She wanted to call for Daylily but feared the sound of her own voice echoing through those long passages. The hall down which Dame Fairlight lived was empty. Also the passage leading to the Baroness of Fernrise’s chambers. The door to a lesser parlor was open, but when she looked inside, Rose Red saw no one. A spark caught her eye, and she turned. Could there be the remains of a fire glowing in the grate? No, it was empty. She must have imagined it.
Rose Red hastened on. She couldn’t leave the poor queen in the darkness alone, but she must find Daylily and Foxbrush too. Why did she feel as though the House itself watched her progress? Why did she feel like a mouse fleeing the unseen owl? Her hands clutched the veil about her face as though it could protect her, and she hurried. Never before had she, a servant, made use of the main stairway, but she used it now in her haste, one hand pressing into the golden banister. Perhaps Foxbrush had wandered down to the main level before Daylily caught up with him? They certainly weren’t in the east wing. She stood a moment at the bottom of the stairs, uncertain which way to turn. The whole House was an enormous maze; any turn she made was more likely to be wrong than right. And she couldn’t leave the queen up there alone!
The creak of an opening door.
Under ordinary circumstances she would never have heard that soft sound. But in the silence of the Dragon’s rule, it rang out like alarm bells. Rose Red darted down the hallway toward that sound. At the end of a narrow passage was a door she recognized. It opened on a spiral staircase, a servants’ stair that led up to the private rooms of the household members. Rose Red had used it a hundred times and more, coming to and from the prince’s chambers in her daily tasks, often passing other servants as they went about their work. But she had never seen a member of the household near it.
Thus it struck Rose Red as odd to see Daylily and Foxbrush standing in the half-light gloom before that little door.
Neither moved as she approached, nor did they turn when she called to them. She slipped up behind them, speaking gently so as not to frighten them, and plucked at their sleeves. Still they did not respond but stood as statues. Daylily’s hand was on the doorknob, and she had cracked it open. A terrible stench rolled through.
Rose Red looked around Foxbrush’s arm and saw what it was they saw.
“Silent Lady!” she breathed.
Pushing past Foxbrush so roughly that he fell into the wall, she slammed the door, and the whole house echoed with it. “How dare he?”
She grabbed Daylily’s elbow and Foxbrush’s wrist, dragging them back. “Come, come with me!” she said, too shaken to be gentle. “Back away now.”
They moved as though drunk, staggering. Even Daylily. Rose Red could see how the poison had sunk into the deep places of her eyes; her face sagged with it. “Hen’s teeth, hen’s teeth!” Rose Red swore. How could she have let Daylily come here? Leo’s betrothed, his lovely lady, and she had led her right into the Dragon’s den! “I’ll get you out,” she said as she led them up the narrow passage. “I’ll get you both out; Black Dogs take me if I don’t!”
They were quite near the kitchens now, Rose Red realized. For a moment, she debated, hating to leave the queen upstairs and alone. But she dared not let these two alone again, not after . . . not after that. Taking a tight grip on their hands, she led them like two small children down the passage to the kitchens.
This passage should have been dark without candles. But the eerie half-light filtered through even here, so that the passage was no lighter and no darker than anywhere else in the house. The kitchen looked strange to Rose Red, full of silent people sitting exactly where she had left them. The Eldest sat nearest the door, his head buried in his hands. There were eighteen people, twenty altogether, now she had brought Daylily and Foxbrush. All were of noble birth, proudly dressed, from Southlands’ finest families. All were reduced to quivering phantoms as they drew in more dragon poison with each breath.
She would free them. But she must find the queen first.
Rose Red sat first Daylily, then Foxbrush in chairs around one of the cutting tables. After a moment’s hesitation, she carefully checked to be certain all the big carving knives and butcher’s cleavers were stored where the poisoned ones would not see them. Affected as they were by the Dragon, Rose Red hesitated to trust them with any weaponry. At last, though she hated to let them out of her sight, Rose Red left them and hastened back to find the queen.
She did not have far to go. Queen Starflower had made her way down the great staircase. She was across the entrance hall when Rose Red found her, just putting her hand to the heavy front doors.
“Your Majesty!” Rose Red called and picked up her pace. “Your Majesty, wait!”
The queen did not hear her. She strained a moment, then the door gave way, swinging back and allowing the smoke in the courtyard to billow inside.