Chasing Shadows

by Ashley Townsend

  With a final look down the lighted corridor that led to the professor, Sarah quickly turned before she lost her courage and started off toward the dungeons.

  ~Chapter 33~

  Navigating the dark passageway was difficult, and Sarah kept a hand on the wall as she shuffled with careful steps into the blackness. Her fingers slid over a slimy stone, and she jerked her hand back, stifling a shriek of disgust as she scrubbed her palm down her skirt to remove the goo. Spotting a small, flickering light up ahead, she quickened her pace and tried not to dwell on the possibilities of what she might have touched.

  As she drew nearer, the light began to take shape and was joined by several others. Though sparse in number, torches were mounted along the passageway; they gave off enough light that Sarah didn’t have to concentrate so hard on her footing, but she knew this also made it easier for guards to spot her sneaking around. With this in mind, she kept close to the wall, careful not to brush up against any suspicious substances.

  She saw the split in the passage and could just make out the faint outline of the cells up ahead. Crouching at the fork, she peered down each of the corridors, recalling that Damien had ordered for the physician to be kept isolated. If they wanted to keep him sequestered, they would have put him somewhere remote, but where could he be?

  When Karen had been imprisoned, Will had snuck Sarah down here. It was hard to be sure with the disorienting darkness, but she was almost positive that the two of them had come through one of these passages. She tried to remember if they had passed any secluded cells, but it seemed so long ago now. It felt like her mind was adjusting to time here, and it really did feel as though four months had passed since that day.

  Hoping to jog her memory, she swept her eyes over her surroundings, but everything was shrouded in shadows and difficult to make out. Not seeing any guards, Sarah stepped out into the center divide, hoping to get a better look at her options. The faint sound of jangling keys suddenly reached her ears from behind, growing louder. Alarm spread through her when she realized that someone was headed her way.

  She immediately ducked into the darkest passage on her left, trying to get her breathing level, and moved quickly away from the approaching guard. Her foot caught on a loose stone, and it skidded across the floor. Sarah winced at the slight sound. It hadn’t been loud enough for the guard to hear, but she didn’t want to draw the prisoners’ attentions, either. The last time she and Will had been here, they had caused a stir among the captives, who pleaded loudly with them for help. She couldn’t risk them alerting the guard to her presence, however inadvertent it might be.

  Moving down the line of cells with quieter steps, she looked at the occupants for the first time. All of the prisoners here were men, both young and old. Thankfully, most of them had slept through her noisy misstep, lying in the corner of their cells, their arms wrapped around their filthy clothes to warm themselves. A few of the younger men appeared otherwise engaged with staring off into space, though one boy was quietly rolling a small round stone back and forth across the floor between his hands. The sound had probably covered her stumble earlier.

  Holding her breath as the scent of their filth reached her nostrils, she lengthened her strides. A wall appeared suddenly before her, forcing her to go right or left. Each narrow hall led to the door of a cell, but only the one on the left was locked and had a lit torch mounted just outside the door. That had to be it!

  Her heart thumped noisily in her chest as she crept down the passage and neared the bars of the cell. She caught a faint, unintelligible murmur coming from the inside and swallowed. A lone figure was hunched over in the back corner, facing away from her. He was talking to himself, etching words into the stone floor with a jagged rock. Shadows hovered in the corners of the twelve-by-twelve foot room, making it nearly impossible to distinguish the crudely scratched writing on the walls. But although some of the markings had been gouged deeply into the stone or were freshly etched onto the walls, Sarah could make out enough to see that it was one word repeated over and over, covering the walls and just now starting to take over the miniscule floor space, clearly defining a madman’s obsession.

  Someone’s been busy, she thought, disturbed over the unreadable markings.

  Sarah reached up to wrap her fingers around the bars and then thought better of it, folding her arms around her middle. The man appeared engaged, but she couldn’t just wait around until a guard spotted her and dragged her away. She hoped being friends with Damien had given her a certain amount of immunity, and she was not going to miss this opportunity because she felt awkward about interrupting a one-sided conversation. She cleared her throat loudly, then shot an anxious look over her shoulder.

