Page 29 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
The library was like a maze within a maze—a labyrinth of intersecting aisles, so dimly lit it was a wonder anyone could find what they wanted in there. The Prince led me to a back corner stuffed with fur-cushioned chairs and draped with heavy blood-red curtains. An enormous painting of the Dreadlord hung on the wall between the drapes.
The Prince pushed aside a bit of one tasseled curtain and slid back a panel on the wall. “Keep watch,” he whispered.
“Um—all right…” I scanned the nearby aisles. They were too shadowed for me to see far. “No one’s coming.”
He was spinning some mechanism within the wall, pressing toggles and clicking levers. Finally, with a deep clunk, the wall swung inward.
“Classic secret passage,” I said casually, as if I wasn’t frightened or impressed. “We have a few of those at home.”
“I doubt they lead anywhere as unpleasant as this,” he said. “This is a back door to my father’s research area, where his sorcerers perform magical experiments. The main entrance is much too heavily guarded for us to access, but he and I have the code to this door.”
“Secret magical research?” I peered into the blackness beyond the opening. “And this will help us figure out our problems?”
“It’s a start. We have to be very quiet, and we cannot be caught, do you understand?”
“I’m not usually the spy type,” I said hesitantly. “I’m more of the brawling type, the hit-first-and-ask-questions-later type.”
“You underestimate yourself, darling,” he said. “You’ve been sly enough during your time here. You can do this.”
He was already halfway into the black corridor, his body bathed in veils of darkness, his pale features sharper than ever and his eyes glittering. He stretched out one bone-white hand to me. “Are you coming?”
25
I eased into the dark hallway with the Fiend Prince. When he closed the secret door behind us, it whirred and clicked. Locked again.
There I stood, buried to the eyeballs in inky black, unable to see anything. Panic fluttered in my gut as I remembered what had happened the last time I couldn’t see the Prince. How he’d fondled me, and how I’d touched him, and the terrible end to that interlude.
Suddenly all I could envision was his magic-rotted face. The corridor felt too stuffy, too narrow.
“Princess.” His voice seemed muffled by the closeness of the space. “Your breathing is very quick. Are you all right?”
“I can’t see. It’s too tight, too narrow. Can we go somewhere else, please?”
His fingers fumbled across my waist. “Where’s your hand?”
I intercepted his hand with mine, and he gripped it, warm and reassuring.
“Come with me.” He wrapped my arm close to his body, and we moved along the hallway. After a few minutes I saw a soft glow ahead.
“What are we looking for, exactly?” I whispered.
“We’re here to see if the thing that took my magic is still here.”
“What thing?”
“You’ll see. I can’t explain it very well—it’s something you have to witness for yourself.”
We came to the end of our passage, which intersected with a longer, better-lit one. The new hallway was broken up by doors, some of them open and some barred by locks and chains.
The Fiend Prince pointed into a few of the rooms, whispering their purpose to me. “See those glowing bottles on the shelves? Those are energy and essence samples. Very hard to capture and purify. There’s the distillery where they collect and process the essence. And that’s where they store odd items created by magic, things that aren’t useful for war, but are interesting examples of magical ability.”
He sidled up to a corner and checked for guards before motioning me to proceed. We crossed the space quickly, and I glimpsed several soldiers standing in the right-hand hallway, conversing together.
When we were out of earshot of them, he said, “That heavily-guarded hallway has several vaults for magical weapons, and for devices used to focus magic. We take those items into battle with us sometimes. And down here—” he pointed ahead— “are the magical artifacts we haven’t figured out yet. The thing that took my magic is the worst and most powerful of them all.”
“What about the substance you take to restore your powers?” I asked. “Where isthatmade?”
“Same hallway as the vaults, just farther down,” he replied. “There’s an intake area for the raw materials, and equipment for extracting and processing the substance.”
