I
The passage was colder than Arsini had expected.
The steps behind the panel led down into the dark, and the torches the palace guards had lit threw their shadows long against the stone. Overhead, the palace groaned. It was a low, heavy sound, like something very large settling in its sleep. Every few breaths a thin stream of dust sifted from the ceiling.
Arsini stood on the last step with a wax tablet in her hand.
She was counting.
Thirty-eight people. Servants, guards, women from the royal household, a handful of cooks who had been in the kitchens when the horns sounded. She had counted them twice. She counted them a third time because counting was what she did when she was afraid.
Thirty-eight.
It was not the number she wanted.
At the end of the passage, where the torchlight failed, the way ahead was blocked by a wall of fallen rock. It looked like a collapse. Old, grey, and completely ordinary.
It was the door.
