Page 21 of Kiss of Smoke

He trotted away and we followed, taking a side tunnel that looked just as abandoned as the last one, but eventually the dog stopped ahead of us and let out a ghostly howl.

A shiver ran down my spine at that sound.

“He’s found something,” Gwyn said, suppressed hope in his voice.

Blessed Branches, please let us find the princess alive.

I sent up the fervent prayer and broke into a sprint until I saw Ceri’s pale gleam ahead of us.

The cwn annwn had found a door.

It stood out in the tunnel, dark boards banded with silver, and since it was the only landmark we’d found in hours, I felt a sudden trepidation at the sight of it.

If there was one thing I knew about the Undercity, it was that nothing good could come of finding a random door in miles of unused tunnels…especially on the heels of finding a bloodied earring.

“It smells of humans here,” Gwyn said. He raised his head and took a deep breath. “Recent. There’s footprints.”

I looked down at the floor and saw them if I looked hard enough. They were faint, made with smooth-soled boots, but clearly none of them were ours. They were layered, packed into each other, and they stopped in front of the door.

I glanced at my father, wondering what he would think, and saw Oriande whispering in a hurried undertone in his ear. Noctifer looked grim.

Right. Because if we found Tanaquill’s corpse behind that door….we needed to make sure that the event was filmed without compromising the princess’s dignity. I wouldn’t put it past Titania to behead the reporter for capturing footage that displayed the royal family in an undignified light.

“Stay back,” Noctifer told her, and approached the door that we all surrounded. “We should get Goodfellow down here.”

“We’re already here,” Jack pointed out. “If she’s hurt, and she’s close, we must do everything we can.”

I agreed whole-heartedly with that. If I were in Tanaquill’s shoes, I wouldn’t want someone to wait to rescue me.

While Jack and my dad were about to start arguing, I scooted forward and twisted the knob, pushing the door open.

My heart was in my throat, the taste of copper filling my mouth. I fully expected to see the worst—my mind was full of images of the princess, tortured and near death, begging for help.

But a dry, dusty smell flowed out, and the ghostlights darted in. I shoved the door open further.

The floor was covered in dust, but the human footprints clustered in front of the door stopped abruptly. There were ropes scattered in the dust, and a scrap of something that glimmered. I reached in and picked up a piece of fine white silk, shot through with iridescent threads.

“Tanaquill’s?” I asked my father, holding it up to the light. Ceri sniffed it and whined deep in his throat.

Noctifer nodded, his lips set in a grim line. “Blood?”

“No.” I turned the cloth over. Apart from the fact that it was torn from her dress, there was no blood, nothing marking a struggle.

Like the earring, it could’ve easily been torn by Tanaquill herself and left like a breadcrumb.

But the trail ended here. It was a square room, with nothing but the dust, ropes, and cloth left behind. There were no other doors or tunnels.

“We were on the right track, but they’ve disappeared again.” I frowned at the dusty floor, then reached out and pushed my hand into it, leaving a perfect print behind.

When I took my hand away, the dust slowly fluffed up again, filling in the depression within minutes.

“Wild magic,” Gwyn murmured. “Perhaps it’s seeking to keep this room at an exact moment in time, and nothing can permanently disturb it.”

“Fucking wild magic,” I said bitterly, getting to my feet. “This room could’ve told us a whole story.”

I wrapped Tanaquill’s earring in the iridescent cloth, and carefully tucked it in the breast pocket of my jacket. As we walked away, leaving the magic-touched room behind, I glanced back at it once. It felt like an eye staring at my back.

All that work for a dead end. The princess’s breadcrumb trail had been for nothing.

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