Gabe pulled it open and strode confidently inside. I followed on his heels, closing the door quickly behind us. I turned to find myself in a small, plain antechamber.
I didn’t have time to do more than absorb the shape of the room before Gabe grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me through a second narrow door. It swung shut behind us just as the antechamber filled with voices and tramping feet moving through and out of the Keep.
“That was close.”
I stared up at Gabe, my eyes wide. Why did he sound amused?
“I’m fairly certain the door on the other side of the room led through to the kitchen,” he added. “And I imagine that’s a busy place this morning, particularly. I bet as many of the servants as possible are finding reasons to swing past in the hope of participating in the taste testing.”
He was actually smiling, the mad prince, as if he found the extra challenge exciting. I pulled away and looked around us. We had hidden ourselves in the bottom of a stairwell, worn stone stairs spiraling up away from us, the narrow walls closing in on them. A servant’s stairway, no doubt.
“Upward then?” Gabe asked behind me, and with a sigh, I put my foot on the first step.
Every time we approached a landing, I held my breath, but no one appeared. This must not be the only set of servant’s stairs in the Keep, then.
We continued heading upward. Leander’s study was somewhere near the top, and we’d agreed to start there if we could. Thanks to Audrey, we already knew we weren’t likely to find the enchanted objects anywhere else.
I didn’t think we’d climbed high enough to reach the top level when the stairs ended, spitting us out into a large central space ringed with doors and broken by the top of a large, formal staircase. I frowned at it. I must have misjudged then, if even the main stairs ended here.
“Over there,” Gabe said quietly, pointing at one of the doors.
It didn’t look any different from the others, but a tray sat on the floor in front of it. Jumbled on the tray were the remains of a large meal, the dirty crockery now containing only a single crust of bread and the dregs of a cup of tea.
“Breakfast,” Gabe whispered. “Left outside the door, so the maids have no reason to enter, just like Audrey said.”
I turned my head to look up at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” he murmured back, “that is the question, isn’t it? Is he still in there?”
I frowned. That was a good question, but it wasn’t the one I had been thinking of—namely how we were to get in there ourselves. But now that he had raised the question of Leander’s current location, I couldn’t think of anything else. What if we somehow broke into the room, only to end up face to face with the lord himself?
I stared at the door in question, as if I could somehow see through the wood to the room beyond. Steps sounded behind us, coming up the servants’ stairs as we had done, and this time I was the one to pick a door and pull it open.
I peeked inside before stepping through and gesturing Gabe to follow. He whisked himself in but didn’t close the door completely behind us, instead leaving it open a crack and setting his eye against it.
I left him to his spying while I looked around. We stood in what looked like a guest suite—once lavishly decorated but now looking old and worn. I couldn’t see any dust, however, so the maids, at least, must visit it regularly. My eyes flew to the door, but no one had appeared, so this must not have been their destination on this occasion.
Hurrying back over to Gabe, I tapped him on the shoulder and made a questioning gesture. He turned his head to look at me, and I took a quick step backward. I hadn’t been prepared to find his face so close to mine, the gold flecks of his eyes standing out as he grinned at me.
“It was two maids collecting the tray,” he said. “And talking about how Leander will be back in his study soon and probably wanting an early lunch. Which means he’s not there now.”
He stepped away from the door, leaving room for me to peer through the gap myself. No one was in sight. I pulled out the piece of paper I had tucked inside my dress. A bad feeling kept snaking up and down my spine.
“Not at all,” Gabe said. “We were seen by at least two people outside in the courtyard, and I’m fairly certain at least one person saw us before I got you into the stairwell.”
What? I stared at him.
He shrugged. “I would have been a great deal more concerned about attempting something like this under normal circumstances, but we have a decided advantage here. With everyone so meek, no one is too inclined to investigate anything. As long as we mostly stay out of people’s way and don’t cause a ruckus, anyone who sees us will gladly look the other way and assure themselves there’s some legitimate reason for our presence.”
I gaped at him. Of course. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself.
“Sorry,” he said. “I should have mentioned it. I just assumed you’d be thinking the same thing.”
I felt like a bit of a fool now. But in my defense, this was the first time I had done anything like this. Somehow I had the suspicion Gabe had spent a significant part of his childhood sneaking into and out of various places. And, of course, danger remained. There was one person here we still needed to avoid at all costs.
“Come on,” Gabe said. “Now’s our chance.”
He headed directly for the door to Leander’s study, reaching over once he got there to pull something from his boot. Bending, he began to fiddle with the door. I hurried after him. Was that…?
Yes. Yes, it was. Gabe had come equipped with lock picks—and apparently knew how to use them. Any lingering doubt about the activities of his youth disappeared.
When the door clicked, swinging open at the push of his hand, he gave a satisfied grin. “My foster mother—Queen Juliette—always called me a reprobate, but you just never know when a skill like this might come in useful.”
