Chapter 6: Secret Tunnels

As it turned out, the passageways ran in parallel to the castle hallways. They were tight, just large enough for me to walk without brushing my shoulders against the stonework on either side. I held a lantern out before me to keep the cobwebs out of my face and had the journal tucked under my other arm.

This was a stupid plan. What if there wasn't another exit? What if I got lost? I could picture myself rotting away in here, completely unnoticed until the smell drove them to knock a hole in the wall.

But intuition and desperation told me to push onward. Something about the tunnels felt familiar, even if I'd never seen them before. And besides, no one built a passageway with only one entrance, right?

I came to another split in the tunnels. Left? Prince Leon's chambers were a floor up from the servant's quarters and several hallways down. How far had I traveled already?

Through the wall, a loud pounding of armored footsteps echoed. Guards, all running somewhere.

The guard had reported a fire in Minerva's tower. Was that where they were headed? Was the princess alright?

I thought about the servants being confined to their rooms, and how there were no guards posted outside Minerva's chambers. It struck me as unfair, then, that her brothers were all heavily protected and that they had personal staff that didn't also work elsewhere. No one should be alone.

The sound of voices came from the wall next to me. I pressed my ear against it, struggling to hear the conversation.

"They've just put it out, thankfully." I thought I recognized the speaker as a washerwoman who had shown me around the lower halls.

"Goodness." Her companion I didn't remember, but the ease which with the two spoke clearly marked them both as servants.

"Still, to have lit her own bedspread on fire! What could she have been thinking?"

Her own bedspread? Had Minerva dropped a candle while reading? I slid along the wall, trying to follow the women and their conversation.

"You mustn't say such things," one of the servants chastised the other. "She doesn't really think, that one. She just... well... it's hard to explain isn't it. We should just be minding our own matters if you ask me. Leave her to her... behaviors."

It felt like a rather convenient point of view to take, if you didn't want to put the effort into helping others. But then again, I'd only met the princess once.

More voices mumbled something impossible to hear. Then, "well, I'll get to some of the morning preparations."

Several assenting murmurs followed, then the footsteps of the servants breaking up and going in different directions. I leaned against the wall and looked up at the low stone ceiling.

So Princess Minerva had lit her bedspread on fire, either intentionally or by accident, and inadvertently cut my night with Prince Leon short. I didn't know if I should feel grateful or frustrated. Maybe both.

It hit me then how tired I was. I had been awake since sunrise, and here I was wandering some dark passages long after sunset. My first day of work: a dead king, a beautiful and possibly mad princess, two scheming twins, the mess of emotions that was Prince Leon, and a fire. Maybe I should just head back to my rooms, go to bed and tell the princes I had failed.

I looked down the hallway I had come, and realized that I had absolutely no idea where I was.

Two turns and a staircase? Or three turns and a staircase? Was there a staircase at all? I tried to remember, but panic turned my brain to soup. That fear of dying in these tunnels felt real all of a sudden. Were the walls getting smaller?

I rapped the side of my head with my knuckles. Focus. I had to have some way out of this. Glancing around, my eyes fell on the book. I crouched and opened the tome in my lap, flipping through the pages looking for an answer.

If anything, it seemed more complicated than before. Whomever had written it had clearly failed to learn even the most basic concepts of writing, as their words didn't even stay in short, orderly rows. Instead, they spiraled and crisscrossed over one another. They zigzagged like steps, twisted like hallways, clumped together like rooms.

I blinked.

The book was a map. The words weren't some secret code or complicated riddle, they were the lines of a map, disguised to look like text. A map of... I turned the book around, trying to get my bearings, then smiled in satisfaction. A map of the castle, with a strange set of double hallways. Or--as some people called them--secret tunnels.

Armed now with the confidence of a girl back in her hometown, I practically ran through the tunnels, checking my map at each intersection and adjusting my path accordingly. I was close to Prince Leon's quarters, close enough to take the risk.

Two more turns and I was there, pressed against the wall of his study. Now to find an exit. I glanced over the map again, looking for some kind of hint.

SOFTLY UPSIDE DANCING EXIT FOOLS TOGETHER, the hallway I was in read. I walked my fingers along the sentence, counting the letters and spaces. Then, starting at the edge of where I knew the study to be, I took steps, comparing the sizes of the two spaces.

Sure enough, when I placed my hand on where the word 'EXIT' fell, something mechanical clicked within the stone.

Stepping into his study, I paused before the great oak desk. Papers sat in neat stacks, an ink and quill rested gently side by side. I pulled out the parcel of false evidence, turning it over in my hands.

By the weight of it, the package probably held letters, each designed to incriminate Prince Leon in whatever the twins wanted to lever against him. It could spell his utter destruction, maybe even his death. Did I want that on my conscience?

Through the closed door of his study, I heard a shift of furniture, followed by a high-pitched giggle. Another maid then. Interrupted or not, the prince would have his evening's pleasure. Jealousy filled me and with it, a wave of disgust. This is what I wanted? To be a thing the prince ordered around and exchanged with other women? I meant nothing to him, not in the sense I had almost imagined. And he... meant nothing to me.

I dropped the parcel into a desk drawer and stepped back into my secret passageways.

My heart pounded the whole walk back to my rooms, but by the time I was tucked away in bed, not a thing had changed.

I woke the next morning to screaming.