There were guards everywhere, lining the streets as the carriage passed through, all of them with their swords drawn, especially until the gate was securely closed behind all of her guards.
The soldiers who would continue to arrive in Wellham from their respective bases would be joining the soldiers already established in the massive camp that encircled the town.
When the carriage came to a stop again, they were in the yard of a house that was likely large by Wellham standards, but much more modest than Tobias’.
Ellen was waiting on the porch. “Interesting ruling, running away from the castle in the middle of the night,” she said after she’d hugged Quinn.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you take after your mother sometimes?”
William coughed once, close to her ear, and tightened his hand around her waist.
“I’ve been told.” Ellen cleared her throat, unfazed. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever pick up on some of the family traits, though. I’m pleased to see I was wrong.”
Behind her, she could practically hear both William’s and Zander’s faces turning shades of red and purple at the remark – though for entirely different reasons, she knew.
Not for the first time, something inside of her swelled in gratefulness that she was going through this with both of them.
The house where Charles and Ellen were staying had long been an important location for the Friends of Philip, Nathaniel had told her. It had once been owned by an original member of the Friends, but nobody had lived there for a long time. Instead, it had been maintained as a safe house by various Friends.
Both Marcus and Nathaniel admitted to having thoughts that they should have checked into Wellham as a possible location for Ellen and Charles, but it was so close to the capital city that they’d thought it too dangerous for anyone to attempt.
Despite the massive security of the town, they were far from safe here. Once word reached Tolliver that Quinn and Samuel were here, they would be inviting all-out attack. And it was surely only a matter of time until word reached the castle.
~ Thirty-Eight ~
Secret Passage
FROM THE FIRST DISCUSSIONS of this plan, Zander hadn’t liked it any more than Quinn had.
This was too close to the castle. Although the last couple of moons at Tobias’ had yielded Quinn a significant army, he just couldn’t help believing that risking putting the queen herself this close to the center of the inevitable battle was a bad idea.
But there wasn’t a better one.
He didn’t trust any of these people as much as he wanted to. He didn’t trust this house, this town, or Charles – or especially Jonathan.
Though it surprised him, he did sort of trust Ellen. She was brash and fierce, but honest. Sometimes brutally so, which he couldn’t help respecting.
If William had been the punching type, he might have taken Ellen out for the comment she’d made to Quinn about her grandmother. Zander, though, was grateful when he didn’t spew snot everywhere from trying to hold in his laughter.
Quinn had picked up a thicker skin over the past few moons, and a much stronger ability to delegate responsibility to those who served her.
And she’d needed those. Desperately.
He wished it relieved him that they’d made it to Wellham – all the way to this “safe house” without incident – but it didn’t. Every minute they spent pretending things were normal, that they were just setting up living quarters in a new, temporary location, that Quinn engaged in idle, catching-up chitchat with her aunt and uncles in the front room of the house made his stomach churn and his hands twitch.
He tried to ignore it as he helped unload the last of the supplies from the carriage and carried them to the back bedrooms of the house.
There would be no private rooms here.
Mia was working diligently to set up a pallet on the floor of one of the rooms for Linnea, though right now Linnea was curled up on the bed that would be Quinn’s and William’s. She wasn’t feeling well after the long carriage ride, and Zander couldn’t blame her.
Samuel was asleep next to her, despite the noise of things being carried in and out and William and Nathaniel loading supplies into a large closet as Zander hovered nearby wearing his sword.
The closet surprised Zander – there weren’t many of those in this world. Even in the castle belongings were stored in armoires and dressers rather than the separate little built-in rooms familiar on Earth.
He’d actually been investigating whether it would be big enough to use as a little room for himself, even with all of William and Nathaniel’s medical supplies inside.
He thought it would. The storage space seemed to take up the entire wall between two rooms. Of course, Linnea might appreciate a small room to herself even more. Maybe he’d talk to Mia about moving the pallet in here in a few minutes.
The whole process of moving in to the new house should have been a rare moment of peace, but Zander just couldn’t convince himself that it was.
Sometimes he hated being right.
He didn’t know what the shouts and stomping and pounding coming from the front of the house meant. He only knew that it wasn’t good and that the baby was back here and so he scooped the infant into his arms.
Samuel was surprised, and Zander was instantly terrified that he might cry, but apparently he was now familiar enough with Zander to be easily soothed by him.
He felt someone grab his arm by the elbow and he whirled around to face Nathaniel, who was frantically waving with his other hand for Zander – and everyone else – to follow him.
The next few seconds made no sense to him, as Nathaniel shooed everyone into the closet. Mia was helping a disoriented Linnea.
William didn’t freak out until Nathaniel closed the closet door with all of them inside.
“Quinn!” he whispered frantically, and Zander heard William’s hand on the inside doorknob.
“No.” Nathaniel’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was far more commanding than Zander had ever guessed him capable of. “The baby is in here.”