  The man flipped his free hand in the air in a dismissive gesture, but he didn’t turn her way. “My thanks,” he commented sarcastically, scratching at the ground.

  Sarah blinked, surprised. He’d barely acknowledged her. She shook her head, though he couldn’t see the gesture. “I’m not a servant.” Her words echoed off the arched ceiling, and she grimaced.

  The physician’s head whipped around, and he was off his knees in a flash. She heard the rock clatter to the floor, but he didn’t stoop to retrieve it. His eyes were wide as he wrung his hands in front of him. He didn’t seem to know what to make of her presence. “P-Pardon me, miss,” he stuttered. His voice was soft, but hoarse from disuse. “A mute has been servicing me here—that is why I replied so informally.”

  She was taken aback by his alert gaze and the clarity of his tone. She realized that despite his odd mutterings and obsessive writing, he sounded completely lucid.

  Sarah was already shaking her head in dismissal. “Don’t worry.” His shocked gaze remained fixed on her, and she shifted her weight to her other leg as she considered what to say. After half a minute of total silence, she whispered, “I’m Sarah.”

  The name didn’t seem to ring any bells with him. Ten seconds ticked by before he seemed to collect himself. He stepped toward the bars, keeping a respectable distance between them. “Malcolm Devlin, miss. I am—” He cleared his throat and pulled himself up to his full five-and-a-half-feet. “I was the physician to the royal family.”

  He was so dirty and thin, making him appear smaller and older than she knew him to be. Sarah wished she had thought to bring something for him—water, food, an extra blanket—though this had not been her original destination.

  “That’s why I wanted to speak with you.” She jumped at the segue, the words running together in such a rush that she hoped he understood. “I’m not supposed to be here, but you were the one who treated the king before he died, correct?”

  The physician’s face became suddenly suspicious. “Yes,” he replied slowly, shuffling backward a fraction of an inch. “It’s common knowledge.”

  Sarah gripped the bars, pressing her face as close as she dared. “Did anything about his sickness strike you as unusual?”

  He was already shaking his head, retreating to the back wall. His dark eyes were wide with fright. “No, no. It was a potentially contagious infection—quite typical.” He pointed down the passage. “You need to leave.”

  “I’m not here to threaten you. I just want the truth.” Her eyes searched his nervous face; he didn’t look like he wanted to talk, and she knew she would have to goad him. Knowing he wasn’t in a position to cause her harm, she threw caution to the wind and gave up all pretense of curiosity. “You must have known something was wrong. Did they pay you to keep the secret? Or did you poison the king yourself?”

  She didn’t think it was possible, but his eyes rounded even more. “I would never—they didn’t—” The physician seemed at a loss as his lips worked silently. “It was an infection. . . .” His voice faded, and he bit his lip, gaze riveted to the ground.

  Sarah softened her tone. “If you didn’t do it, then who did?”

  He seemed to debate whether or not to trust her. Then he moved forward, grabbing the bars below her hands. She pulled back
a few inches to put some distance between them as Malcolm fidgeted in place, his gaze darting about nervously.

  “Who, Mr. Devlin?” she prodded, then thought to add, “You can trust me.”

  “I am telling you the truth when I say that I cannot be certain.” His answer was careful and gave away nothing.

  “But you suspect someone.” It was written all over his face and in the anxious way his gaze shifted around his cell and the empty hallway.

  Malcolm waved his head from side to side. “A few of us have our suspicions,” he answered slowly. His eyes snapped to hers suddenly, all at once alert and intense. “His disease was unnatural, miss. The progression of it . . . I spent months treating him, and nothing about the illness aligned with what I’ve learned. I tried everything, but because of my lack of knowledge, I could not treat him. I suspect it was untreatable.” The regret in his eyes was clear in the muted torchlight.

