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She ran to the big double doors and opened one just a sliver to peek out. She didn't see anyone in the hall. She slipped out the door, closing it quietly behind her.
Checking around again, she made for the stairs, then raced up as quietly as she could. On the next floor, in a hallway of wood paneling without windows, Rachel headed for the room that would be locked. There were reflector lights still lit. They were kept lit throughout the night in case the queen ever wanted to go to her jewel room. As she hurried down the hall, she hopped on one foot as she reached down into her boot to retrieve the key.
Key in hand, Rachel looked over her shoulder as she arrived at the door she was looking for. Just then she saw a man in the distance coming down the hall. He was one of the butlers. Rachel knew him by his face, but she didn't know his name.
"Mistress Rachel?" he said, frowning as he reached her.
Rachel nodded. "Yes, what is it?"
"Exactly." He glanced to the door. "What is it?"
Chase had taught her to turn things around on people asking questions she didn't want to answer. He had also taught her how to turn suspicions around to make it look like the other person was up to no good. They'd often made it into a game at camp. She knew that she had to do that now. This time, though, it was not a game. It was deadly serious.
She put on her best scowl. Chase had taught her how to do that, too. He'd said for her to just imagine that a boy wanted to kiss her.
"What does it look like it is?"
The man arched an eyebrow at her. "It looks like you're about to go into the queen's jewel room."
"Do you intend to rob me of the queen's jewels I've been sent to get for her? Is that why you were lurking around the corner, waiting for someone to be sent to the queen's jewel room? So you can rob them?"
"Lurking—rob you—why no, of course not. I merely want to know—"
"You want to know?" Rachel put her hands on her hips. "You want to know? Are you in charge of the jewels? Why don't you go ask Queen Violet what you want to know? I'm sure she won't mind a butler questioning her. Maybe she will only have you whipped and not beheaded.
"I'm on her business, getting something for her. Do I need to go get some guards to protect me and the queen's jewels I'm to take back to her?"
"Guards? Why of course not—"
"Then what business have you with this business?" She looked one way and then another, but saw no one. "Guards!" she yelled, but not too loudly. "Guards! A thief is after the queen's jewels!"
The man panicked, trying to get her to be quiet, but then abandoned the attempt and rushed off without another word. He never even looked back. Rachel quickly unlocked the door, checked the hall again, and then slipped inside. She didn't think anyone had heard her, but she didn't want to take any more time than necessary.
She didn't give the shiny, polished wall of little wooden drawers a second look. The dozens and dozens of little drawers were filled with necklaces, bracelets, brooches, tiaras, and rings. She immediately went instead to the fancy white marble pedestal that stood by itself in the opposite corner of the jewel room. Atop it had once stood Queen Milena's favorite object, the jeweled box she fawned over at every opportunity.
Now in its place was a box that looked like it was made of the Keeper's blackest thoughts. It was so black that the room filled with precious jewels seemed trivial in the presence of something so monumentally sinister.
Rachel had hated touching Queen Milena's jeweled box of Orden. She hated the thought of touching this even more.
She had to do it, though.
She knew she had to hurry if she was to have any chance of getting away. There was no telling if Violet would remember that the iron sleeping box in her room hadn't been locked. She might tell Six—or Six might just read her thoughts. Rachel suspected that Six was capable of doing such things. If they knew Rachel wasn't locked in that box, they would come back.
Rachel took the black box down off the white marble pedestal and stuffed it into the leather bag that was sitting against the wall. It was the same bag that Samuel had used to bring Six the box.
On the way to the door, Rachel paused before the tall, wood-framed mirror. She hated looking at herself in the mirror, hated seeing her hair, the way that Violet had chopped it all off. When she had lived at the castle before, back when she had been Princess Violet's playmate, Rachel hadn't been allowed to let her hair grow because she was a nobody. As soon as Violet had Rachel back, one of the first things she did was take a big pair of shears and chop off Rachel's long, beautiful blond hair. This was the first time she had really had a chance to get a good look at it, though, an up-close look.
She wiped tears from her cheek.
Chase had told her, when she first went with him, that if she wanted to be his daughter she would have to let her hair grow. Her hair had grown long and lustrous over the last couple of years, and she felt as if she really had grown to be his daughter. She didn't look the same in the mirror, now, as she had the last time she had stood in this room, looking at herself in the mirror when she had been helping Wizard Giller steal the jeweled box of Orden. Her features were different now. Less childlike, less… cute.
Now she was starting the gangly phase, as Chase called it, before she would bloom into the beauty of being a woman that he promised she would one day. That day seemed an impossibly long way off. Besides, without Chase, no one would be there to see her grow up, or care.
Now Chase was dead and her hair was chopped off again. Violet had not simply chopped it off, either, but had cut it in ragged cuts, bits and pieces, chunks and wads. It made her look like a cur dog that slept beside the midden heap. There was something else, though, that Rachel saw in that mirror. She saw the woman she would be one day, the woman Chase promised she would be.
What would Chase think if he could see her now, with her hair all chopped up?
Rachel pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind and swung the leather bag held closed with a drawstring over her shoulder. She opened the door just enough to look down the hall, then opened it a little more to look the other way. Still all clear. She hurriedly went out into the hall, and closed and locked the door.
She rememb
ered the halls and passageways of the castle as well as she remembered the curve of Chase's smile when she made him smile when he tried not to. She always like that best when he laughed when he was trying to scowl at her.
She took the servants' stairs so as to avoid the most guards. They stayed mostly to the main halls and such. People were going about their duties without pause. None of them yet knew that there was a new queen. She didn't know what people would think of such a thing. Rachel knew that people hated Violet, but they were terrified of Six.
Washwomen carrying bundles turned as they gossiped, watching Rachel run past. Men carrying supplies didn't pay her any attention. Rachel didn't meet the eyes of any of them lest they ask her something.
She reached the door out into a side hall that had a way out of the castle. She went around a corner and came face-to-face with two guards. They wore the red tunics over their chain mail and carried pikes with gleaming points. Swords hung from their belts.
Rachel could clearly see that they had no intention of letting her pass without finding out what she was doing there and where she was going.
"You must get away!" Rachel cried out at them. "Hurry!" She turned and pointed behind her. "The Imperial Order troops are entering the castle—back that way!"
One of the men gripped his pike with both hands and rested his weight on it. "We have nothing to fear from those men. They're our allies."
"They intend to behead all the queen's guards! I heard the commander giving them their orders! Behead them all, he said! More for us, he said. The soldiers all drew their big battle-axes. They were told they could keep anything on the men they behead. Hurry! They're coming! Save yourselves!"
Both men's mouths fell open.
"That way!" Rachel shouted, pointing toward the servants' stairs. "They won't think to look there. Hurry! I'll warn the others!"
