Page 34 of Lady Dragon
She tore it open so quickly she gave herself a paper cut. Sucking on her finger, she devoured the message with her eyes.
Meet me in my tower at midnight tonight. Discreetly. Lose Jamsens. Burn this.
The writing was so slashing and angular, it could only be Kirek’s. Reminiscent of her form with a sword. Samansa’s heart began to pick up pace.
She immediately recalled her mother’s words:That doesn’t mean you can’t have… friends… on the side, but you must bediscreet.
Of course, the queen had been excluding the dragon girl from that, but Kirek didn’t seem to be excludingherself, and it was dragons who made the rules, after all.Ifthat’s what this clandestine meeting was even about.
In any case, Samansa didn’t care—she was going. She trusted Kirek. And she knew exactly how to lose Jamsens.
The secret passageway, which he’d only just revealed to her.
She still had an old, plain gray cloak of Dara’s she used to disguise herself and wander the halls with her. The thought was painfully tender as she swung the garment over her shoulders, masking her butterscotch-yellow gown. She hadn’t imagined she’d be sneaking around today when she chose her outfit’s color. The cloak was like a cloud trying to cover up the sun, but it would serve.
Good thing she and Dara hadn’t known about this passage back then, or else they would have used it to get up tomischief—and probably would have gotten themselves killed. Which was no doubt why they hadn’t been told about it.
Samansa swallowed a giddy laugh as she obligingly threw the letter into her fireplace, hoping that she wasn’t about to get herself killed now. But she was going to see Kirek, and Kirek was always safe.
She slipped into her antechamber, closing her door silently, and stole into Dara’s old room. Whispering hello—and an even quieter, bittersweet goodbye—to her friend, she tripped the latch she’d seen Jamsens find when they’d left the castle days earlier, even though she’d only seen it the once.
And here she was, already using the secret passage for her own ends.
She’d also noticed, when she’d trailed him, that the stairs didn’t only lead down outside the castle walls—which was definitely not where she wanted to go, at the moment. They also came from above. She didn’t know from where, precisely, but Kirek’s high tower was up there. Whichwaswhere she wanted to go.
Heading behind the bookcase with a low-burning candle—and closing the door behind her—she began to climb.
And climb.
When she reached what looked like the back of another shelf, she knew where to trip the latch. It swung silently open onto a large, dark room.
The royal library, she soon saw in the dim candlelight.
It abutted the queen’s quarters, but fortunately didn’t adjoin them. Or, on second thought, Samansa imagined the library likely did connect to her mother’s rooms with yetanother short, secret passageway behind yet another hidden bookshelf, so the queen would have nigh-immediate access to this exit, too, in case of an emergency. Her mother simply had one extra layer of protection, in case this escape route were ever to be used against them to get inside the castle. Since such access from the queen’s quarters, if it existed, would be as secret as this route, that meant it was as unguarded as the opening Samansa emerged from. Which left the library unlit and utterly silent.
Something rubbed across her ankle, making her jump back and choke on a shriek.
“Thoman!” she rasped with quiet exasperation. The striped, orange cat purred and meowed demurely up at her. She nearly wanted to boot him with her foot for giving her such a fright. He often liked to sun himself on the daybeds along the windows and must have gotten shut into the library, which was normally no surprise, such that he had dishes of both food and water kept full in here. It was just she hadn’t expected him to sneak up on her.
“Perhaps I snuck up on you,” she whispered at him in concession. “Now go away!”
He did not, in fact, go away, padding behind her as she hurried toward the library’s side exit, which opened onto a little-used hallway that shouldn’t be guarded this time of night. Still, there very well might be patrols, especially with the influx of unwanted guests.
Samansa eased the door open a crack, as quietly as she could. The way was clear, no footfalls echoing down the marble corridor. She slipped out—and nearly shut the door on Thoman’s tail. She tried to shoo him away and hurried off in the directionshe knew led to the tower stairs, hoping the cat would lose interest and drift away. But he stuck to her heels.
She stopped at the base of the spiraling staircase to hiss at him and nudge him with her slipper, but he only looked up at her in blistering affront and kept following as she started up.
He definitely reminded her of someone. Perhaps she could properly introduce them this time—there hadn’t been a chance when she’d spotted Thoman out on the castle grounds while giving Kirek her supposed tour.
So many stairs.And yet Thoman was undeterred. Samansa was panting as she neared the top, and wanted to throw off the cloak that was now too warm. But she still didn’t want to risk discovery, especially since she was almost there.
And so it was, when she knocked quietly on Kirek’s imposing iron door, that she was sweaty, flushed, out of breath, and accompanied by a cat.
Kirek cracked open the door with her usual stony expression, and then her silver eyes flickered wider. “You look like something out of one of your books—a royal trying to disguise themselves as a maid and failing completely.”
“Oh,let me in,” Samansa muttered, and shoved by her, conscious of her casual contact with the dragon girl and yet reasonably sure she could get away with it. Indeed, Kirek let her pass inside with a tilt to her lips that hadn’t been there before, and closed the door behind her.
But Kirek didn’t look like her usual self. She looked… shadowed. As if something was weighing heavily on her shoulders. Samansa knew what that felt like. She was about to ask her what was wrong when Kirek’s eyes suddenly narrowed and she snarled, “What isthatdoing in here?”
