The tunnel eventually gave way to hard-packed soil. So much so, it was an almost imperceptible shift from the carved stone prior. She may not have noticed had she not felt something similar beneath the trap door of her apartment. And that of her parents.
At first, only the grating sound of booted heels upon stone, and then soil, alerted her to exactly where the figure walked ahead. But now the phantom’s breaths were labored. It must not be accustomed to carrying bodies such long distances. It was little comfort.
A draft of warmer air brushed against Lux’s cheek, and she turned into the darkness. She stretched out her fingers. Where rough soil had been beneath was now empty space. A connecting tunnel.
Her skin crawled.
She knew where this tunnel led. Which meant her growing suspicions about where her current path was taking her were also likely correct. Lux dropped her fingers back to her side, tucking them deep within the sleeves of Shaw’s too-big coat. Another gust of frost-tipped air ran over her exposed skin in a gentle caress.
Welcome back, Lucena.
Lux pulled back intothe darkness of the tunnel when the first glimmer of silver fell through the trap door.
The phantom abandoned the body in a crumpled heap at the base of the ladder, rising to push along the seam, opening with ease against its hands. The silver glow emanating from the trees in the center of the cottage spread to the passage beneath it now, and with a grunt of effort, the cloaked figure hoisted the body up and through the narrow space. Red silks and finely made boots were the last things Lux glimpsed before they were swept from sight.
Tentatively, she reached for the rung at eye level.
When Lux first peered over the floorboards, her mind flashed with visions of her death, stabbed mercilessly by the phantom’s narrow blade. When the attack didn’t come, she braved a look around. A flourish of red and the body was gone—around the trees and to the opposite end of the cottage. Muttered whisperings and a choked cackle of feminine laughter followed. Her heart bounded.
A madwoman?
Pulling herself up and through the trap door, she reeled back from a snuffling snout pushing against a cage. A cage that had materialized at her side, shrouded in shadow, along with a rat. His companion laid asleep, curled in the corner.What awful pets.Her lingering doubt over the cloaked being’s sanity was no longer; it must certainly be unhinged.
Lux crept alongside the trunks of the silver-barked trees. She crouched, giving them as wide a berth as possible before peering around their glowing trunks.
The phantom finished tying its prisoner—either dead or unconscious—to a hard-backed chair with a coil of thick rope. The victim’s soft hands rested limp and pale against the wood grain. The grey figure stood still, studying their charge for a moment. Then, with one quick movement, it flung the dirty sack from the prisoner’s head.
Morana.
Her lips were blue with cold, and Lux thought she might be dead until she saw Morana’s chest move with a shallow exhale. Her dress was askew, her hair a knotted mass about her head, and her skin much too pale. Lux could imagine how infuriated she would be to know someone saw her in such a state. Particularly, if that someone were her.
Morana moaned.
The sudden strike against her cheek rang out over the edges of the cottage, driving a gasp from Lux and ensuing silence from the mayor’s daughter.
The phantom lowered its hand.
All Lux could discern was an unyielding shadow beneath the hood as it turned to her. As it took in her crouched position, her body hidden beneath a massive coat and her fingers clutching tight to a dead boy’s things.
Lux bolted.
The phantom flew after her.
Down into the tunnel she dropped, no time for the ladder. Righting herself, she hurtled forward, her shoulder scraping painfully against the wall. The fabric shredded, the exposed skin stinging and hot, but she couldn’t slow. For the phantom leaped down behind her.
She tore back a cry of panic.
The monster at her back knew these tunnels well; it didn’t need light to guide its way, and Lux was going to die in the cold darkness because of it.
Even with the knowledge of her futile escape, adrenaline pushed her. Far beyond the normal boundaries of her capabilities. Her muscles bunched and stretched, heat tearing through them, sweat beading her brow, but she still didn’t slow.
The phantom gained.
Lux could feel it, the long fingers enclosing around the narrow knife that had tended to so many bodies so diligently. Her exhaustion shifted into the realm of delirium. She wondered what appendage the phantom would choose from her. An eye, perhaps? She’d long been complimented on them. Her toes?
Maybe it would carve out her very heart.
A switch on the bottom and then you run.
