Annie was getting used to walking through narrow passages with only torchlight to show the way, although she didn’t like it. After climbing stairs that were so steep and shallow that the toes of her shoes barely fit on the step, she was glad to be on a level floor again.
She almost tripped over Liam when he stopped suddenly and bent down to lift a stone out of the floor, revealing a hole as big as his fist. “What is that?” she asked.
“This looks down through the ceiling in the great hall. You can’t see much from here, but it’s surprising how much you can hear. Hold on. Let me listen.”
Liam held his ear close to the opening for nearly a minute before he sat back and shook his head. “It seems there’s nothing to hear—no talking or footsteps or snoring or anything. I don’t think anyone is down there, which is very unusual. Let’s go check the kitchen.”
They descended another narrow set of stairs and reached a short corridor that smelled strongly of old smoke and stale food. Annie found the skeleton of a dead rat in the middle of the floor and stepped around it. When she heard a scraping sound, she thought it was another rat, but it was Liam taking the cover off a tiny peephole. Pressing his face to the wall, Liam peered into the kitchen. Annie held her breath and heard the faint sound of metal banging against metal.
“What did you see?” she asked when he closed the peephole.
“A guard rooting through the pots and pans. I heard someone else moving around, too, so there were at least two of them.”
“Could I get to look sometime? Even if there isn’t much to see,” said Annie.
“Oh, sure. Sorry! We’ll go back upstairs now and see if my father is in his room.”
They walked for what seemed like miles, climbing more stairs and following paths that zigged and zagged around oddly shaped rooms, public stairwells, and hidden niches. They passed outlines of doors cut into the walls as well as peepholes and sliding panels, both large and small. Annie felt as if Liam was giving her a tour of all the secret passages in his father’s castle, but she was certain he had a destination in mind.
They were walking down yet another narrow, dust-filled corridor when Annie sneezed. The dust they stirred up tickled her nose and throat, and she sneezed again and again.
“Shh!” Liam whispered. “We have to be extra-quiet through here. There are bedchambers on either side of us.”
Annie fought to get her sneezing under control. She pinched her nose and held her breath until her eyes watered. When she didn’t sneeze again, she gave Liam a weak smile, took a shallow breath, and coughed. “It’s the dust,” she said. “Sorry.”
Liam took his knapsack off his back and reached inside. “Here, we’ll tie this over your face. It might cut down on the dust.”
Annie held her breath while he tied a clean handkerchief just under her eyes, knotting it behind her head. “I feel like a bandit,” she said when he was done. “Wearing a mask and lurking behind the walls.”
“Prettiest bandit anywhere,” Liam said, kissing her cloth-covered nose. “Now watch and learn. This is my father’s room. I can tell by the mark I made on the wall years ago. Let’s see if he’s in.”
Annie looked at the circle with the star drawn on the wall next to a full-size outline of a door. She thought Liam was going to open the door, but instead he stepped about three feet to his left and slid a small panel to the side. After peering through the opening for a moment, he moved aside, saying, “No one is in there, but you can take a look if you’d like.”
Annie peeked into the room. From where she stood, she could see part of the drapes that surrounded the bed, a sizeable cabinet, and a small table with a single chair. As far as she could tell, nothing was moving in the room and the only sounds she could hear were her own breathing and heartbeat.
“You’re right,” she told Liam as she slid the panel shut. “There’s no one there.”
“I’ve never heard silence like this before,” said Liam. “There’s usually some noise even in the middle of the night.”
“Now you know what it was like when Gwennie touched the spinning wheel and everybody in the castle fell asleep except me,” said Annie. “There were people everywhere, yet I never felt so alone in my life.” She turned from the panel to the outline of the door. “Why is there a panel here when there is already a door into the room?”
“As far as I can figure out, these passages were built into the castle for the first king of Dorinocco. He probably used the door to go places in secret. The panel was probably put in so he could make sure no one, like the queen or even a maid cleaning his room, was there when he returned.”
“Ah,” said Annie. “So why were there doors and panels to other rooms?”
“I suppose it was so he could spy on everyone else, or visit people without anyone else knowing.”
