Will does that barking non-laugh thing and looks at the ceiling.
“We’ll take a different route,” Lilly says. “We can go six or seven rooms west. That should be far enough from the perimeter. Hopefully. And then we can head south. We’ll be fine.”
“What’s Rabbit Gallery?” Hayden asks. He’s tugging at something at the bottom of his leg, like he’s got an uncomfortable wrinkle in his sock.
“It’s an exhibition hall full of weapons and stolen art somewhere south of here,” I say. “But I’m not sure if we can make it that far.” I glance at the others.
Lilly nods. “We can. It’s either that or we find swords and letter openers and, like, joke them to death.”
Hayden grimaces. I look over at him. He’s still pulling at something inside his shoe. When his hand comes up it’s holding a waxy yellowed strip of skin.
Jules’s eyes widen in disgust. “Leprosy, much?” he says.
Lilly swallows loudly. “Hayden, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, but he looks confused. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
We stare at him a second. I shake my head. “We make a run for it, then? All in favor?”
Nodding all around. We grab our flashlights.
“Leave the food and anything we don’t need,” Will says, dragging the desk away from the door with his good hand. “We’ll come back here.”
I dig the compass from my sweater. Lilly shines her light at it. We head out.
We’re going west this time, away from Jellyfish Hall and toward what we assume is the center of the palace. At the very first door we all stop. Listen. No sound. We open the door and step over the threshold, and it feels like walking toward an oncoming truck, staring down those glaring headlights and sixteen growling wheels, and being like: psh. I got this. We’re heading straight for Dorf, straight for the trackers and whatever it is we were brought here for. It feels like tempting fate. So, about 30 percent exhilarating, 70 percent stupid.
After five rooms we turn south again, through the dark, echoing halls. No traps so far. Dorf was telling us the only safe way to go was toward the palace’s center, but I don’t think he counted on us backtracking. We start to run, lights flashing, our feet quiet on the polished floor.
It’s possible we’re lost. We’re heading south, and no one’s been decapitated yet, both good things, but we had to go up a steep narrow staircase about five rooms back and now we’re someplace I don’t recognize at all: a suite of small, luxurious rooms, tucked above the huger halls and ballrooms below. Little windows are embedded in the paneling, low, near the floor. The panes are angled downward, and through them I see chandeliers, marble floors about thirty feet below. These rooms are small, paneled in dark cherry wood. The ceilings are so low. It’s like a running through a dollhouse. The air is warm. The lamps are lit, glistening on coffee-colored leather and brass-riveted wing chairs.
And now we get to the last room. It’s a complete dead end. One door in, one door out.
“Whoa,” Jules says, drawing up short. “Wrong way—”
We all spin, jostling against each other. I throw a glance back over my shoulder, glimpse a desk, shelves. An operating table? I pause. Jules runs into my back.
It is an operating table. It’s standing in one corner of the room. The surface is covered in ancient, tightly stretched leather. It’s spattered in places, marked with dark rings and stains.
“Is that blood?” Will has stopped, too, now, peering around.
“Coffee stains,” Jules says. “Let’s go.”
But all of us have stopped now. It’s like a little laboratory. Not a creepy, Frankenstein one with pig brains on the shelves. A neat, organized study, almost cheery. Glass ampoules line the shelves, stoppered with cork. Stacks of books, some of them marked with feathers and silver pins. Old paper everywhere, crinkly heaps of it.
I look again at the desk. My skin goes cold. A glass of red wine is standing next to the pen stand, still half full. The rim stained a little like someone just drank from it.
“We need to go,” I whisper. “Someone was here. Like, minutes ago.”
If they come in, we’re stuck. Done for.
Will has gone over to the operating table. He’s leaning over it, and I see there’s an enormous leather-bound book lying open on top of it, cracked bindings, the paper old and yellowed, wavy with moisture and age. Will places a hand on it, brushing a finger down the page.
“Will, we need to get to Rabbit Gallery,” Lilly says. “You heard Anouk; someone was here—”
“Look,” Will says. “You guys, look at this.”