I put my hand in the middle of his back and gave him a push into the room. When we had found and destroyed any godmother objects, and I had my voice back, I could shower him with the praises he clearly desired. For now, we needed to move quickly.
I closed the door carefully behind him, re-locking it with the key I found on this side. At least it would give us some warning when Leander arrived. Turning quickly back around, I stood and gaped.
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. The word study evoked a large desk and shelves of books—perhaps an armchair or two. And it was certainly possible there was a desk and armchairs in here—somewhere. There were certainly books, but they weren’t lined up on any sort of shelving. Instead they were strewn around in haphazard piles or lying open as if they had been flung away at some point and never touched again.
Everywhere I looked was chaos, mismatched items in a wide range of sizes scattered around on every available surface. The books competed with various items of clothing, innumerable sheets of parchment, several inkwells—one of which had tipped over, spilling its contents over nearby objects—and a number of items that looked entirely out of place in a study. At a quick glance, I picked out several staffs of different lengths and types of wood, a number of glass receptacles—some with murky liquids clinging to their bottoms—several plants, both alive and dead, four large baskets, at least fifty spoons, two ornate mirrors, three combs, a brush, and a long, rolled up carpet.
Even Gabe looked daunted by the room.
“How are we supposed to find anything in all of this?”
In case the room wasn’t strange enough, a heavy smoke rolled slowly from under a door on one side of the room. It clung to the carpet, drifting along the wall until it managed to float up and out of the large window Stormy had flown past. An ominous popping sound came from behind the door. I glanced around the cluttered study again and then back at the door. Please let the object be in here and not in there.
“Do you think he remembers where ev
erything is?” Gabe asked, pulling my attention away from the smoke. “Because I don’t see how we can search through this without moving things. I was hoping to keep our presence here concealed.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t know enough about Leander to hazard a guess as to how well he knew his room. It didn’t look like the detritus of someone who paid attention, but people could be tricky like that.
“Maybe we should look for something that’s locked?” Gabe suggested, still sounding a little lost.
He walked toward a large, cedar chest, and I cast around for anything else with a lock. The first thing I saw was another door, almost directly opposite the one still emitting the strangely heavy smoke. This one looked more like the door to a cupboard than a room, however, so I went to investigate.
It opened easily, but I stuck my head in anyway. The small, square storage room, lined with shelves, appeared far more ordered than the main room. It had a pungent, musty smell, and I recognized various dried herbs tied into small bunches. There was nothing that looked like it could possibly be a godmother object, however, so I had just started to pull my head back out when I heard the ominous sound of the keyhole.
“Gabe!” The hiss that emerged caught his attention as easily as his name.
I gestured frantically inside the cupboard, my other hand still gripping the door. In four strides he had reached me and brushed past into the space. I threw myself after him, forcing myself to take the time to close the door silently behind us.
My heart beat rapidly as I held my breath, the darkness alleviated only by a thin line of light along the bottom of the cupboard door. Movement sounded from the room on the other side, and I stepped back without thinking, colliding with Gabe.
He steadied me, and for a moment we froze, both at awkward angles, our heads turned toward the door.
Please don’t need any herbs, I thought. Please don’t need any herbs.
Some other door opened and then closed again, but I was fairly certain it hadn’t been the door into the study. The smoke door, then.
I looked up at Gabe, but it was too dark to make out his face. He must have sensed my movement, though, because he quickly dropped his hands from my arms, stepping back as far as possible to put a little distance between us. I could still hear his whisper clearly, however.
“If he’s gone into that other room, then this might be our only chance to escape this cupboard.”
I reached out and fumbled down his arm until I found his hand, bringing it up to place it against the side of my face. I wanted him to feel that I was shaking my head. He took one tiny step closer.
“I know we haven’t found the object yet, but who knows how long we’ll be trapped in this cupboard if we stay now? Ash will leave, and then we’ll be stuck inside the Keep.” He sounded afraid, and it wasn’t like him.
“We have to get you back to the lake before dark,” he whispered, and it burst on me that his fear was for me.
I had already been determined to stay, but a new courage formed inside me at his fear—as if rising to meet the gap where his used to be. He feared for me, but I would be brave for us both.
I pulled out my paper and dropped down onto my knees, placing it on the ground in the strip of light from the bottom of the door. Gabe crouched down beside me, the two of us pressed side by side and brushing up against the herbs on the shelves.
It took me a long time to write, but Gabe waited patiently. When I finished, he nodded slowly, the gesture visible now that my eyes had adjusted. I could even make out something of his expression. He looked torn—half proud, half worried.
I looked away to hide a smile. It would no doubt do him good to be worrying about someone else’s bold actions for once.
