Page 50 of To Steal the Sun

“What’s the point of that?”

She put a finger to her lips, and he fell silent. Hurrying back to the room where she had left the seamstress, she slid the key beneath the door.

A gasp on the other side told her the woman had been sitting watching the door.

“His door has been locked again,” Charlotte called through.

“Thank you,” came the wobbly reply.

Dashing back to Henry, she seized his hand and took off running, pulling him with her. As soon as he’d recovered from his initial surprise, he easily kept pace, quickly outstripping her and tugging her along behind.

Once they were several corridors over, she stopped, bending over to catch her breath. Henry stopped as well, gazing down at her with a quizzical expression, barely out of breath himself.

“What was that?” he asked.

“One of the seamstresses,” Charlotte explained. “Now she can return the key like nothing happened. And when someone comes in the morning to bring you food, they’ll find the door locked and you mysteriously vanished. No one will be able to say exactly when in the night it happened or that it had anything to do with the poor seamstresses.”

“Was that wise?” Henry’s brows furrowed. “She might go straight to check if I’m in there and then run to the queen.”

Charlotte shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible, but you didn’t see her. She might be a lovely person, but she is not what you’d call courageous. I’d be willing to bet a lot that she goes straight on as if nothing happened, hoping the whole time that no one ever connects her to any of it.” Her mouth twisted. “I’m sorry, Henry, but she was just so terrified. I couldn’t abandon her to take all the blame.”

He smiled down at her, his face softening. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from your soft heart.”

She made a face at him.

“It’s too late to worry about it anyway,” he added. “The best we can do is get moving quickly.”

She nodded agreement, and they began moving again, although this time at a more sustainable pace.

“Does it seem normal to you that the corridors are so empty?” she asked after several more turns without anyone coming into view.

Henry grimaced. “I’m afraid the servants were implicated in the rebels’ plans. I suspect the queen has confined them all somewhere. And the guards must be busy rounding up and guarding the rebels. As for the courtiers…”

“Even the ones uninvolved must have worked out something is going on,” Charlotte agreed. “If it was me, and I lived in Celandine’s castle, I’d be lying low, too.”

Easton glanced at the darkness out of a window they passed. Charlotte couldn’t remember when night had arrived, but even the traces of sunset were gone.

“There’s something else to consider,” he said. “Anyone we encounter at this point won’t be…human.”

“They won’t have a human body,” Charlotte said reprovingly. “They’re still people underneath.”

Henry smiled lovingly at her. “It always amazed me how easily you saw me for me, even when I wore a bear’s body. But in this instance, I’m more worried about their teeth and claws. And size.”

“I think it’s actually their ears and noses we should be most concerned about.” Charlotte put her hand on her arm where she still wore a slim bandage beneath her sleeve.

Henry’s eyes followed the movement, and he frowned. “What is it? Were you hurt somehow? Did one of the bears—”

His voice rose, and she shushed him urgently. “Do you hear something?”

He froze instantly, his head cocked as if listening. His eyes grew wide.

“Yes,” he hissed. “Run!”

Grabbing her hand again, he sprinted, pulling her behind him almost too fast for her to keep her feet under her. She found a rhythm and tried to pull her hand free, but he held on tight. She stopped fighting and focused on running, her breath sawing in and out of her lungs.

Pounding steps sounded behind them accompanied by heavy breathing that didn’t sound human. They ran harder.

They reached a strangely shaped intersection, two corridors branching off. Henry pulled her in one direction, but a bear appeared in the distance. It stopped, its head coming up in alert at the sight of them.

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