heard ahead, and even a faint lightening of the gloom, which made Lord Sefton cry out in relief and move faster.
Soon he was moving so quickly that he tumbled headlong into the little stream that fed the moat as their tunnel met the larger one. Celie and Rolf had tried to swim up the stream once, to see where it went, but it soon filled the entire tunnel, and they could not hold their breath long enough to find its end. Lord Sefton squawked and splashed around a bit, before realizing that he could stand, if hunched over, and that the water was only hip deep for him.
Lilah and Celie slithered out of the smaller tunnel and into the water with considerably more grace. They splashed over to the grating, and showed Sefton how the tunnel dropped away, leaving a space between the stone floor and the grating that was about a foot and a half high.
“So we have to try to swim under that?” In the pale, greenish light, his lordship’s face was decidedly sick.
“Rolf and I have done it a couple of times,” Celie said in an offhand way. She was still thinking about the crown.
“And you as well, Princess Delilah?” Sefton turned anxiously to Lilah, who grimaced.
“I’ve been down the tunnel before, but never under the grate,” Lilah said.
She didn’t add that it was because she didn’t like getting her hair wet, unless it was being washed, and Celie didn’t embarrass her, either. She was too busy making up her mind.
“Just take a deep breath, and use the grate to pull yourself down,” Celie instructed.
“I’ll go first,” Lilah offered. “I just want to get it over with.”
“That’s good,” Celie said. “Then you, Lord Sefton.”
“I’ll go last,” he said weakly.
“You’d better not,” Celie said. “I want you to help Lilah get to the army.”
“Ce-lie.” Lilah dragged out the name. “What are you planning?”
“I have to get the crown,” Celie said. “I can’t leave it back there. I don’t want Khelsh touching it.”
“You should have gotten it before we got into the tunnel,” Lilah scolded. “It’s too late now!”
“It’s not too late,” Celie argued. “I’m small; I can be there and back in no time. Probably before you’ve even made it across the moat. Just go. I’ll catch up.”
“All right,” Lilah agreed, and gave her a swift hug.
“You’re going to let your little sister go back?” Lord Sefton stared at them.
“If anyone can get the crown and get back out, it’s Celie,” Lilah said simply. “Come along, my lord.”
She sucked in air, then sat down in the water, grabbing the grate and using it to pull herself down and forward. Celie and Lord Sefton watched, holding their breath as well, until L
ilah’s skirts swirled under the edge of the grate and she began to kick toward the surface on the other side.
“Your turn,” Celie said.
She still didn’t entirely trust Lord Sefton, and so she watched while he took in several breaths, letting them out in great loud ha’s before he took one last breath, ducked into the water, and pulled himself under the grate. He kicked and thrashed so much that he splashed Celie from head to foot, and for a moment she thought he was caught and almost dove down to help him. But he finally passed beneath the grate, and then upward on the other side.
With a sigh of relief, Celie crawled back into the tunnel. She went quickly, feeling very light now that she had no responsibilities to anyone other than herself. All the staff were gone, her brother and sister were out, and the Castle might be brought back to life one day. She eagerly slid open the stone door at the end of the tunnel, and burst into her parents’ bedchamber.
Where Prince Khelsh was not, in fact, jumping on the bed.
He was placing the crown on his head, while the Emissary watched.
Chapter
24
Put that down!”
Celie grabbed the cold torch from the sconce by her head and threw it at Prince Khelsh, who dropped the crown in surprise. It clanged on the stone floor and rolled toward her.
Celie tripped trying to leap out of the tunnel and snatch it, and landed hard at the Emissary’s feet. She managed to get the crown anyway, and wriggled across the floor with it clutched to her chest.
The Emissary fell over her, bruising her ribs, but she could only let her breath out in an “oof!” and then she had to move. She scrambled to her feet and out the door of the bedchamber, with Khelsh right behind her. There was a single guard waiting outside, but he was too startled to follow for a moment. Soon enough, though, Celie could hear him pounding after her, and the Emissary, too, making three heavy sets of footsteps she had to escape.
Tuesdays at the Castle Page 15