Page 21 of Royally Hacked Belle & Flame
“I don’t like it either,” Fox says flatly. Then, to my surprise, he elaborates. “It smells like death in here.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “It smells like cake.”
He shakes his head, but being Fox, doesn’t say anything else. Still, an uneasy shiver travels up my spine.
At that moment, a loud crash, like splintering wood, rips through the cottage. I jump, and nearly knock my elbow into the wedding cake. Fox’s head smacks against a low beam as he startles upright.
In an instant, I’m alert. I cross the cottage in two strides and yank open the door to the cellar. The smell of damp earth invades my nose. “Mrs. Hilde? Are you alright?”
“Of course, Your Majesty!” She yells back, sounding slightly winded. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be right—ow!”
Alarm hits me as she yelps in pain. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” she shouts again.
I glance over my shoulder at the others. Kastian looks tense, Fox worried, and even Jett has stopped smiling. Turning back to the stairs, I take a step into the darkness.
Suddenly, Mrs. Hilde appears at the bottom of the stairs again. She’s holding a flower sack with one hand and a jar of what looks to be molasses in the other. “Found what I was looking for!” she says cheerfully. “I’m going to make gingerbread.”
“What was that sound?” I demand.
“Oh, nothing,” she says as she hurries up the stairs toward me.
I’m forced to step out of the doorway to let her pass, but then I peer back into the darkness. “Let me just go make sure everything is alright.”
The stairwell is somehow even narrower than it looked, with damp rock walls that squeeze in close enough to brush my shoulders. It smells like wet earth and something faintly sulfurous, like rotten eggs someone tried to cover up with cinnamon.
My hand finds the wall and I inch downward, hyperaware of Kastian close behind me. Fox and Jett are right behind him, so when Mrs. Hilde tries to protest again, her voice is muffled by four large bodies stubbornly squeezing into a space built for one.
“Really, it’s nothing,” Mrs. Hilde calls down, her voice ricocheting off the stone. “It’s dirty down there, you shouldn’t?—”
“Kas, conjure a light,” I mutter, and the words barely leave my mouth before he responds.
The flare of magic is bright and fast. A little flame materializes in his palm, and throws every shadow into sharp relief.
It also immediately reveals that Mrs. Hilde was lying: the stairs, yes, are filthy, but the bottom of the cellar is anything but.
The floor down here is packed hard and smooth, swept clean of dust, and lined with square flagstones, a distinct improvement over the upper staircase. The shelves along the far wall are stacked high with baking supplies—jars of jam, bottles of cordial, mysterious preserves in brown glass jars, and baskets of brightly wrapped candies. There’s even a row of smoked sausages hanging from the ceiling, which draws Jett’s attention instantly.
My eyes land on the only thing that seems out of place: splintered wood and cornmeal cover a patch of floor near the wall. It looks as if one of the heavy barrels exploded of its own accord.
I stride over to the broken barrel and bend down to pick up a handful of cornmeal. My brow furrows in confusion.
Kastian’s hand lands on my shoulder, startling me. “Do you smell that?” he whispers, low enough that it probably shouldn’t carry, but the cellar amplifies every sound.
“Yeah,” I say, and everyone else nods. The sulfur smell is stronger here, and now there’s an edge of rot to it—something not even cinnamon could hide.
I twist to look at Mrs. Hilde, who is halfway down the stairs and clearly trying to herd us back up. She’s clutching the jar of molasses, brandishing it like a weapon. “Don’t worry about the mess. One of my barrels just cracked, it’s nothing to worry about right now. I have everything I need for gingerbread. I’ll have the cookies ready in no time?—”
Fox grabs my arm and pulls me to the left, toward a wall stacked with old potato crates. “There’s something behind here.”
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Hilde barks. “Please don’t touch that.”
I ignore her. “Someone help me move it.”
Jett, who was halfway through stealing a sausage, drops it and comes over to help. The two of us grab the edge of the crate and shove. It’s heavy with potatoes, but not so heavy that we can’t manage it together. The crate slides to the side with a scraping noise that makes my teeth ache, and behind it is—nothing. Just a wall, rough stone mortared badly together. Except?—
“There’s a seam here,” I say, running my fingers along the line where the stones meet. “Like a hidden door.”
Mrs. Hilde shrieks, a high, shattered sound. “Don’t touch that! It’s dangerous!” she yells, but I’m already pressing my shoulder into the seam and testing it with my weight. Fox and Kastian jump in to help, and together we manage to pry open a narrow wedge of space, just enough to see darkness beyond.
The smell hits us full force, a ripe, wet, animal stink that makes my stomach heave. Jett recoils. “What the fuck is that?”
Kastian’s flame flares brighter, casting long shadows across the hidden chamber. The light catches first on something white—a femur, then a skull, then dozens more, scattered like fallen leaves across the packed earth floor. “Holy shit.”
A muffled whimper draws my eyes to the far corner where two small, blonde figures huddle against the damp stone. Their wrists are raw from rope burns, mouths stretched around filthy gags. When they see us, their eyes widen, and they thrash wildly and try to scream around the cloth in their mouths.
Rage courses through me and I whip around and see Mrs. Hilde darting back up the stairs. “Grab her!”
Fox’s boots scrape against stone as he lunges forward, fingers outstretched toward Mrs. Hilde’s apron. The fabric slips through his grasp like water. She scrambles back up the cellar stairs, surprisingly nimble for someone so old. Fox’s hand drops to his sword hilt, but it’s too late—Mrs. Hilde’s silhouette vanishes into the light above and the door slams shut behind her.
