Page 165 of Disillusioned
She pulled back and looked him in the eye. “Why were weapons moved? In support of our and Maximilian’s forces? In advance?”
Ciel said nothing, his expression stone.
“Let me in. That is an order.”
He stepped in front of the door and pressed a pitiful hand to his armored chest. “Your Majesty, I took an oath near twenty years ago when your father and Armand were in their prime. This was before the kingdom was awash in a fear of strange tongues, and it was made apparent your mother would never bear a good-willed son to lead?—”
Before the next word escaped his lips, Lilac’s palm was wrapped around his gullet, pressing him firmly against the wood. His hands pried at her, nails raked at her dress and skin, but his strength was no match for hers. Adrenaline pulsed through her, made her feel alive; mesmerized by his struggling, Lilac watched his pale face turn purple as he begged for his life. Or, attempted to.
“Open the door,” she breathed into his ear.
“Here, you bitch—” Ciel gurgled, and his shaking hand sank into his pants pocket. Aclankreverberated as he dropped the single rusty key onto the floor.
Lilac bent to retrieve it, yanking him with her—her fist on his windpipe so he couldn’t scream. She stuck it in the keyhole and twisted.
The armory was well-lit by two torches on either side. Lining the wall were racks and racks of swords, iron shields of various sizes. On another wall, armor, and the next, bows and buckets of arrows and spears. Several were missing, but not all. They’d taken more than enough to supply the men that had departed, but there were still plenty for the remaining guard. It didn’t look like boxes and boxes ofanythingwere moved, like her handmaidens had overheard.
Heart hammering, she eased the door shut, when Ciel twisted free from her grasp and made a run for it. His screams weren’t screams, so much as muffled retching noises as he scuttled down the hall, tripping and falling once.
Tremendous strength in her calves coiled and sprung, catching her off guard as she jolted forward, too clumsy with her uncanny speed. “Ciel! Ciel,stop!” Horrified, Lilac watched the guard careen around the corner to the left, causing him to slow a bit. She’d catch him there. Lilac rushed him and managed a tighter turn, ready to leap onto him, and?—
There was nothing. No one was in the foyer. It was silent save for the crackle of the hearth. Lilac straightened and kept to the shadows of the hall, sticking close to the wall to her left.
“Ciel,” she whispered. “Come ou?—”
A hand wrapped around her mouth and waist, tugging her into the darkness. The closet door shut quietly in her face, the hand over her mouth slipping off before she could bite it. Lilac whirled with her fist in the air.
Her captor caught it.
“Your reflexes are increasingly impressive.” Garin pressed his lips to her closed fist before she wrenched it from him.
“What are you doing here?” Lilac demanded, nauseous with rib-pounding adrenaline. She couldn’t see a thing, turning around and banging her elbow onto some protruding fixture on the inside of the door—probably a low coat hook—beneath the garment hanging over it. “Ow!”
“Shh,” Garin hissed. “Could you be any louder?”
“What are you doing in here?”
Garin stopped to listen; whatever he was hearing, she couldn’t make any of it out. The castle was still silent, probably nursing their hangovers in their private quarters. “The better question is, how did you know this closet was here? The door blends in so well with the walls, I almost didn’t see it before this bloke turned the corner.”
The room reeked of sweat and ale. “Gross.”
“You’re the one who crushed his windpipe. He wouldn’t have been able to speak. Or breathe. Or enjoy any of Madame Hedwig’s delicious confections ever again.”
“You could’ve eaten him.”
“I’d rather not chance it. I don’t know what it would do to my eyes.”
“If it’s from a dead body, wouldn’t it be the same as drinking bottled blood from a donor?” Lilac blinked, willing her vision to adjust. As it did, she could make out Ciel’s wide form slumped against the wall on the corner of the bench that lined the closet.
“From a limb, yes. From a corpse, I’m not so sure.”
Lilac looked around; the old stone room had been mostly emptied sincethe last time she’d hid in it. There was a box there, a stack of parchment on the upper shelves. A long garment hanging beside her on the back of the door. It was narrow, barely wider than a chimney, though it soaked none of the heat from the hearth on the other side of the hall.
“This is my family’s old coat closet,” she explained. “It was part of the original keep, built four centuries earlier. My grandfather had since fashioned a newer coat room for guests closer to the servants’ quarters near the scullery. When I was younger, this was one of my hiding spots for whenever Piper was tasked with putting gowns on me. And when we played hide-and-seek.”
“It seems that hasn’t changed.” Garin’s smile was audible. “You must’ve given her hell. I’ll bet she never found you in here.”
“A better hiding place,” she continued, side-eyeing him, “was my father’s study.”
