The guard watches our exchange but doesn’t appear suspicious or confused, which I suppose is a good thing.
After holding my gaze for another second, as if to once again remind me not to do anything to draw attention, Draven turns and continues down the corridor without me. I watch his broad back disappear around the corner.
The dragon shifter who is guarding the corner is still watching me.
I resist the urge to adjust my hair. I already know that my throat is completely covered. But I still take a step back and then drift down the corridor, just to put some distance between us.
Faelights gleam like stars above me as I move. This time, when I’m not so focused on Draven, I take the time to truly study the wide corridor around me.
Just like most of the hallways in this castle, it’s almost entirely bare. There are no side tables, no decorations, no torches on the walls, and no soft carpets on the floor. Only the pale unforgiving ice and the glowing faelights in the ceiling.
I slide my gaze over the smooth walls.
A jolt shoots through me.
Blinking, I come to a halt halfway down the corridor and stare at a section of the wall. There are lines in it. Deep lines. Like cracks or cuts. I trace them with my eyes. They’re shaped like a large rectangle. Almost like…
I suck in a sharp breath.
A door.
There’s a hidden door here.
Excitement courses through my body. Goddess above, this could be it. This could be the way in and out for the human resistance. The Red Hand might be able to scale the walls undetected, but an entire host of humans will be seen. And they can’t get the treasury out if they have to climb the walls. But if they can get into this corridor through a secret door, they only have to make it through three more corridors before they reach the treasury.
Now, I just need to figure out where it leads.
Still standing in front of the secret door, I flick a quick glance down the corridor. The guard in silver armor is still standing there at the end of it, watching me.
I make sure that my head is fully towards the wall, so that he won’t be able to see my eyes, and then I call up my magic.
“This is such a cool door,” I say.
The moment the words are out of my mouth, I shove my magic straight at the yellow-green spark of suspicion in the guard’s chest. Just as I expected, my words made it flare up. I use my magic to slowly decrease it until it’s almost entirely gone.
“What is it?” I ask innocently, as if it’s just a question out of purely academic curiosity.
And because my magic is blocking his ability to be suspicious about my motives, he shrugs and replies, “It’s an escape route in case of emergency.”
“Oh, that’s so clever. I’m guessing it leads out to the mountain here on this side?”
“Yeah.”
Victory pulses through me, and I have to force myself to keep the innocently curious expression on my face. But all I want to do is to grin like an absolute villain. This is what I excel at. I can’t believe that the fae resistance never used me for missions like this. I was born for sneaky espionage and surveillance.
For a moment, I consider asking the guard exactly where the escape route leads out. Even though I have narrowed it down to the east side of the mountain, it’s still a big mountain. The other end of this tunnel could be anywhere.
The words are right there on my tongue. But before I can get them out, footsteps sound from around the corner.
My heart leaps into my throat. Quickly cutting off the flow of my magic, I walk away from the door and instead lean casually against the wall halfway between it and the guard.
A second later, Draven comes striding back around the corner.
He studies me intently but apparently doesn’t find anything to complain about, because all he says as he reaches me is, “Let’s go.”
“Since you’re still scowling, I’m going to assume that he wasn’t there,” I observe, trying to bait him into telling me if he found any other humans there.
“No,” Draven replies. “It was empty.”