“What else is up here?” Padraig asked Lucan, who was wincing and leaning hard on one arm against the frame of the connecting doorway.
“Nothing. A pair of apartments, but they’re never used.”
Padraig grabbed the lamp, and then he and Lucan ducked back into the smoke-filled corridor. One of the chamber doors stood open and they pushed inside, but Lucan had been right: The only things there were ghostly draped furnishings.
“Perhaps she returned to her chamber while everyone was gathering in the hall,” Lucan suggested.
“She could have left this wing, aye,” Padraig said. “But it wasna for her chamber—I went there first. And Caris Hargrave climbed the stairs before us—where did she go?”
Lucan’s frown intensified and he limped in a circle, his eyes examining the floor, the ceiling. “She couldn’t have just vanished. And why would she have come at all unless she was certain Iris was still somewhere here?”
Padraig remembered the satchel resting on his hip, and its contents. He shoved the lamp at Lucan and scrambled to pull the leather bag to his front. He withdrew the portfolio and held it up as evidence.
“Mayhap this will tell us.”
“My God, you found it,” Lucan said. He set the lamp on a draped table and took the packet, opening it and pulling out the thick sheaf of pages. He split the stack and handed half to Padraig.
“Maps,” the knight said. “Iris told me she thought there was another way into the wing, but I didn’t listen to her.”
“Here,” Padraig said, pulling out a trio of pages. “Look.” He held them close to the light, and Lucan skimmed the lines with his fingers.
Lucan tapped one page. “Here…here are the lady’s rooms. And so…yes, here we are now.” He flipped up the page to look at the one beneath.
“And here,” Padraig said, tracing the shapes. “The floor below. It doesn’t quite meet the curtain wall, but there’s naught in the space between. So this chamber—” He looked up at the wall to the west, noticing at once that the paneling seeming asymmetrical in the dim, rippling light.
“Perhaps it’s an escape passage,” Lucan suggested. “Many of the old holds kept them in case of attack.”
But Padraig was only half-listening—the wall section was not asymmetrical. One of the panels had a gap along the trim.
“It’s there,” he said to Lucan. He was stuffing the pages back into his satchel as he dashed to the wall. He felt the cool breeze wafting from beyond, smelled its freshness in opposition to the close, smoky air in the chamber they occupied. He pulled open the panel without a sound and could sense the descending darkness before him.
“It canna be an escape to the curtain wall,” Padraig said half over his shoulder in a low voice. “The passage would be filled with smoke, and the air is fresh. You didna know this was here?” he added accusingly.
Lucan seemed taken aback. “Not at all. But Darlyrede House is old, and has been added on to so many—” His explanation ended abruptly. “It leads to the old dungeon. It must bypass the wall entirely.”
Padraig gave a single, curt nod. “Aye. O’ course it does.” An instant later he was ducking out of his satchel and handing it to Lucan. “Take this and go back down.”
“I will not,” he said. “The fire will surely spread and there could now be two women trapped down there.”
“You’ll only slow me down. If Iris is down there,” Padraig said emphatically, “I’ll nae be coming up without her. You have my word, Lucan. But if we doona make it out, her work canna have been in vain.” He glanced pointedly at his old leather satchel. “Iris’s notes may very well support everything Euphemia Hargrave has to say. Now go while you can.”
Lucan seemed to hesitate a moment longer. “I’m trusting you with her life.” He offered his hand.
Padraig seized it. “I ken ye are. You’ve both saved mine enough times.”
Padraig turned and ducked down into the darkness.
Chapter 19
Satin’s eyes opened from slits, his ears swiveled forward, his breathing paused. Then the sound of the hinge squealed through the silence again, and the cat leaped from Iris’s chest into the shadows of the murky cell.
Iris tried to quell the sob in her chest if only to save her throat the agony. She had never been so scared. There was a metallic clatter from beyond the bend in the corridor, an almost delicate clink. She wanted to close her eyes, but she could seem to do nothing else but turn her head and stare at the torchlight through the doorway.
And then there it was: as shadow. A human shadow, appearing suddenly on the wall, looking back the way it had come, as if watching for someone following. It grew larger, larger, until it was in the doorway, a wheeze of labored breath, and the light revealed—
Iris released her sob with a pained gasp. “Milady! Thank God,” she croaked. “Hurry! If he catches you here, he’ll kill us both!” Her voice sliced her throat like a knife.
“Shh, shh. I’m sorry. There is no escape for us,” she wheezed through her smile, her red-rimmed eyes bright with unshed tears. She brought her hand beneath Iris’s head and lifted it, setting the rim of a chalice against her lower lip. The whoosh of air around the woman smelled strongly of smoke. “Here, drink this for your comfort.”
Iris nearly choked on the tepid, milky substance, but Caris kept tipping the cup, flooding Iris’s throat with the drink until she must swallow or drown. It tasted somehow green, but it was smooth and cool and seemed to fill in the deep, bloody fissures Iris imagined lined her throat.
Lady Hargrave’s grip failed as a spasm overcame her, and the cup nearly tumbled away into the darkness as she coughed and choked against the slab, each breath sounding like a strained whistle.
As if she was dying.
“Milady!”
After what seemed an eternity, Caris straightened slightly
