Page 40 of The Beast King's Bride

A long hairpin could do the job. Once more I wish I had Pete with me. I bend the end of the long pin a little, then push it inside the lock and fish around until it hooks onto something. Carefully, slowly, I push the key out.

The moment I hear it clink to the floor, I get on my belly and use the same pin to fish it, pull it under the door to me.

Honestly, I don’t expect it to work, so when I finally take the key in my hand, I can scarcely believe it.

“Pete, you’d be proud of me,” I whisper, grinning.

Getting up, I quickly change into the woolen dress and the boots, pull the cape over me, and grab an oil lamp from the table. I light it with a twig from the fireplace and unlock the door to step outside.

Here we go again.

I remember the way, I tell myself. We just walked it with Jassin. I will get out this time. Only Jassin knew his way in the dark, and though sconces in the walls had flared as we’d passed by, I don’t have any Fae magic.

Lifting my oil lamp high, I start down the corridor.

There is the turn I marked in my mind, the door with the rose carved in it where we turned into yet another passage. Reconstructing the way backward is tricky, but my advantage is that I grew up in a palace. Granted, it wasn’t as confusing a layout as this one, but I have the habit of marking different routes in my mind according to various landmarks.

Take the right door, go through the portrait gallery, exit at the other end, take a left, choose the blue door—

A roar starts somewhere in the bowels of the palace, distant but not distant enough. It sends a tremor through the stones under my feet, through my bones. My breath catches in my chest.

Monsters, Jassin had said, leaving me to imagine all sorts of wild animals and horrors. It’s far, whatever it is, I think. But it’s inside the palace.

All the more reason for me to get out.

I hurry on, trying to place the clues of the maze in order. Go down the corridor, take a right, then left, through the middle door, then the empty gallery—

Another roar.

Was it closer this time?

I find myself panting, running down passages, not caring anymore if I’m going in the right direction, my mind empty of anything else but panic. I start down a flight of stairs I don’t remember, only to find another flight going back up. It’s an absurd palace. It feels more like a prison than a king’s residence.

Maybe the king had an animal garden, I think randomly as I run and run, and the animals broke free, and he enclosed them in this palace so they can never get out and kill people.

Fae. Not people. When did I start thinking of the Fae as people?

I’m more rattled than I thought.

I sprint across a gallery I’ve never seen before, filled with busts of monarchs or sages, who knows, when the roar deafens me, throws me to the floor, coming from right behind me.

Scrambling on all fours, I wedge myself behind a marble pedestal and swallow down bile. I hear heavy footsteps and a huff. A scent of animal fur and musk invades the gallery, and a low growl raises the fine hairs on my arms.

Unable to stop myself, I peek around the pedestal, needing to see what is there.

The beast is enormous, towering over the pedestals even though it’s on four legs. Its coat is coal black with faint white markings on its flanks—like stripes, like scars—and horns curl over its feline head. Its eyes seem to glow.

A wail starts deep inside my throat and I swallow several times to contain it. I inch back behind the pedestal and hold my breath, praying that it will go away and ignore me.

Please go away, I think. Please go away. Every beat of my heart shakes me, so loud that I’m sure the beast can hear it.

The beast snuffles at the floor, growls low and menacingly but doesn’t move. If it doesn’t leave, my heart will give out. It’s racing, its beat echoing in my ears, in my wrists, in my throat. It’s choking me.

But after a small eternity, the black monster turns around and pads out of the gallery, leaving me huddled there, trembling all over, promising myself that I wouldn’t try to escape my room again—not at night.

Next time, it will have to be during the daytime, that’s for sure.

“Good morning, my lady.” Auria and Zylphia are inside my room, clearing the table, making the bed, opening the window to air the space—as if nothing strange and terrible is happening to their world. “Did you sleep well?”

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