She twisted about and realized two black scarves were draped behind her. She’d thought them decorative, but now Leopold was wrapping one around his shoulders and offering her the second. “Where we are going gets cold,” he explained. “This will help with the chill.”
“Where we’re going?” She accepted the scarf and stood. “Is there some secret way out of here?”
Leopold smiled slyly. “Guessed it in one.” He strode past the fireplace to an iron sconce on the other side. With a fist, he knocked the stones three times. Air whooshed outward, gusting against Safi, and her Hell-Bard senses ignited.
Magic, her skin whispered. Glamour! And before her eyes an entire stretch of wall disappeared. A single heartbeat later, an archway revealed stairs spiraling downward out of sight.
Leopold’s smile widened, and with a mischievous cant to his eyebrows, he beckoned for Safi to follow as he set off into the darkness. The staircase was as ancient as the rest of this wing.
“What is this place?” Safi asked, her voice a mere whisper.
“Forgotten,” Leopold replied. His hand trailed along the wall as the last remnants of firelight faded. “Put your hand on my shoulder. I’ll lead us the rest of the way.”
Safi obeyed, putting one hand on his left shoulder and the other on the wall as he’d done. The stone was frozen to the touch, slightly damp, and surprisingly smooth. Whoever had created this passage had not used chisels, but magic. Every few steps, her fingers brushed over grooves in the rock. Carvings, she thought, though she could not discern what.
“I discovered this as a boy,” Leopold explained eventually. Safi had no concept of how far they had traveled, but she suspected they were now belowground. “This tower was nothing more than exposed ruins then, and Uncle would let me camp out sometimes. He even let me go alone, though I am certain he had a hundred guards spying on me nearby.”
Safi frowned into the darkness. She couldn’t imagine Henrick indulging anyone, much less a young child.
“One night, as I was pretending to be a great Paladin with flaming sword, I accidentally tapped that wall three times. And … well…” She felt his shoulders bounce softly, as if he laughed. “You saw what happens—oh, watch this step. It’s a bit taller than the rest.”
Leopold slowed slightly, and sure enough, when Safi’s slippered foot hit the ledge, she did have to reach farther to hit the next.
“I realized I had found something incredible, Safiya, and I also knew I was being watched. So rather than explore that night, I tapped the wall again and waited. Then, on my birthday a month later, I asked Uncle Henrick to restore the tower’s roof so that I might live there.”
“I remember,” Safi murmured. “Your tenth birthday.”
“Exactly. And Uncle allowed me to lead the witches restoring it, which in turn allowed me to make sure no one discovered my secret passage. Even at ten,” Leopold added, his tone turning wry, “I knew how special such a passage might be. And indeed, Safiya, it was … it is more special than anything I could have imagined. We are almost there now. Can you see the light?”
Safi blinked. She had been so focused on getting her feet in front of her and keeping her balance, she hadn’t noticed the subtle changes in the darkness. Or the subtle changes in the air, a welcome warmth building against her skin.
Three more sharp spirals, and suddenly heat and light billowed fully against her. The space opened up; a cave spanned before her—as well as a three-foot drop-off. Leopold gracefully padded to the floor and turned back to offer Safi his hand.
She didn’t accept it. She simply leaped to the unhewn floor and hurried past. Awe expanded in her rib cage; excitement raced through her veins. Even with her vision sapped and life drained, there was no mistaking this place for anything but otherworldly.
The cave stretched far ahead and out of sight, its high ceiling naturally rounded like a dome. Firewitched torches cast the walls in a glittering golden glow, and the soft mist that hovered over everything seemed lit from within. Safi had never seen spirit swifts, but something about the shimmery fog made her think of them.
She sensed Leopold following behind, but he said nothing as she wandered onward. A subtle sense of sulfur permeated the air, growing stronger with each step. The warmth increased too, balmy, relaxing. Hot springs, she decided. The palace was heated by them, and one such spring must bubble nearby.
After several minutes of traversing the cavern, Safi reached thick chunks of stone that looked randomly placed at first glance, yet upon closer examination were in fact buttressing a weak ceiling. And like the tunnel in the tower, they were undoubtedly made by magic.
Safi paused at one and dragged her fingers over a series of carvings. They felt identical to the ones she’d sensed in the tower. “An owl,” she said after studying the first symbol. “And … a crow?”
“A rook,” Leopold corrected, and when Safi glanced his way, he shrugged. “After I discovered this place, I spent years trying to determine what it was and who had built it. Come.” He set off deeper into the cave.
“And what did you find?” She skipped into step beside him.
“I found a Paladin once called the Rook King. The same one I believe Iseult told you about. He lived in the Sirmayans a thousand years ago, in the Monastery where Iseult met his ghost. The woman he loved, however, lived here.” For once, as Leopold spoke, no affectation coated his words. No careful pauses, no musically placed inflections. He simply described what he had uncovered.
On anyone else, it would have sounded perfectly normal. On him, it sounded hollow. It sounded sad.
“She was also a Paladin,” Leopold explained. He had to speak more loudly now; water flowed ahead. “Their love was forbidden, and so they built this secret place where they could meet. One of many such places, actually.” As he said this, the cave turned slightly—and the churn of running waters doubled in volume.
Then a frothing hot spring appeared. Its waters had been arranged into a series of cascading, rectangular pools for swimming while a dozen columns framed the space, all connected by long benches.
“A bath,” Safi said.
“Romantic, no?” Leopold glanced at her, expression unreadable. “And also quite unknown. I placed alarm-stones all around this cave shortly after I discovered it, and not once, in all my years of coming here, has a single stone been tripped off.” Spreading his arms wide, he stalked forward. “We are very safe, Safiya fon Hasstrel, and very alone.”
He twirled about to face her, swooping a dramatic bow. Gone was the flat Leopold; returned was the charming prince—and returned was Safi’s wariness. Very safe and very alone. She did not like the way that sounded.
She kept her chest high and shoulders back as she strode to the nearest bench, where she withdrew her Truth-lens and once more trained it on Leopold.
“Why did you betray us?”
“And we return to the heart of the matter.” Movement flickered across the lens’s colorful glass, and when Safi opened her other eye, she saw Leopold had joined her at the bench. After draping his own scarf down, he sat.
Safi remained standing.
“I did not betray you to my uncle.” Leopold lounged lazily, bracing both hands behind him and stretching out his legs. With his dressing robe, he looked like some wealthy gentleman come to enjoy the steam.