Thirty-Five
Beau regarded the row of doors yawning open in the dark corridor before him.
It was the kid. Who else could it be? She was at it again. Searching for something, or someone.
“Hey, kid! Pssst! Hey, Hope!” he called out.
He held his candlestick high and took a few tentative steps down the corridor, peering around the first door he came to. The room—a bedroom—was torn apart. Had Hope been in there? Was she still? Moonlight spilled in through a high bank of windows, washing the chamber in silvery light. Beau blinked, momentarily blinded after the deep gloom of the corridor, then stepped inside.
“Hope? Are you in here?” he whispered, but he got no response.
He’d let himself out of his own room moments ago and was on his way to Arabella’s old chambers to find books on bridges. He’d heard nothing from her after he’d gone to her rooms to demand she help him build one. When morning came, he would go to her again and dump the books on her floor. He’d gather up her notebooks and dump those, too. Drawings. Scrolls. Parchments. Anything and everything. He’d make such a nuisance of himself that she’d give in and help him, if only to get rid of him.
The clock struck eleven. Its sinister chimes, echoing throughout the castle, reminded Beau to get moving. After his last run-in with the beast, he was determined to be back in his room by midnight. He was just about to leave the ransacked bedroom when he noticed the tall wardrobes standing at the back of it. Their doors were open and costly gowns spilled out of them. There were jackets richly embroidered with gold thread, fur capes, coats of satin. Above the garments, plumed hats, muffs, and dainty silk shoes stood lined up on shelves.
Beau moved closer to the wardrobes, his thief’s instincts driving him. Maybe there was something here of worth. He still had his old mistress’s ring stitched into his coat, but was it valuable enough to buy Matti’s health back? He crossed the room in a few quick strides, then reached into a wardrobe, but as he grabbed a jacket off its hanger, the fabric disintegrated in his hands. He threw it on the floor and took hold of a cape, but tufts of fur came away. He snatched at a skirt, a gown, a cloak, but every garment he touched was moth-eaten, ancient, ruined.
“What’s with this?” he muttered, baffled. Why would Arabella keep all this threadbare clothing?
He remembered, with a creeping unease, the dust-covered furniture in her old chambers, and the strange claim Hope had made—that she’d been locked away for a hundred years.
Shaking the feeling off, Beau hurried to another wardrobe, but again he came up empty-handed. He turned in a slow circle, hoping that he’d somehow missed a trunk, a chest, a small jewelry box tucked up on a shelf.
That’s when he saw her.
A woman.
Slight. Stooped. Standing in the shadows.