Knowing that even Nathaniel’s words wouldn’t be enough for William, whose body was nearly shaking the whole enclosed space, Zander carefully fitted Samuel into his father’s arms.
The shaking stopped.
Zander strained to hear whatever was going on in the rest of the house – he thought he could hear the distant clang of metal, but the sounds were drowned out by whatever Nathaniel was doing, moving objects around in the small room.
No part of Zander could even begin to understand why Nathaniel would be worried about those things right now, let alone to risk making noise to move them, until the soft scraping and footstep noises began moving farther away – like they were falling.
Then there was the distinct sound of something small scraping against stone, and a tiny light flickered to life.
Zander put his hand over his mouth to keep from gasping out loud.
Nathaniel’s face was below them, looking up from a dark, black hole, illuminated now by the tiny flickering light of a white candle. “Come on,” he whispered.
William balked again, backing up toward the closet door. “Not without Quinn.”
Zander would never be able to express how much he agreed with William, but he was possessed of a slightly larger piece of sanity, bolstered by his moons of guard training and war planning.
So he moved behind William and literally pushed him toward the hole.
Mia, who was perhaps the sanest of all of them, reached for the baby, but Zander blocked her hand. He needed William to need to keep Samuel safe himself.
The opening in the floor turned out to be a set of stone stairs, making him wonder just how elaborate this whole Friends of Philip safe house was. A part in the back of his mind wondered who else knew about this little hiding spot, but he couldn’t worry about it.
Once they were all on the stairs, below the level of the floor, Nathaniel lowered the trap door over them.
“We
can’t do this. I need to know what’s happening,” William whispered.
The stress in his voice made Samuel whine, which, thank the Maker, or whoever it was they thanked here, got William to shut up and follow Nathaniel.
Zander grabbed one of the crates that Nathaniel had set on the steps and followed behind everyone, making sure William couldn’t turn around and make a run for it.
William started shaking again when they reached the bottom of the stairs and the black space widened out into a larger area.
Now Zander moved the baby from his arms to Mia’s and grabbed William’s wrist, dragging him away from everyone, but especially from the stairs.
“You have to get it together, Will,” he whispered.
William looked up, twisting his ear toward the ceiling as if he was trying to listen.
Zander sighed. He now remembered the story of Quinn and William under the floorboards in someone’s – Ellen’s? – house. “This isn’t the basement,” he said. “The stairs took us in the direction of the outside wall.” He wasn’t sure how he’d had the presence of mind to notice that, but he knew it was true. He reached up, easily pressing his hand against the low ceiling. “Yep. That’s dirt. We’re not under the house.”
It probably wasn’t a helpful thing to say. He was risking spooking William even more, but everyone needed to be on the same page with the truth. “We can’t leave her! Or Thomas…”
Yeah. Freaking out.
“They have guards, William. They might be fine. What we cannot do is run into the middle of a bad situation with this child. If there even is a bad situation. Keep it together for a little while.”
He looked over at Nathaniel, who was reaching the bottom of the stairs for a second time with another crate. “Will they be able to find us if everything is okay?”
“Marcus will. I don’t know about anyone else.” He walked over to William. “Marcus will take care of her.”
“If he can.”
Nathaniel put his hand on William’s shoulder. Linnea came up on the other side of him and wrapped her arms around one of his. “If something is so wrong up there that Marcus can’t take care of her, then it’s even more important you’re not there. She can’t keep herself safe if she’s worrying about you. The Maker forbid someone uses you against her to get what they want. And Samuel needs one of you. I’d sacrifice myself this instant to go help her if I thought it would, William, but we need to find out what’s going on before we take any risks with her at all.”
William nodded. Even in the dim light Zander could see the flash of understanding form. “She’s the one who can keep me calm in a dark basement, you know.”
“Yeah, well, just remember not to kiss anybody this time, o…kay?”
The remark would probably have had them all laughing, if Linnea’s voice hadn’t sounded so … not right on the last word. Now Zander noticed she was breathing a little heavily, too.
“Ow, Nay!” William’s voice was a bit louder than the whisper they’d all been using. “You’re about to take my arm off. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’d better be. I am not replaying the whole dark-basement scenario again, with or without kissing.”
Good. William was sane again.
“Well,” Nathaniel whispered, “as Zander figured out, we’re not in a basement. We should be under the barn in the back of the house. But we’re not staying here.” “We’re going back up now?” Zander asked. He didn’t think that was a good idea at all.
“No. Mia has Samuel, so can the rest of you grab crates?”
“Okay,” Linnea said. Her voice still didn’t sound normal, “I don’t think I can do a crate, but give me the baby.”
Zander hoped they weren’t going far. He didn’t know where to find one of the long cloths they often used to tie Samuel to someone so he wouldn’t fall. Of course, he couldn’t understand how they could be going anywhere at all.
Crates in hand, they all followed Nathaniel across the space, which was larger than Zander would have expected. When they finally reached the farthest wall, the candle’s light no longer stretched far enough to illuminate the stairs they’d come down.
