Chapter 16
Emmeline twisted around, extending her arms toward the sea visible over the cliff side. “Open!”
A seagull squawked nearby, but no shimmering appeared.
She turned toward the castle ruin, this time waving her hands in an approximate circle. “Passage, open!”
Nothing.
“Oh, come on.” She stomped the grass. “What do you want from me?”
The castle didn’t respond.
She tried more poses and phrases—twisting, turning, jumping, yelling—in every direction.
“Please. I don’t have all day.” She could sneak out on a walk, but the duchess would imprison her again, sooner or later.
“Will you at least show me the way to Maria, then?” Technically, she didn’t need Lady Scarlet if she could find Maria on her own—although resolving that mystery would’ve been fun.
A blast of warm wind hit the left side of her face. She touched her cheek. Her fingers came back black, as if smudged with charcoal.
And then, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw it—right beside her, shimmering, but silent. A dark hole, floating vertically above the grass, its edges shifting, as if the present and the past were two different liquids, mixing together.
It was the castle’s hallway, and it was burning.
She didn’t get Maria, but the portal did as she asked—it showed her a way to her. Through Lady Scarlet.
Emmeline jumped in victory and only then realized Theo wasn’t here.
And she sprinted back toward the house.
“These passages of yours don’t stay open for long though, do they?” Theo said as they jogged back up the hill where Emmeline had her successful attempt.
“No, I think they’re instant.” When she showed up on the beach, the passage was gone; as it was when she’d brought them out of the masquerade ball.
“Do you think you can do it again?”
“We’ll see.” She put her hands on her hips to catch her breath as they reached the summit.
“The problem is, I don’t know which method prompted it.
The last thing I tried was asking politely.
” She walked around, following Theo’s steps as he examined the area.
“Maybe that was the solution all along. Say something—”
Like a burst of flame, the passage opened before her; she barely stopped in time before falling through without Theo.
“Did you—” he started.
“I didn’t do anything. I think it was still here. It’s in the same spot as before. Maybe it was dormant?”
“It didn’t show up when I walked past.”
“Well, either way, here we go!” She made a sweeping gesture to the passage. “If you would, monsieur?”
Theo offered his arm. “Together?”
She smiled, took it, and they walked through.
The heat was much more obvious on this side, trapped in the narrow hallway. A red glow threatened from behind the corner at the further end, bringing with it billowing smoke and ash.
“You weren’t losing any time, were you,” Theo said with that straight voice that always made it funnier.
“This way.” She started in the opposite direction of the looming flames. They went up a spiral staircase, into the tower. On each floor, Emmeline peeked through the open archway, trying to spot anything helpful.
“Wait.” She grabbed Theo’s arm when they came to the third floor. “There!”
Two figures stood at the end of the hallway, not quite hugging, but touching foreheads: a man and a woman, clear from their dark silhouettes.
“Lady Scarlet.” Emmeline broke into a run, Theo right behind her. But as she approached, the two figures jumped apart and went running in opposite directions.
Emmeline and Theo reached the split end of the hallway. To the left, a staircase went up, and to the right, down.
“I’ll go after her, you go after him.” Emmeline started off, but Theo caught her sleeve.
“We shouldn’t separate. The castle isn’t safe,” he said. “What if you run into de Villiers?”
“What if you do?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I think the point still stands.”
“Fine, then …” She whipped her head between the two options. The other man must’ve been Lady Scarlet’s lover, the one bound to die tonight. If they went after him, could they save him?
“You said you needed her,” Theo said.
He was right. Lady Scarlet was her priority. With a gulp, she said, “Left,” and they ran up the stairs to a new hallway. Moonlight streamed through the windows alongside it. At the very end, Emmeline caught a flash of a red skirt, disappearing through a doorway.
“Here.” She pushed in the door, and they entered a dark room. A master bedroom, perhaps, with additional space for a sofa, a table, and some cabinets by the far wall, all in that rich mahogany Emmeline was used to from the mansion.
In terms of Lady Scarlet, though, the room was empty.
Theo stepped onto the balcony, revealed by a fluttering curtain, and leaned over the railing. “Long way down.”
“She couldn’t have jumped. She wouldn’t.” As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Emmeline walked around the room, checking the bed, under it, the cabinets … no Lady Scarlet.