  She remembered Will thwarting an attempt on the king’s life once, overturning a goblet of poisoned wine. Obviously, it had not been the only attempt.

  Sarah’s pulse picked up in excitement, and she asked the one question that she hoped would receive a straight answer. “Do you think it’s possible that a poison could have done that to him? Over such a long period of time?”

  He studied the ceiling, as though the answer were hidden there. “Yes, it’s quite possible, if administered in low doses over time.” He expelled a sigh, and Sarah tried not to be so obvious about holding her own breath. “I consulted the lord Cadius on the matter after the first month, but he recommended that I continue on with the treatment I was administering and not mention the idea of a toxin to anyone. Since he was the king’s advisor, I was required to obey.”

  Gripping the bars a little tighter with her slick palms, Sarah swallowed back her eager questions; the man was clearly lost in the past, brows drawn in regret.

  “I should have known.” Malcolm’s words were so quiet she almost missed them. His bleary gaze was fixed on the wall just over her shoulder.

  Sarah angled her head to better see his face. “What should you have known?”

  When he did meet her eyes, his lips turned up in a bleak, humorless smile. “Even you suspect the same man we all do.” She noticed that he never mentioned Cadius by name. The man was like a ghost that haunted them all.

  “If I had acted on my doubts, I might have been able to stop him.” Whatever color life underground hadn’t yet sapped from his skin drained from Malcolm’s face in that moment. “And now I am here because I’m the last piece of the puzzle.”

  Sarah pressed closer to the bars, shaking her head. “You’re in here because you attacked Damien,” she reminded, feeling instantly defensive of her friend.

  “No,” he whispered hoarsely. “I remain because they want me out of the way.”

  That much made sense, but she still didn’t understand why he had fought with Damien and said as much to him. His hands covered hers in an instant. Startled, Sarah tried to pull free, but his grip was intense, frail fingers clinging desperately to her and pinning her hands around the bars. The scraped metal grated her palms. “It wasn’t as it seemed. You need to go back to the room—”

  Sarah’s head whipped in the direction of the hall. She heard the same rattling of keys from earlier and knew the guard was coming back this way. She turned to Malcolm. “I have to go.” She tried to slip her hands free, but his grip only tightened.

  “You must come back soon, my lady.” His eyes burned with desperation. Sarah said she would, but he must have sensed her half-hearted agreement. He pressed his face against the bars. “I’m the only thing keeping them from getting away with this,” he whispered, trying to make her understand. He emphasized his next words, eyes burning feverishly with desperation and fear. “I. Won’t. Have. Long.”

  She nodded, knowing the guilty party wouldn’t allow such a small player in the game to foil their plan. “I promise. I’ll come back soon.”

  He let her slip free, and her eyes scanned his cell one final time before escaping down the corridor. She hid around the corner of the other secluded cell across the hall, waiting in the dark for the guard to pass before dashing up the stairs. As she ran, her adrenaline kicked in, clearing her mind. Pieces of the word Malcolm had been scratching into the floor suddenly took shape in her mind. Not a word, but a name.

  Lisandro.

  But maybe she had read it wrong, or the light could have played tricks on her eyes, giving the illusion that the crude markings were all one word. She shook her head at that. Damien’s name had been written all over the cell and from so many different angles; it would be nearly impossible to mistakenly read every one of them. But then why Malcolm’s obsession with the name Lisandro? Was it a guilty conscience fixating on the man he had wronged? Did he wish for retribution against Damien for commanding that he be put in here, or was it something more?

  Her mind became occupied with trying to tie in this latest confusing piece of the puzzle and decide if it held any relevance to the greater mystery, or if the carvings in the cell truly were the obsessive ramblings of a madman. Sarah glanced around, realizing that she had gone the wrong way, and started to panic until she saw the cracked door at the top of the stairs, spilling a modicum of light onto the first few steps at the top of the narrow staircase. As long as it led up and away from the dungeons below, then she could find her way from there.