There was nothing here, though, nowhere else to go.
Or perhaps he was wrong. He heard a faint rustle of something soft, and then the distinct click of a door. A door?
Yes, there was a door here. It had been hidden behind a black cloth, undetectable in the dark underground room unless you knew where it was or brought a lot of light with you.
“Are you ever going to tell Quinn everything you know?” he asked Nathaniel once they were through the door and inside what looked like another black passageway.
“Do you wish anyone up there right now knew about this? Perhaps it would have been great if Thomas had come running back and followed us with someone on his tail?”
He closed his eyes. “I guess I just don’t know how you managed it.”
“Oh, you could become an expert at revealing limited information from people in two different worlds without too much trouble, I think, Zander.”
“I couldn’t,” Linnea said, her voice sort of normal again.
“No.” Nathaniel chuckled as he led them down the – long – whatever it was. “You couldn’t. It’s yet another reason I might not have told everything to Quinn. And anyway, I’d never anticipated having to use this place as a safe house ever again. I’d rather had hopes of using the property for a clinic in Wellham – all of this might have been turned into excellent laboratory and storage space.”
William’s shoulders were beginning to tense up again, so Zander decided to interrupt. “Wellham is going to need a clinic after we finish killing Tolliver. That bedroom is the perfect size for an operating room.”
~ Thirty-Nine ~
Caught
IT HAD TO HAVE been planned, Quinn knew. That much was obvious. There was no other explanation for how perfectly it had gone.
Sure, her soldiers outside had put up a decent fight once they’d realized what was going on – but it had happened too quickly and unobtrusively for them to understand in time.
One minute she’d been standing in the front room of the safe house with Marcus, Ellen, Charles, Dorian, and Thomas, and in the next instant everything had dissolved into pure chaos. There were swords and yelling and green cloaks everywhere, but she couldn’t figure out which were her friends and which were her foes.
She still couldn’t explain exactly what had happened herself. All she knew now was that she was in a moving wagon, alone. Her dagger was gone. She’d planted it in the side of the first man who’d put his arms around her. The shock of seeing him drop to the ground had distracted her for too long to grab it back before someone else had tied her arms behind her back.
At that point, panic had overtaken her. Her only thoughts had been of being pulled away from Samuel and Will as two men took hold of her and carried her outside. Oh, she’d tried to fight back. She’d kicked and yelled, but without her hands, and without her dagger, she’d been completely ineffective.
And she regretted it now. If only she’d been calm – or calmer – she might have been able to take note of faces, to see the horses, to understand something more than the inside of this small carriage.
She had no doubt about where she was being taken, nor about who – ultimately – was behind this. Her mind was filled with the choice words she would say to Tolliver when she saw him.
If she wasn’t killed first.
No – thinking about what she was going to say to Tolliver was much better than allowing bleak thoughts. Her body already ached for Samuel, but she wasn’t going to make the mistake of freaking out again. Samuel had been in the back of the house with William and Linnea. Wherever they were right now – even if it was in another carriage – William would be freaking out, she knew. And they had an agreement. She would stay calm.
* * *
The tunnel went on for much longer than Zander expected it to. This was el
aborate. “How long has this safe house been here?” he asked Nathaniel. It was getting easier to talk in a normal voice. They were now too far from the house to possibly be heard, and there had been no signs of anyone following them. Perhaps nobody else had known about the tunnel.
“A very long time.”
“Who does the house belong to, anyway?” As far as he knew, Ellen and Charles had been staying there on their own, along with Ellen’s husband and some guards. He didn’t have any idea where Charles’ family was, but then Charles had always been careful and secretive about them.
“It belongs to the Friends of Philip. Nobody lives there anymore.”
“But who used to?” This time it was William who asked the question – Zander already knew the answer.
“It was Tobias’ wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then surely some other people knew about this place and this tunnel from the beginning of the Friends of Philip, right?”
Nathaniel stopped walking and turned around to face him. Even in the dim candlelight, the sadness in his eyes was unmistakable. Again, Zander knew the answer before it was spoken. “Other people did, yes. Once.”
Several minutes of silence followed that statement, broken only by a small gasp from Linnea. He looked at her in concern, but the venomous glare he got back in exchange made him look away immediately. Maybe her arms were only getting tired like his were. The crate he was holding seemed to get heavier with every step. Samuel looked fine, so he could leave it be for now.
He didn’t know how far they’d gone when the tunnel changed noticeably. What had been packed dirt under their feet, and dirt walls supported every few feet by wooden beams changed to hard, solid stone all around them.
The temperature dropped, too, and unless he was mistaken, it was getting lighter.
He was about to say something when Nathaniel stopped and set his crate on the ground. “This should be good for now.”
“A cave?” William asked.
“Yes. Where do you think Tobias got the idea of tunneling back to the house? He found this first.”
Leaves of Revolution Page 29