Several hours later, my back was regretting my brief foray into recklessness. Sitting comfortably was difficult in such a cramped space, and the shelves on every wall made even finding a back rest difficult. After the first twenty minutes I had abandoned my efforts to keep from touching Gabe, and we were now positioned on opposite sides of the cupboard, our legs stretched out in varying positions, often against each other.
But even if I had wanted to do so, the chance to change my mind was long gone. Ash would be back in Brylee by now, and Leander had returned to the main room of his study quickly. He had lingered there ever since, moving around, throwing things, and muttering inaudibly. Gabe had spent some time pressed up against the door, trying to hear what he was saying to himself, but had eventually given up.
I tamped down on my mounting fear, forcing myself not to endlessly calculate how much time might have passed. Instead I tried to review everything I had seen in the room and consider what the godmother object might be and where Leander might be keeping it.
My mind kept reliving the first time I had stumbled onto the lake. I had been following a voice calling my name. I knew now it must have been Leander, although it hadn’t sounded like him. He had been waiting for me, however. The image formed behind my closed eyelids, made more real by the low murmur of his voice through the cupboard door.
He had been kneeling by the lake, although he had stood up as soon as I arrived, smiling a smile that did nothing to put me at ease. I wouldn’t have accepted a drink from him if I hadn’t been so thirsty, and if he hadn’t given me a small, empty glass bottle that I had filled myself from the lake.
The bottle stuck in my memory, catching on the images of all the items scattered around his study. There had been several glass receptacles, although none that were an exact match for the bottle he had offered me that day. What had happened to it? I strained to remember. I had handed it back to him, I was sure of that. And he had claimed to be thirsty as well, so I hadn’t drunk it all. But had I ever actually seen him drink from it?
I didn’t think so. And when I recalled the image of him strolling out of the clearing, my mind included a flash of light from something in his hand.
I straightened, the movement sudden enough to produce a similar response from Gabe.
“What is it?” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “Did you hear something?”
I shook my head. Pulling my paper back out, I flipped it over so I could write on the back.
I didn’t attempt to explain anything of that day by the lake—writing and reading in the low light was a strain, and I didn’t want to run out of space in case I needed it later.
Gabe read the words twice through and nodded. As if to punctuate our renewed enthusiasm for the search, we heard the sound of the main door opening. We waited while it closed again and the key scraped in the lock.
I stood nearest the door, so I pulled it open a fraction, peering out. I could see no sign of Leander, so I didn’t hesitate, moving out into the room and starting to scan the mess. My eyes latched onto any sign of glass or anything reflective, passing over both of the mirrors and a number of glass jars and bottles that were too large.
Gabe, however, had crossed directly to the window.
“Adelaide.” He sounded strangled.
I looked over and felt my face pale, then warm. Even more time had passed while we were in the cupboard than I had feared. Already the sun was setting, the round ball of light passed below the level of the trees.
“Quick,” he said. “Can you sketch the bottle we’re looking for?”
I grabbed an empty piece of parchment at random from the various stacks lying around and drew a rough outline of the bottle as best I could remember it. Gabe gripped it in his hand as he rushed aro
und the room, examining everything he passed.
Clearly he had abandoned any idea of stealth. Anything that caught his attention he snatched up, discarding it when it didn’t match my sketch.
I watched him for only a moment before hurrying into action myself. Following his lead, I thrust aside piles of papers and clothes heedlessly, searching for anything that might be lurking underneath. The room darkened, and a tightness gripped my limbs, stress making my hands fumble when they had been steady before. I could already feel the first pinpricks of pain, although some light still lingered in the sky. Apparently my mind was producing it in anticipation.
“Addie! Over here!” Gabe called dangerously loudly, and I flew to his side.
He held out a small bottle, rounded, with a long neck, just as I had described. It was a third full of what looked like clear water, a cork stoppering it. Behind Gabe, a small display cabinet rested beside the window.
I nodded, suddenly nervous. It looked like the bottle I remembered, but it had been two years, and I hadn’t taken particular note of it at the time.
I clasped it in my hands, feeling the familiar shape. Then, with a sudden movement, I lifted it over my head and threw it hard at the stone floor. It landed with a splintering crash, the water splattering out in all directions.
Almost simultaneously, the darkness descended, even the lake outside the window ceasing to reflect any lingering rays of light. Gabe and I stood facing each other in the gloom.
“Well?” he asked, his voice full of trepidation. “Did it work?”
I took in a slow, deep breath and then another.
“I feel fine—no pain at all.”
Even the anticipatory pinpricks were gone. I was free.
Gabe swept me into his arms, spinning me around blindly before dropping me back onto my feet where I staggered and nearly tripped over some discarded object on the ground.
“That’s excellent news,” he said. “Now we just need to check if there’s anything else of interest here. And then we should probably find that tunnel before Leander returns and decides to kill us both on the spot.”
A Captive of Wing and Feather Page 16
