Hotbloods 5: Traitors

I watched her, not knowing what to do. I thought about waking her up, but something stopped me. If she woke up and saw me loitering in her room, she’d grow suspicious. No, as much as it pained me to leave Navan’s mother in the throes of a nightmare, I knew I had to.

Quickly, I ducked back down and slid under the bed, dropping onto the staircase below the trapdoor. I was just about to close the hatch above me when my eyes were drawn to something glinting between two of the slats. A small, circular device was caught there, between the wood and the mattress. It was the kind of device I’d seen before, when Pandora instructed me and Navan to go to the market to fetch the ingredients for Queen Brisha’s ill-fated love potion. Yes, it was a payment device—the kind that hopefully had credit on it.

I was about to reach for it, when the whole mattress shifted above me, sandwiching the device between the slat and the mattress. It looked well and truly wedged in. I cursed under my breath. If I tried to remove it, I risked waking Lorela completely. We’d have to come back for it later, when the coast was clear.

“Did you find anything?” Ronad asked as I dropped back down into the tunnel, closing the hatch behind me.

“It’s Jareth and Lorela’s bedroom.” I explained, making sure the fastening was properly locked. “I saw a credit device under the bed, though. It might have some money on it.”

“Why didn’t you take it?”

“It was wedged between the frame and the mattress. We’ll have to snatch it another time, when Lorela is out cold. Maybe you could do it, next time you visit her?”

He nodded. “I’ll see if I can get it tonight, before Jareth gets back.”

Feeling a little more hopeful, we retraced our steps and took the left-hand fork in the tunnel. This passageway was longer than the other one had been, the air more stifling, the chrome tube slightly narrower. Another staircase stood at the far end of it, leading up to a second trapdoor.

There was a passage beyond it, too, with a heavy metal door fixed in place. We walked past the staircase, heading for the door. It had a scanner to one side, which looked like it might need a retina or a fingerprint in order to open up the hatch. I guessed the only person able to open it was Jareth. Ducking down, I could see a thin crack of light, making me realize it led to the outside world. This was the escape exit, but it required Jareth’s permission first.

“I guess he wants to control who leaves,” Ronad said, leaning closer to the scanner. “Pity we don’t have a spare one of his eyeballs hanging around.”

“We should see what’s up there,” I replied, walking back toward the staircase and the hatch in the ceiling. “Why would Jareth build all of this?” I wondered why he hadn’t put scanners on these openings, but I figured he didn’t feel it necessary—nobody could escape the house this way. Only the heavy metal door led to the outside world.

“He’s probably covering his ass, in case Gianne starts to suspect he’s not entirely what he seems. After all, with Navan and Bashrik’s shenanigans in the North, and her slowly losing her mind, she’ll start wanting to make examples of key families. She’ll want to send a message that nobody is safe,” he replied grimly.

I had a horrible feeling that Ronad might be right. Yes, Jareth was Gianne’s right-hand man, but for how long? I’d heard about crazed monarchs in history textbooks, and the terrible things they’d done to retain their crowns. Executions had seemed popular back then, and it looked like they were making a comeback here on Vysanthe, too.

“You really think she’d suspect Jareth of foul play?”

Ronad shrugged. “Right now, I wouldn’t put anything past either of our so-called queens.”

We moved toward the second trapdoor. This one was slightly different from the last. Nestled beside the hatch was a large, red lever. Given the color and the placement, I desperately wanted to pull it, but I knew that probably wasn’t a good idea. If a misspent youth of Saturday morning cartoons had taught me anything, it was that red buttons and levers were never to be touched.

Instead, I reached up for the latch and flicked it open. The trapdoor swung down, taking me by surprise. I ducked out of the way just in time to avoid a concussion, before clambering back up to see what lay above. I glanced again at the red lever, wondering what on earth it did. If it didn’t control the lights or open the trapdoor, then what was it there for?

To my relief, there was no bed above my head, but an open space instead. I pulled myself out of the tunnel and stood up, taking in my surroundings. For a moment, I worried I might’ve ended up back in Kaido’s lab, simply through a different entrance. It looked like a lab and had many of the same tanks, beakers, and vessels as Kaido’s, but there were no pleasantly glowing plants, and a sour smell lingered in the air, like the scent of a firework after it’s sputtered out.

Ronad emerged behind me, his mouth going wide in shock. “This is Jareth’s lab!” he hissed. “I knew there was one in the house somewhere, but we’ve never been able to find it! We used to try all the time, when we were kids.”

There was a set of cabinets to one side of the room, which Ronad instantly made a beeline for. A few of them had glass panels, revealing books within, but every single door was locked. I watched as Ronad pressed his face closer to the square pane of the central cabinet, his eyes narrowing. A moment later, I jumped as he slammed his fist into the metal frame.

“He’s got it!” he snarled, his anger spiking.

“Got what?” I asked, clutching my chest in fright.

“Naya’s journal—he’s got her journal!” he spat, slamming his hand into the metal frame again. For a moment, I thought he was going to smash the glass itself. If he did that, we’d never get away without arousing suspicion.

I hurried over to him and grasped his arm, pulling it away from the cabinet. “If you break anything, Jareth will know we’ve been here.”

“He’s got her journal, Riley. Her secret journal!” he muttered. “He told me he’d burned it, but here it is, locked away in his private collection!”

“I’m sure he had his reasons, Ronad,” I said, trying to calm him down. “Look, right now we need to find something useful—a notebook, or test findings, or notes on the elixir. We can’t take anything he might miss, and I’m pretty sure he’d miss that journal if we smashed the glass to take it.”

Ronad looked at me, his eyes filled with tears. “He has no right to have it.”

“Maybe not, but we can’t take it right now. We’ll come back for it, but now isn’t the time,” I insisted, praying nobody had heard the slam of his fist against the cabinet door.

A second later, we froze, all thoughts of stealing a notebook forgotten. The unmistakable sound of footsteps echoed beyond the solid wood of the alchemy lab door, approaching fast. Ronad grasped me by the wrist and dragged me back toward the trapdoor, lowering me through it. He let go, and I dropped down the last few feet, my face turned up to where he stood, on the edge of the hatch.

“Run!” he whispered, clambering down the steps above me.

I didn’t wait to be told again. Leaving him to close the trapdoor, I sprinted through the tunnel system, bolting out of the secret doorway that led into the basement. Not bothering to catch my breath, I weaved between the dust-sheeted furniture, knocking my hip on what felt like an old sofa, before reaching the stairs that led back up to the main body of the house.

A few more floors, and I’d be home free. Nobody would ever have to know we’d been sneaking around the house. I gulped, steeling myself for the final leg. Never had such a short journey seemed like such a marathon.





Chapter Five