Chapter 27
Lor
“Your Majesty, something is underfoot!”
I blinked open my eyes to see Sir Arthur standing over me, glinting in the moonlight peeking through the clouds.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d only been asleep for a few hours, so Sir Arthur better have had a good reason for waking me up.
“What is going on?” I sat up, wiping the sleep from my eyes as I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“I spotted an intruder sneaking through the castle,” Sir Arthur said. “They wore a black hood so I couldn’t see their face.”
I stiffened, dread coiling around my spine. “What?”
“I tried to stop the scoundrel, but they wouldn’t heed my command and I couldn’t keep up with them.”
I imagined an intruder wouldn’t likely listen to the suit of armor chasing after them.
“We need to alert the royal guard,” I said. “Do you know where Margaret is?”
I stood from the bed and walked to my wardrobe, yanking it open and finding a pair of clean trousers and a simple beige tunic.
“She’s asleep in her portrait downstairs. I’ll tell her to find Harriet immediately, and then I will pursue this threat.”
“No,” I said quickly. I didn’t need Arthur lumbering through the castle, scaring all our residents as he shouted and banged on doors and accused everyone he saw of being this mysterious intruder. “We need you guarding the doors in case someone else attempts to break in.”
I turned to face the knight, wondering how someone could’ve breached our defenses and gotten into the castle.
If it was a brotherhood member, we were in trouble.
That would mean they’d found us again, found a way in .
. . it would mean we were all at risk. Including the Fair Folk. Especially the Fair Folk.
Sir Arthur tipped his head. “Good thinking, Your Majesty. I’ll return to my post after .
. .” the suit of armor trailed off, staring at me.
At least, I thought he was staring at me.
It was always hard to tell since there was nothing but darkness in the gap of his armor where his eyes should’ve been. “Your Majesty, you’re moving.”
“What? No I’m not . . .” Before I could finish that sentence, I looked down to see that he was right. I wasn’t exactly moving, but the floor underneath me was.
Castle was taking me somewhere. “Sir Arthur,” I said, “Castle wants me somewhere. Maybe it’s taking me to this intruder. I can’t be sure. But let everyone know what you saw and that I’m okay.”
I barely got the words out before a hole formed in the floor and I dropped right through it, suddenly in a free fall.
Darkness surrounded me, chunks of stone falling through the air.
Wind whipped my hair around my shoulders, and my entire body coiled tight as I waited with dread to see where Castle was taking me, what it wanted.
Then I was thinking about Aoife, hoping she was safe and sleeping.
Despite my offer just yesterday morning, Aoife hadn’t sent any message requesting my presence in her bed, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that.
The ground appeared below me, and I realized I was now outside the castle, falling through the night sky.
The castle gardens appeared below, and I was approaching them with an alarming speed.
“Castle,” I yelled. “What is going on?”
My arms and legs flailed but I had no control over anything right now, not as I continued to fall toward the lush green grass.
The wind picked up, cushioning me, and I breathed a sigh of relief as it slowed my descent.
At least Castle wasn’t going to let me die out here, and now that I wasn’t fighting for my life, I had a chance to look at the gardens spread out below me.
Trees lined one path; bushes lined another; and yet another path was lined by beds of flowers. My gaze caught on a shadow moving toward one of our peach trees, and my body once again tensed. The intruder.
So Castle was taking me toward them. It wanted me to . . . what? Fight them? Capture them? I didn’t even know what this person was doing. From here it looked like they were taking a few peaches. That hardly seemed like the threat Sir Arthur had made it out to be.
I got closer to the ground, my boots finally sinking into the soft grass. The intruder’s back was to me, and they’d been too engaged in their task to notice me falling from the sky. I crept behind the line of trees to get out of view.
The intruder walked past the peach tree and toward some of our berry bushes, plucking the juicy purple berries off and putting them in a small cloth sack.
Maybe they were a resident of Fairwitch Isle .
. . but these gardens were open to all. There would be no need to sneak in here to steal from us.
A dark cloak swept behind them, fluttering in the breeze, and just like Sir Arthur had said a hood covered their head so I couldn’t get a good look at them.
I blew out a breath and tiptoed toward them, hoping I could get close enough to overtake them. Then I’d question them and hopefully find out this was all a big misunderstanding—and maybe I could do it before Margaret managed to wake up the entire castle.
My boots squished into the soft ground as I approached this mystery person, and finally I was close enough to reach out and grab them. I lunged and grabbed onto their arm right as a blast of golden and white magic swirled into a circle, a portal, one that sucked me in with the intruder.