She slashed a hand through the air, silencing them. “Sylph and Iwere in the secret passages when she sensed someone bringing a new pyramid,Fiend magic, toward the capstone, and we have to stop whatever they’re doingbefore they awaken Yanchasa.” She took a deep breath and gestured to LadyLucia’s still body. “Now you explain.”
“She came in while we were discussing Order business with thequeen, so we hid until the queen could get rid of her,” Dina said. “When a fewminutes had passed and we heard nothing, we checked, and the queen, Gunnar, andLady Lucia had left.”
“We went down the hall,” Ivar said, “and found the guards gone,and the lady stuffed into a room outside the royal section. We brought herhere, thinking we could help her, but she died soon after. We don’t know why.”
“Died?” Thana peered around him at the body. “I thought she wassleeping.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. She hadn’t known the lady well,but her death was as much a tragedy as any other.
“I’m thinking poison,” Illis said. “Something’s been up with thenobles for days. People have been dropping out of sight and back in, but theyact changed. We thought to take the queen’s secret passage and find you, butyou found us.”
Thana held up a hand, something else catching her in the torrentof information. “The queen’s secret passage?”
The brothers looked to one another. Dina seemed sheepish as sheanswered. “Yeah, they didn’t know either before I told them. I only knew aboutit from the one time the queen and I—”
“I don’t need those details,” Thana said, her anger rising. “Areyou telling me the queen has a secret passage leading to these rooms, and shenever told me?”
“She only uses it for assignations.”
“I got that part, thank you!” They waved and whispered to shushher, but she was livid. “What it is, however, is another way in and out, a pathher enemies could exploit.” When Dina looked skeptical, Thana nearly kickedher. “There are pyramids at work here, and even the most ardent paramour can behypnotized. Show me.”
Dina led her to the bedroom mirror, then toggled a switch, andthe wall opened. Thana found what she’d expected inside. Trap pyramids dottedthis passage, but every one had been canceled, no doubt slowly and carefullyover time, letting someone with ill intent come close enough to this door toset off the trap pyramid in the queen’s sitting room even before Thana hadfirst left the palace.
Had any enemies used it since? Or had they feared more pyramidsin the queen’s apartment, a place they wouldn’t have unfettered access to inorder to carefully disarm the traps? She imagined them lingering here, awaitingtheir moment. And after the explosion, Earnhilt hadn’t told Thana about this,still certain her secret was safe, that the traps of old would protect her,maybe even that Thana would insist the passage be sealed until the currentpyradisté crisis ended.
But then the queen wouldn’t be able to sneak her lovers past theguard or the nosy nobles and courtiers. Spirits knew her trysts were tooimportant to give up for a little while.
Out in the open, she breathed deep. “Where does this go?”
They took it together, the Order already armed. They arrived in ararely used guest room outside the royal apartments and near the councilchamber. When the floor shuddered, Thana knew they were out of time forfiguring things out. That had to be Yanchasa stirring again. She needed to findGunnar and the queen and stop the pyradistés below. And she needed to findSylph, though the order of those goals changed every moment.
When someone cried out in the hall, at least the question ofwhere they should head first settled itself.
* * *
In the council chamber, several people screamed at once as thefloor shifted. Sylph’s father staggered and fell. With her stone magic, Sylphtrapped the legs of several pyradistés, but others took cover behind the queenand prince. Sylph hesitated to bring the floor up around them, not wanting toencase the royals and the pyradistés together.
Or move enough bricks that everyone plummeted to the rooms below.
A pyramid sailed at her from across the room, and she dove forthe floor, rolling under the table as a crack echoed through the room, andlight exploded as if from a miniature sun. Sylph cried out with several othersas pain speared across her forehead, and the vision in her right eye showedonly a mass of bright blobs. One of the nobles collapsed while several pairs oflegs ran in different directions.
Sylph scooted back and sent another ripple through the floor,wishing someone would use a cancelation pyramid so she could poach it, but nosuch luck. Someone screamed just before another horrible flash. Sylph slid outfrom underneath the table on the opposite side.
And met her father’s eyes where he’d also dropped to the floor.
He stared as if he didn’t know her. Well, he never really had.“If you don’t want to hang for treason,” she said, “I suggest you help me.”Several of his cronies were trying to fight the pyradistés but were thwarted bymind pyramids or those awful flash bombs.
When another pyradisté pulled a pyramid, Sylph focused on it, hidher face in her sleeve, and set it off in his hand. The light faded quickly,and she risked a look. The pyradisté had fallen over backward but so had one ofthe nobles, and neither of them moved, stunned. A trapped pyradisté fumbledwith a satchel, and Sylph commanded the floor to creep up her body, cementing thebag shut.
And making the walls groan again. It would be so much easier ifthe room was near the exterior of the palace, with a handy outer wall tomanipulate. Sylph scrambled up behind the pyradisté she’d just secured. Thewoman screamed, slapping at the stone. Sylph ignored her and looked past,seeking a path to the Umbriels.
Lady Lucia’s sister smashed a pyramid into a lord, and hecollapsed with a scream. She scrambled for the queen just as someone hurtledthrough the door and leaped upon the table. Sylph recognized Dina as shecareened into the lady, not even flinching when a pyramid smacked into herchest.
It shattered into