  Dragging a hand over the wall to keep her balance on the short, high steps, she moved quickly towards the top, feeling more on edge by the minute as she neared the sliver of light. She stepped on something small and hard, pinning it to the ground as her other foot became entangled on the rest of it. Sarah fell hard against the stairs before she could correct her footing, and she heard the object clatter against the stones, landing noisily a few steps down.

  With a start, she jumped up from her flattened position and lurched over the few remaining steps. She burst through the door, mindless of anyone on the other side. Panting, she stared into the darkness below, unable to make out anything. Her initial panic began to subside in the light of the hall, and she felt silly for overreacting.

  Sarah sent a self-conscious glance over the empty hall, unable to push aside the feeling that she had been here before. Racking her memory for the answer, she realized that this had been the passage the false Shadow had escaped into. This just happened to be the staircase she mistakenly stumbled upon? Karen would call it providence.

  Slipping a low-burning torch from its perch, Sarah slowly picked her way down the stairs. Her narrowed eyes scanned the stones, searching. The light caught on an object further down, causing it to glitter faintly in the darkness. She squinted but couldn’t make it out. Holding the torch far in front of her, she made her way down the steps.

  Torchlight bounced off the object, reflecting golden light as she neared, and it began to take shape. Brow twisting in confusion at what she saw, Sarah stooped to grab the gold chain and held it up to the light. It wasn’t the fob that gave her pause, since she had seen some men at the castle wear the short chain on their clothes in a decorative fashion. It was the heavy round object on the other end that put her mind into overdrive.

  “How on earth . . .” she whispered in confusion. Was that even possible? She spent a minute examining the round object to make sense of what she was seeing and then pressed the knob at the top. The mechanism sprung open, and she gasped aloud at what it revealed. She shook her head, unbelieving, as her eyes scanned the contents.

  A memory she had previously thought insignificant suddenly resurfaced, momentarily blinding her to all else—a man fiddling with the chain in his pocket. Seemingly a harmless gesture to relieve nervous energy, but to Sarah it meant answers . . . and more questions.

  She forgot her reasons for questioning why Damien’s name was all over the physician’s cell, her quest to bring Cadius to justice, and why she was even here. The sudden onslaught of total confusion and surprise momentarily overshadowed the disparagin
g feeling of Will’s death as a barrage of emotions roiled within her—surprise, bewilderment, anger, despair, rage, disappointment, betrayal. They flooded through her at once, clouding her vision and making her blood pump until a rushing sound filled her ears. Sarah shook her head. She didn’t know what to make of any of this, but she was going to do something about it.

  Folding the chain in the palm of her hand, she formed a fist around the ice-cold object. She made her way back up the staircase, closing the door and slipping the torch back into its perch. With purposeful strides, she moved through the hall and down the stairs, facing the ground to avoid eye contact with the servants milling about the foyer. Once outside, each step became more determined than the last. Sarah vaguely felt the bite of crisp wind against her face and realized she hadn’t brought a coat. Then she tightened her shaky grip around the chain and suddenly forgot all about the cold.

  She moved down the street, teeth clenching when she spotted the person she sought. They stepped into the building, and she hurried after the fraud, stopping just inside the doorway. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her inward struggle for control.

  At last, she was able to speak. “Why did you do it?” No beating around the bush, just a question she wasn’t sure she even wanted an answer to.

  Robert dropped the heavy sacks on the ground with a thud and looked up at her in surprise. His face relaxed into a smile. “Taylor isn’t here.” Then his expression tightened when he caught the look on her face. “Everything all right?” he asked cautiously, clearly sensing that she was barely holding back her rage.

  “Why?” she demanded. Angry tears burned the back of her throat but she wouldn’t let Edith’s killer see her cry.

  He thrust his chin out, eyebrows rising in genuine confusion. “Why . . .?”