“Is it really you, Soph?” Shadrack asked hoarsely, his arms moving slowly to embrace her.
“We have to get out of here before they notice us,” she said desperately, pulling back even though she didn’t want to. “Are you all right? Can you get up?”
He gazed at her face as if waking from a long sleep. “I thought you were lost. When we arrived, they said you were killed trying to escape the palace grounds.”
“Oh, Shadrack,” she cried. “No—no, we escaped.” She put her arms around him again and Shadrack squeezed until she felt that her ribs would break. Over his shoulder, she saw the guards still trying to douse the flames. Theo was hurrying toward them, his feathered mask still in place.
“I can’t believe you’re here. You’re alive,” Shadrack said with a deep sigh.
“I can’t believe you’re here, Shadrack,” she said, pulling away. “Shadrack, this is Theo,” she said, as he joined them. “We never imagined—we came back for Veressa and the others. Do you know what happened to them—where they are?”
Shadrack had overcome his shock, and after assessing the commotion around the fire, he rose hurriedly. “Come,” he said, taking Sophia’s hand. “I haven’t seen her, but I know where she is.” They ran toward the palace, passing the smoldering remains of the dance floor. The palace guards and guests who had extinguished the fire with water from the fountains were coughing from the acrid smoke. No one noticed their escape.
The front entrance, they could see even from a distance, was lined with guards. The doors of the conservatory were firmly shut. But they tested Martin and Veressa’s windows and found to their relief that the one Sophia and Theo had escaped through was unlocked.
For a moment they paused in the dark bedroom, listening for any sounds of pursuit in the garden or the house. There were none. Sophia kicked off the high shoes and then they left, stealing along the corridor toward the door that connected with the main palace. “They’re going to notice by now that you’re gone,” Sophia whispered, as Shadrack pulled open the door.
“I know,” he said tersely. “We have to hurry.” He seemed to have a map of the palace in his head and turned without hesitation at each corner. They whirled through the empty corridors strewn with eucalyptus leaves, the sharp smell rising as they ran, until they reached a flight of wide stone stairs leading downward. “The servants’ floor,” Shadrack said, panting. “The entrance to the dungeons should be here.”
The corridors here were narrower, and their hurried footsteps echoed on the bare stone floor. Yet these hallways were also blessedly empty; the festivities required every free hand. The bedrooms, narrow and spare as monastic cells, were all deserted. They turned a corner and suddenly found themselves at a dead end. Shadrack stopped short. “No, it’s not here,” he said to himself. “It must be . . .” he trailed off. “Wherever the guard are housed.”
After hesitating for a moment, Shadrack turned back the way they’d come, back past the stairs in the opposite direction. Soon they were racing through the long, cavernous rooms that housed the royal guard. These, too, were empty, though littered with equipment and weapons, and at the far end of the largest room was an arched, torch-lit entryway and a descending staircase.
“That’s it,” he said, glancing behind them. The shadowed stairs seemed to go down forever. At the bottom, they found themselves in a dark, dank passage whose stone walls were covered—unexpectedly—with pale vines growing in twists and turns and dense spirals. As she hurried along, Sophia ran her hand over the cool leaves.
Suddenly, the corridor opened out onto a vast, high chamber with a domed ceiling. The walls were covered by the same pale creepers. Fires in deep clay pots dotted the stone floor, and in the center of the room was what appeared to be an empty pool. As they walked toward it, breathing heavily with exertion, Sophia realized that it was actually a pit. She ran to the edge and peered in.
The pit was more than twenty feet deep, its walls covered with sharp, irregular shards of glass. At the bottom, huddled around a small fire, sat the four luckless prisoners: Veressa, Martin, Calixta, and Burr. “It’s me, Sophia,” she called down, her voice echoing throughout the chamber.
At the sight of her, the four sprang to their feet. “Sophia!” Veressa cried. “You must leave here!”
Shadrack and Theo reached the edge of the pit. “We’re not leaving without you,” Shadrack said. “There’s a ladder. We’ll lower it and you can climb out.”
“Where are the guard?” Burr demanded. “How did you get past them?”
“They’re outside,” Sophia said. “Everyone is watching the eclipse.”
Shadrack and Theo lowered the wooden ladder into the pit and held the top of it securely while Burr held the bottom and, one by one, the other three made their way up. Martin went first, climbing slowly because of his silver leg, and when he had emerged safely, he embraced Sophia. “My dear, I’m not sure it was wise of you to come here.”
“We had to, Martin,” she said, leaning against him.
Calixta reached the top of the ladder, and then Veressa emerged. Burr followed them, leaping out over the last rung. “Right. Now how do we get out of here, Veressa?” he asked.
She was on the verge of answering when there was a sudden sound. Turning as one, they saw Montaigne’s companion, the veiled woman, standing in the doorway, surrounded by more than a dozen of the Nochtland guard. She strode toward them, more of the guard pouring out of the corridor behind her, ominous as gathering vultures. They held their spears aloft, directed at the small group that stood by the open pit.
“Princess Justa was right after all,” the woman said, her sweet, sad voice filling the cavernous chamber. Her delicate veil fluttered as she spoke. “She assured me you would return for your friends. I thought you would have more sense,” she said softly, walking directly toward Sophia. “For once, I’m glad to have been proven wrong.”
Shadrack put his arm across Sophia. “Leave her, Blanca,” he said hoarsely.
Blanca shook her head and began to remove her gloves. “This is the moment we were always heading toward, Shadrack. You simply chose not to believe it.” She extended her bare hand toward Sophia. “I’ll have the bag you are carrying, please.” Sophia did not move. “You may not care for your own safety, but surely there are some here whom you would not like to see at the end of a spear?”
Sophia turned reluctantly to retrieve her pack from under her gown, and after an awkward struggle it was free. She handed it to Blanca. Their hands touched for a moment; Sophia felt the pressure of the woman’s cold fingers. “Thank you,” Blanca said. Without wasting a moment, she opened the pack and removed the four maps. She ran her trembling fingers over them lovingly and then held the glass map up like a trophy, gazing at it. Sophia stared at the cavern wall through the treasure that she had just lost. “You must understand, Sophia,” Blanca said softly, “that they belong with me. For three years I shared a home with them—they were almost mine. I might have read them a thousand times, except that I could not.”
With an easy motion she lifted her veil, and in the flickering firelight Sophia saw that the woman’s face had no features, only skin that was deathly pale. The skin was deeply scarred, as if a dozen knives had carved through it: as if a patient hand had cut across it, again and again.
PART IV DISCOVERY