“He sounds very sneaky,” said Annie.
“Or very shrewd,” Liam said as he glanced down the length of the passageway. “Let’s check some of the other rooms. You take that side and I’ll take this one.”
Annie nodded. Reluctant to spy on people and invade their privacy, she was nervous and slid the first panel aside slowly and carefully. She held her breath as she peeked inside, but it was just another furniture-filled room with no one in it. Moving on to the next, she slid it aside more quickly and found a nearly identical room. While Liam peered into one room after another, Annie took her time. After checking a few rooms, she began to think that none of them were occupied and she and Liam were wasting their time.
Annie and Liam both looked up when they heard the faint sound of a door slam somewhere nearby. “Sounds like someone isn’t in a good mood,” Liam whispered. “Let’s see if we can find out why.”
They heard voices then, muted by the wall, but still distinguishable as the higher-pitched voice of a woman and the lower pitch of a man. Moving as quietly as they could, Annie and Liam located the room by following the voices. The panel covering the opening to the room was set back in a little alcove. The dust was thicker there, tickling Annie’s nose despite the handkerchief. She looked up when she heard Liam’s indrawn breath.
“This is my mother’s room,” whispered Liam. “See the mark on the wall?” Annie nodded when she spotted the circle with an X through it that marked the door. “This means she got out of the tower somehow. Whatever is going on here, she must be behind it.”
The voices were louder now, as if the people inside were shouting, but Annie still couldn’t make out what they were saying. When Liam slid the panel aside, Annie stepped closer. “It is my mother,” Liam breathed as he peeked into the room. “And Clarence! My dear brother is back from his travels in time to cause trouble. I should have guessed.”
“Shh! Let’s listen!” whispered Annie.
“It isn’t right!” the queen complained to her son Clarence. “I should never have promised the wizard that I’d stay in the castle until his return. Now his men think they have the right to keep me here. And it isn’t at all the way I thought it would be. You said that Dormander’s wizard would help him take over Treecrest in days, but he still isn’t back!”
“He’s a very powerful wizard,” said Clarence. “They’re probably on their way back now.”
“Powerful, you say? Then why did the spell he cast on everyone last only a day?”
“Everyone but us, Mother,” said Clarence. “You know I wouldn’t let him use his magic on us.”
“I know, dear boy, and everything would have been fine if the spell had lasted as long as he promised. The wizard told us that everyone will think we’re the rightful rulers. ‘They’ll turn on Montague and lock him in the dungeon,’ he said. And then he left and a day later the spell started wearing off and we had to make the last few loyal guards lock everyone in the dungeon, then lock themselves in as well before they remembered the truth. Now we have no servants to cook or clean.”
“But that guard—”
“Don’t you dare tell me again that the guard who took over the cooking is doing a decent job, because he isn’t! The fish last night was burned and not at all fresh. I’m surprised it didn’t give me stomach issues. To think I don’t even have any ladies-in-waiting to help me dress, or courtiers to entertain me, and the only guards who aren’t locked away are the few men the wizard left here. And those guards won’t let us leave even though we ordered them to. I’m a prisoner in my own home! I need a bath and a decent meal. Going down to the dungeon to talk to your father is my only entertainment, and he hasn’t been pleasant to me in years. I was better off locked in the tower, Clarence. I’m not saying I don’t want you home, because I’m delighted that you’re back, but did you have to bring that wizard with you?”
“I met him at the seaport when they were boarding their ships,” said Clarence. “When he learned who I was, he insisted on bringing me back. It wasn’t as if I had any say in the matter. Besides, I was sure he would help our cause.”
“He and his king are probably helping themselves to Treecrest and leaving us here to rot,” the queen declared.
Liam’s mother was no longer shouting, and Annie found it harder to hear her. She took a step closer to the wall, stirring up more dust. Feeling the tickle in her nose, she clapped her hand over her face and tried her best not to sneeze, but it came out anyway in a short, sharp, slightly strangled sound.
“What was that?” asked Clarence even as Liam slid the panel shut.
“Sorry!” Annie whispered to Liam.
“It’s all right,” he whispered back. “We heard enough. I know where everyone is and what we have to do now.”
