glimpse of my hair caught in the air, as if the wind were toying with it. I wondered again where the wind was coming from.
From beneath the mirror. There was a cool draft coming up my legs.
I’d heard once that castles had secret passages, and perhaps I’d just found one. When the Albian kings had gone to war with the warrior monks, both sides had carved secret tunnels and passages over Dovren.
My gaze slid down the mirror’s gilt frame. And on the right side of it, an onyx raven was set into the wood.
I went very still, and faintly I thought I heard the sound of whispering coming from the mirror, a language both familiar and foreign at the same time. Ancient Albian. This was an entrance, wasn’t it?
I pressed the stone raven, and held my breath as something unlatched.
With one last look back at the soldiers, I pressed against the mirror and felt it move, sliding silently into a dark space. I inched it open as slowly as possible so I wouldn't make a noise, my heart in my throat.
Then, I slipped into a cold, dark passage. Once inside, I closed the door behind me. I let out a long breath and knocked against the wall, giving silent thanks to the Raven King for the second time that night.
Because I believed in ghosts, and I felt like his spirit had led me in here, somehow.
In the armory, the soldiers’ voices were rising to frantic shouts. I felt around in the dark, wishing I still had that candle.
I felt only a dank sludge covering the walls. When I turned and took a tentative step, I realized stairs were rising up before me. So I pressed my hands to either side of the slimy walls for balance, and started to climb. Eventually, the sounds of the soldiers started to fade, and my heart rate slowed down.
No idea where this passage led, but it was away from the immediate threat.
As I walked, occasionally, my hand would slide against wood, as if doors or passages interrupted the walls.
As I went further up the stairs, slivers of firelight shone through tiny cracks in the rocks and the stone.
With sore legs, I climbed the stairs until I reached what I thought was the top floor. Now what?
Up here, a hall branched off from the landing. I felt my way around, following the tiny beams of light piercing the stone. I stopped to look through one of the cracks. It appeared to be a ballroom, long disused. A ray of silver light had broken through the clouds, and beamed through great windows towering over columns and a flagstone floor.
When I got to a brightly lit room, I peered inside to find great tapestries hanging on the wall, embroidered with colorful thread, flecked with gold. They depicted men and women in lewd poses, with deep sapphire blues depicting the sky and the phases of the moon.
As I stared at the room, a flicker of movement caught my eye, and I realized it was Sourial, rising from the bed. Shirtless, he strolled over to the piano and sat down and began to play. Mournful music wended through the castle—beautiful and agonizingly sad. I felt like my heart was breaking just listening to it, and Alice came into my mind again. Alice standing in an old church ruin near the castle, the grass up to her knees, and butterflies fluttering around her.
I wanted to keep listening, but I had to keep going until I found a way back to my room.
I moved farther down the hall, until I saw another bright ray of light slanting through the stone. I peeked through, finding a great hall that looked like it was carved out of bone. I couldn’t see much from here, just walls of ivory, and a flagstone floor dappled with moonlight that streamed in through windows. When I pressed my hands against the wall, I felt the power of the Blessed Raven pulsing through it. Here, I felt connected to something larger—a sense of timelessness that flowed from the hall.
But it wasn’t my room, and that was where I had to be.
Reluctantly, I pulled my hands away to keep walking.
Another ray of light. There, I caught a glimpse of stacks of books.
The sound of a door creaking interrupted my thoughts, then footsteps.
I held my breath as Samael walked into my view, prowling into the library with his cowl over his head. He was almost feral in his precision and