A Captive of Wing and Feather A Retelling of Swan Lake - Melanie Cellier Page 0,63
the cap over his own curling locks. And then he stepped out into the open, and I had no option but to follow.
We stuck to the edge of the vast courtyard, moving along the buildings rather than drawing attention to ourselves by walking through the middle of the open space. Every muscle strained at being held back, urging me to sprint to the distant door of the Keep, but I held myself in check.
At any moment I expected to hear someone hailing us in accusing tones, but somehow we made it into the shadow of the Keep itself. We avoided the main doors, making instead for a simple wooden one some way around the curve of the building.
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.