Liam strode to the closest set of stairs, walking so quickly that Annie had to run to keep up. They went down the stairs, along another passage, then down two more sets of stairs, including the one with the shallow steps that Annie hated. As soon as they reached the last step, Liam turned left and walked a short distance to what looked like a solid wall. Running his hands across the surface of the wall, he found a small protrusion and moved it down a few inches. Rock groaned and a door opened. The torchlight wavered as damp air washed over them. They were in an old section of the dungeon now, where the bars on the windows and the hinges on the doors were rusty from moisture. Liam led the way again, and before long Annie heard voices. There were people here, and they didn’t sound happy.
“Let us out!” shouted an older man. “You have it all wrong! We shouldn’t be here.”
“Why do you bother?” asked a voice that Annie recognized as Liam’s father’s. “There’s no one down here but our own people.”
“I heard something. I thought one of the guards had come back.”
Liam hurried down the corridor, heading for the cell where his father was still talking. “Even if a guard was here, he wouldn’t help us,” said King Montague.
“But I will,” Liam said, peering through the small barred window in the cell door. “Is everyone all right?”
“Liam! It’s good to see you,” said the king. “We’re hungry and dirty, but fine otherwise.”
“They brought us gruel once a day,” called a voice. “I’m sick of it! And to think I used to like gruel!”
“I didn’t know anyone liked gruel,” said a voice farther down the corridor.
“Annie, wait here while I get the keys,” said Liam. “They should be hanging on a hook at the other end of the hall.”
Annie watched the torchlight shrink as Liam moved down the corridor, but he was soon back to open the doors. He let his father out first as well as the guards locked in with him. There were five, including Godfrey and Thurmont, two of the guards she’d met before. While Annie spoke to the king, Liam moved down the row, opening one door after another until all of the prisoners had been freed.
“Do you know what Dormander’s wizard did?” asked Liam’s father.
Liam nodded. “I heard Mother talking to Clarence. Does anyone have any idea how many of the wizard’s guards are in the castle?”
“Six,” said a young woman. “I know because I work in the kitchen and had to take them their meals.”
“You might want to stay down here while I go upstairs with some of your men,” Liam told his father. “This shouldn’t take us very long if there are only six guards. Annie, would you mind staying with my father?”
“But—” Annie began.
“It will be much easier for me if I know that the two people I love most in the world are safe,” said Liam.
“If you put it that way,” said Annie.
While Liam led the guards upstairs, his father told Annie what it had been like to be locked in his own dungeon. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if my gout hadn’t been acting up when they locked me down here. It’s better now, though. I wonder if an all-gruel diet helped.”
They were discussing the different things you could do to gruel to make it tastier when Liam and the guards returned, bringing all six of the wizard’s men with them. “We fought one guard and the rest gave in,” said Liam as King Montague’s guards walked their new prisoners to the cells. “We would have been back sooner, but we had to lock Mother and Clarence in the tower. It was odd; she was waiting in her chamber almost as if she expected us to come for her.”
“She did say she was better off before Clarence came back. Maybe she just wanted it to be over,” said Annie.
“Is it all right if we go upstairs and get to work?” asked a middle-aged woman.
“Please!” someone shouted. “Let her go!”
“Yes, she should go first!” someone else called out.
“Of course,” said Liam. “It should be safe now.”
“Who was that?” Annie asked as the woman bustled up the steps.
“The head cook,” said the old guard named Godfrey. “We can’t wait for something decent to eat for a change.”
“Did you get married yet, my dear?” the old king asked Annie as they started toward the stairs. “I’m so sorry I missed it if you did.”
“No, we had a bit of trouble and had to postpone it, but we do intend to have the wedding soon,” said Annie. “We’ll send word when we’ve rescheduled. Liam, perhaps we should spend the night here. It’s already getting late and we’d have to stop soon anyway.”
“Good idea,” said Liam. “But before I turn in for the night, there are a few things I have to do. The castle kitchen is probably short of supplies, so I won’t bother the cook for eggs, but can someone suggest where I can purchase a dozen or so? I have a debt to repay and a horse to claim so we can get an early start in the morning.”