“Where are you going, my dear?” Jamshir reached out and grabbed her arm.
Jocasta looked down at it, then back up at the mad ruler. “I’m going to admire your other two statues.”
“Oh, you can’t do that. They’ll be out and about right now. Besides…” He drew closer to her, putting his mouth near her ear. She flinched from his foul breath. “I have a better idea for what we can do…”
Jocasta shoved him. His touch, always repellant, was suddenly unbearable. Jamshir stumbled away from her, coming up hard against the wall of the corridor. He stared at her, hurt evident in his wide-open eyes.
“If you touch me again,” she hissed, “I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?”
Jamshir drew himself up, gathering his disheveled robe about his thin frame. “You dare? I’ll have you hanged for this. Bragnold!”
There was no movement from inside the room they were in before Shireen’s arrival. The general was still laid out on the floor, whether honestly hurt, faking, or merely sleeping, she couldn’t tell.
“Bragnold!” Jamshir barked again.
“Forget it, Jamshir.” Jocasta’s voice was low. She was suddenly very tired. What had she been thinking? “It’s over. Your general has been ruined by whatever foulness you allowed to happen to him. Your House is in ruins. And you…” She shook her head, unwilling to say more.
Instead, she put her head down and walked past him. He hesitantly lifted his hand toward her, then stopped. She continued moving, determined to find that room once again.
“Fine!” Jamshir’s yell reached her before she turned the corner. “I don’t need you! Or Bragnold! Or anyone!”
Yes, he really had reverted to nothing more than a petulant child.
“I have other friends! And I’m telling them!”
Jocasta turned the corner, shaking her head. Then, she stopped. What did he mean he was telling them?
She turned back and peered around the corner, staying as hidden as she could. She needn’t have bothered. Jamshir was scurrying off in the opposite direction from the one she had taken, muttering to himself.
She slipped around the corner and, staying well back, followed him. He reached another set of stairs and went down. Waiting until he was out of sight, she followed quickly, just in time to see him duck into a small room near the bottom of the stairs.
Jocasta frowned. She was pretty sure that room was nothing more than a closet, used to hold cleaning supplies for the servants. Not that any of those had been used in a long time now.
There was the sound of something sliding, then a thump, and then silence. Jocasta waited a moment, then reached out and opened the door. It was exactly as she thought. A closet, nothing more.
Except…that one shelf, where a bottle of some strong-smelling liquid had been tipped over. The substance was slowly leaking from the cap, pooling beneath it. Given the dust, it had been some time since anyone was in here. And yes, there were scuff marks through the dust on the floor, leading to that same shelf.
She moved forward and pushed it, but it didn’t budge. She tried to pull it, to the same result. Sliding it side to side did nothing either. Finally, she stepped back and examined it more carefully.
Ah. There. A knothole in the wood behind the shelf. She reached out and pressed it, and the shelf slid aside, opening to a narrow, dark passage behind.
Of course. The old, secret byways that almost every main compound tree in the Greenweald held. Ways to move unseen when an enemy gained entrance, to come out behind them. Over time, they’d fallen out of favor as open battle between Houses became a thing of the past. Now they were hardly ever used, except by children playing games, or those trying to keep a tryst secret.
She moved inside, carefully feeling her way forward.
Her foot encountered a drop-off, which she quickly determined was a step. Keeping one hand on the wall, she moved cautiously down, the stairway curling into a spiral.
Somewhere below her was the sound of another panel sliding open. There was a quick glimmer of dim light, far below, then the panel slid shut again, blocking it out. Jamshir had moved quickly.
Jocasta quickened her pace as much as she dared. What felt like hours later, she stood at the bottom of the stairs, in total darkness.
She fought back a quick moment of panic, thinking that she wouldn’t find the latch that opened the doorway to let her out. She could go back up, but what if one of those things was quietly creeping down the steps behind her?
Shivering, she forced herself to calm down. Nothing was behind her, the door at the top was still open and she’d have no problem here. These passageways were designed to be hidden from the outside, not from the inside.
She reached out, her breath exploding out of her as she felt a wooden handle. The panel easily slid aside and she stepped out into yet another closet, this one empty of anything except for a few rusty tools hanging on a peg.
The door was still ajar from where Jamshir had passed through, so she cautiously peered out.
The passage that led away was dug from the earth, thick tree roots running across the wall, floor and ceiling. Wherever she was, it was deep under the main tree of the Glittering Birch compound.
The tunnel led straight, with no turnoffs or doorways that she could see. Stones set into the wall every several feet glowed weakly. In the distance, she could see Jamshir scuttling along. There was nowhere that she could hide, which meant that