It would’ve been rather undignified, really, to find her hiding like this.
“She must’ve left through a passage to another time,” Emmeline said. Damn it! And they’d been so close.
“Wouldn’t it have opened, then? If it’s still here?”
“Maybe, because she made it, it only opens to her. Like mine did to me.” She plopped down on the bed, grunting in disappointment. Lady Scarlet could be anywhere by now. Anywhen.
“What about the pendant?” Theo’s voice brought her to attention. “You said in the book, she left it in the castle. Couldn’t it have been this room since she ran to it?”
Emmeline jumped to her feet. “Yes!” A consolation prize—but a prize, nonetheless. She nodded at Theo, then began systematically examining the room.
“Emmeline.” Theo, checking a bedside table, gestured her over. He was holding a small jewelry box.
She gasped. “You found it!”
“Not quite.” He unfolded a piece of paper. To my two lovely shadows, it said, in an elaborate cursive font at the top; beneath it were several lines, resembling a poem.
Theo’s eyes met hers. “She left this for us.”
“She knew. She … she tricked us.” Emmeline yanked the paper in frustration. “But the pendant still has to be somewhere. Maybe even she’s still around, laughing at us from behind a corner.” She marched to the door—wait, she didn’t remember them closing it—and pulled on the doorknob.
The door didn’t budge.
“Theo!”
He was at her side in a second, rattling the door, shaking it as hard as he could, but, befitting their surroundings, the door was that of a fortress.
Then, smoke began to roll under it.
Emmeline looked at Theo. “She locked us in,” she whispered.
“She, or someone else.” While he patted his way around the door frame, Emmeline kneeled down, level with the lock. Hands shaking, she pulled a few pins out of hair, bent two, and pushed them inside the lock, but something blocked her way.
“I can’t pick it.” She stood back up.
“And I can’t open it.”
More smoke billowed through. Coughing, Theo held her by the shoulders and guided her away from the door, toward their only source of fresh air—the balcony.
A crackling came from behind the door, and heat, and a red glow.
Their fresh air would soon do very little if the castle burned from under them.
With her throat closing up—partially from panic, partially from smoke—Emmeline glanced around the room, looking for any last resort, any sort of escape, but her eyes burned, and she couldn’t focus.
“Emmeline.” Theo held her chin, raising her eyes to his. “You must make a passage. It’s the only way out.”
The last time it took her weeks to make one. They didn’t have weeks. Maybe not even minutes. “O-okay.” She squinted through the smoke, focusing on a would-be time portal. Please, open. Please. Seconds slipped by; a minute. She turned around in a circle. At any moment, if you could—
The shimmering appeared in the far corner of the bedroom, next to a dressing screen.
She let out a victorious cry and ran for it, Theo on her heels.
It was only in the split second before contact that she noticed something was off.
Beyond the passage was utter darkness, deeper than obsidian.
Theo may have yelled for her to wait; she wasn’t sure, because she couldn’t stop her momentum, and she passed through.
Her lungs seized from the frigid air, and she flailed around as her feet found no ground.
A hand pulled her back, and she slammed into Theo.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She took a large inhale of air, then coughed as the smoke tickled her throat.
“Not through there,” she choked out. She frantically scanned the room, from the ominous glow behind the door, to the open balcony.
No more time. And she needed time if she wanted to open another passage. Unless she risked her other trigger …
The balcony offered a stunning view of the ocean.
They were far above: a hundred feet, if not more.
She grabbed Theo’s hand and led him to the balcony.
In the floors below them, flames licked through the windows like prisoners, yearning to break free.
To the right, glass shattered, and smoke rolled over the walls, disappearing into the night.
She clutched Theo tighter. “We have to jump.”
“But it’s much too—” His eyes widened. “The jump.”
“I saved us last time, didn’t I?” Her voice shook.
It was the only other option. Jump and hope that flight and fright triggered another passage. A safe one.
Theo glanced back at the door, his face contorting as if he was sorry to leave. Yet, he nodded. He sat on the balustrade and swung his legs over, one by one, then offered her a hand to do the same. With shaking limbs, she followed.
“It’s a shame,” he said, his complexion ashen. “It really is a lovely view.”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, his skin warm against her clammy hand. Her heart beat fast against her ribs; if she had a heart attack, would that be enough of an emotional upset?
“Ready?” she asked.