“Sir, I just saw a man making her go down into the basement. He had a gun at her back!”
“Show me.”
The maid (Millie—he remembered her name once his brain started working again) led him to the part of the ground floor where the servants worked. He heard the clatter of dishes as the cook and her underlings cleaned up from supper.
Looking down, Carlos saw the scattered seed pearl beads, and instantly knew they were from Poppy’s gown. “This way,” he said, pointing to where the tiny white objects continued to appear. He didn’t need the hint at this point. He knew where the man had taken Poppy.
“He’s bringing her through the caves,” he muttered, when he and Millie reached the heavy door that marked the entrance to the tunnels below.
“You know about the tunnels, sir?” Millie asked, surprised.
“Yes, by luck.” He paused. “And you know too.”
“It’s common knowledge downstairs, sir. First day I came to work here, the housekeeper told me to avoid ever going there. Said they were haunted, but I think the only spirits haunting the tunnels are the kind you drink.”
“I agree with that,” he muttered. “But have you been in the tunnels?”
“Me, sir? Lord, no! I’d sooner die.” Millie said, then added, in a more chipper tone, “I’ll fetch you a lantern. You’re going to have to go after them.”
The idea of walking into that dank, dark, airless underworld nearly made him pass out. He’d rather die than go in there.
Except that Poppy was in there.
A moment later, Millie handed him a lit lantern. “I’ll inform Mr. Towers of what happened.”
“Only Mr. Towers,” Carlos warned her. “Don’t let anyone else know about this until it’s resolved.”
“Aye, sir.”
Millie bustled away, leaving Carlos alone.
Carlos sank to his knees, contemplating the rectangular entrance to the void beyond. There was no way he could do this.
The only time he’d been in the tunnels before, he’d been blindfolded, with Poppy leading him because he was too cobarde to look.
But if he didn’t follow, Poppy would be lost forever. He remembered her describing how the tunnel that led to Pencliff Tower branched off a larger cavern, with a dozen more passages from there. She could be taken down any one of them, and then from there to a boat…and gone.
With a deep breath, Carlos stepped into the darkness.
The urge to turn right back around and run to the safety of the open air was overwhelming, but he clamped down on his emotions and took another deep breath, then another, until he realized his chest was heaving and the panic hadn’t gone anywhere.
“Anda el diablo controlate,” he told himself. If Poppy could navigate these caverns, so could he.
With the lantern held high, Carlos moved along the narrow, twisting passageway as fast as he could. The light was so dim that he could barely see a few feet in front of him.
“Don’t blow out,” he whispered to the lantern. “If you go out, I can’t see anything.” And that would end him.
The first several hundred feet were just a matter of bulling past his fear—the passage was an unbroken tunnel with no branches at all. A part of his mind (the part that was trying desperately not to panic) saw the markings of tools along the stone walls. Poppy was right that much of this tunnel was man-made, a deliberate effort to connect the house with the labyrinth below. And considering that smuggling and piracy had been rife in this corner of the world for centuries, that made sense.
Then, up ahead, he saw what he dreaded. A decision.
A second tunnel joined the main one. It was a little narrower, but not much, and it sloped downward more dramatically.
Something caught the light several feet down the main passage—a few little, soft glowing things. He hurried forward, then stooped down to see what it was, and picked up several tiny seed pearls strung together on a red thread.
Despite everything, he smiled. Poppy had left him a sign by ripping off some more of the little pearl beads from her dress. As long as he kept finding these, he’d know he was going the right way.
Moving on, he made sure to keep an eye on the floor, especially any time there was a branching passageway. Each time, he managed to find a few of those pearls ripped off and flung to the ground, indicating which way Poppy had been taken.
