Page 38 of The Thirteenth Count

Willem shifted the basket, approaching her slowly, like one might approach a startled doe. “He has that effect on people. Lord Blackwell.”

“He’s a statue,” Fern said bitterly. “A statue that gives orders and speaks in riddles.”

Willem offered a small, humorless smile. He set the basket down and leaned against the opposite wall. “He is what he has to be. High Blackwell watches everything. Even the dust. If the son shows cracks, the father… corrects them.”

“He wouldn’t let me write to them,” she confessed, the words spilling out as tears rolled down her cheeks. “My parents. He said communication is restricted. He said it would put a target on their backs.”

Willem’s expression tightened. He glanced up and down the corridor, ensuring they were truly alone. Then he lowered his voice to a thread. “If he said restricted, he means forbidden. High Blackwell… he prefers his new acquisitions to be untethered. A horse runs faster if it isn’t looking back at the stall.”

“I am not an acquisition. I am not a horse.”

Willem looked at her then with a sad knowing that made him seem older than his years. “Aren’t you?”

Fern fell silent. The truth of it, the truth she had been denying since Sturgis had dragged her from her home, settled heavy in her stomach. She was an acquisition. A resource. A sack of blood and bone to be used any way the High saw fit.

“I need to get out,” she whispered. “Not… not escape. I know I can’t. The blood carriages, the guards… I know.” She took a shaky breath. “But I need to breathe. I need a place he doesn’t control. A place he isn’t watching.”

Willem hesitated, chewing the inside of his cheek as if he was weighing her request. He looked at the ceiling, then the floor, and finally at Fern.

“Every Keep has veins,” he said softly. “Paths for the blood to move without being seen. The servants’ passages. Highbloods and Stembloods alike pretend they don’t exist. If they don’t exist, they don’t have to think about the hands that keep their world standing.”

He walked to a section of the wall that looked identical to the rest—grey stone, dimly lit by a flickering sconce. He pressed his thumb against a specific groove in the mortar, low near the floor, almost invisible unless you knew where to look.

A faint click echoed.

A narrow panel of stone swung inward with a groan.

Fern stared. Beyond the opening lay a darkness deeper than the hallway, smelling of dry rot and old stone. “Where does it go?”

“Everywhere,” Willem said. “Behind the library. Under the dining hall. Up to the rookery. It’s tight, and it’s dark, and the spiders have claimed most of it.” He looked at her seriously. “But it’s below his notice. He doesn’t go there. High Blackwell considers it beneath him to walk where the rats roam.”

Fern stood up, moving toward the opening. A draft of cool, stale air blew out, ruffling the hem of her skirt. It was narrow, close, wrong.

And she wanted it anyway.

“Show me,” she said.

Willem shook his head. “I can’t. I have duties—if the apples aren’t in the pantry by the second bell, Silas will have my hide. Well, he’ll try.” He grinned. “But…” He gestured to the dark. “If you keep to the wall on your left, you’ll always find a way back to the kitchens. If you go right… well. Just don’t.”

“How deep?” Fern asked.

“Deep enough,” he said. “Not today. Take time and breathe today.”

Fern stepped closer to the opening. The darkness beyond was narrow, close enough to brush both shoulders if she dared enter. It did not look welcoming.

It didn’t look safe.

But it didn’t look watched.

Her fingers hovered near the edge of the stone panel. She imagined slipping inside. Walking until the Keep above her became distant and unimportant. Walking until she could forget the eyes. The rules. The Blackwell presence pressing down on her.

The dark didn’t move; it simply waited.

“Another time,” Willem murmured, gently turning Fern.

She memorized the groove in the mortar. The faint scratch in the stone where the panel met the wall. The exact place where the wardlight flickered.

Then Willem pressed the stone back into place.