The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)

 

 

A smile flickered on my lips as I wound my way through crates and boxes and piles of bricks. The room opened into a series of vaulted galleries, a cellar with pillars and arches at regular intervals. Tucked into corners were stacks of casks and dusty bottles, and farther down, neat rows of bones.

 

Nothing moved; everything was quiet. The air was cold and still, and the dust was thick as carpet. And yet . . . I slowed and leaned down, peering more closely at the stones. “Look. Scuff marks.”

 

“Footprints. Several pairs—or one person coming and going.” He gave me a wry look. “Do monsters wear boots?”

 

“Some do.” I lifted my eyes; the tracks led through the catacombs to a thick oak door. Who was wandering about in the abandoned castle? Was it the same person who had tended the light glowing in the tower window last night? As Blake tried the handle, I passed the torch into my left hand, slipping my right into the pocket that held the gun.

 

“Locked,” he muttered. “And this time, the hardware has been well oiled.”

 

The firelight gleamed on the intricate brass of the keyhole. It was made in the same design as the one on the sea gates: a pair of mermaids, their hands and tails touching. But there was no way now to see what the lock protected. Tracing the footprints backward across the room, I found a stairwell leading up. “Should we follow them?”

 

“I don’t see another route. Is that daylight up there?”

 

At the top of the stairs, we came to a kitchen. Overhead, dingy gray light filtered through narrow windows, illuminating the huge work table that dominated the center of the room. There, a dozen bakers might knead dough or roll pastry for a feast. But instead of the smell of butter and yeast, there was only the scent of damp stone and mildewed plaster. Leaves stirred in the corners. Between a cold oven and an empty trough, a broken door opened onto a dying garden, the old herb beds and pathways a tangle of rotting weeds.

 

The dust was thinner here, blown about by the breeze through the doorway; I lost the trail of footprints. Had they come in from outside?

 

“Miss Song?”

 

I turned. Blake was kneeling by an arched doorway at the opposite end of the kitchen. He held up his fingers—they were red with blood.

 

I gasped, rushing to his side. “Are you hurt?”

 

“No.” He stood, wiping his hand on the stone wall. “But someone is, rather seriously.” At his feet, a black pool congealed, wider than his handspan, and marred by a footprint. Blake’s boots were still clean—not his, then.

 

My heart pounded and my stomach turned. “Maybe . . . maybe an animal?” I whispered, but the thoughts swirled in my head—a witch, a monster, a man in the pit. I looked longingly toward the door that opened into the sunlit garden, but no—if someone was hurt, they might need help. In the gallery ahead, I could see the footprints fading into the shadows. Scarlet spattered the flagstones, shining in the light from the narrow windows lining the hall. Some of the leaded panes had broken. Glass shards glittered on the floor like diamonds, and some, red rubies. They rolled like gravel beneath my boots. I wrinkled my nose. “Do you smell something? Like . . . rotting meat.”

 

“Maybe it is an animal.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

The gallery opened into a grand room—grand in size, though not in appointment. The smell was stronger here, though the light was very dim—the windows high, the panes clouded with years of filth. It was a dining hall with a long oak table, lined with chairs and piled with droppings. Above, birds nested in iron chandeliers, murmuring over our intrusion. The ceiling would have been beautiful under the grime, painted with faded angels—no. Mermaids. They swam in a murky gloom, their bellies as white as fish.

 

Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye—a pair of legs behind the table. One foot jerked under the edge of a tattered silk robe. I grabbed Blake’s arm and pointed, suddenly terrified. But the foot moved again and the motion was unnatural, and there came a liquid ripping sound, like damp sails tearing. I swallowed, raising the torch as I stepped closer. Was the madman the victor, or a victim?

 

Something crunched beneath my boot—the remains of a gull’s broken wing. Small bones littered the flagstones, telling a dire fortune. In the shadows behind a broken chair, something pale gleamed: a cracked femur. My blood raced through my veins as I crept around the table, sweeping my torch in a circle.

 

On the floor, the madman lay, his dead eyes open and staring at the dirty ceiling. His belly was a red ruin. Above it, two green eyes glowed, and jagged teeth gleamed wetly as the wolf’s lip curled back in a snarl.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN