The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(130)

They all slipped into the hallway. Llor grabbed Erian's hand as the door closed behind them. Shadows were everywhere, and it was strangely silent. They tiptoed through the hall, stepping over broken chandeliers. Scorch marks ran across the wood walls. Vines crisscrossed over them, as if they were bandages over the burns.

Arin hurried forward. "She's up-"

She halted.

Llor bumped into her. "Hey!"

"Shh," Erian said. "What is it?" She tried to see around Arin.

"The stairs are gone." Arin stepped aside, and Erian and Llor pressed forward. The stairs down were fine, but the stairway up had collapsed, folded together, as if the walls had been squeezed by a giant hand. "I don't know another way up."

Llor grabbed both their hands. "I know all the ways!" He pulled them away from the stairs, and they hurried back through the hallway.

He led them through the maze of corridors, to another set of stairs and up, but this one was blocked before the next level with branches that had woven together into a thick barrier.

"No!" Arin cried.

"Follow me," Llor insisted. "There's one more stairs."

They hurried through another corridor-and then stopped again. Here, the wall had been ripped off the building. Erian caught Llor's arm before he barreled forward. Outside were trees and sky, and the stairs dangled into emptiness.



       
         
       
        

In the city, spirits drifted aimlessly among broken trees. Several treetops hung upside down, split in the middle, and she saw black smoke staining the sky.

This time, Llor didn't race away. He stood staring at the open sky as if someone had stolen his favorite toy. They stood side by side.

"Llor," Erian asked, "are there any other stairs?" She knew the answer. She just hoped she was wrong.

He gulped. "No."

Arin clutched the vial of medicine. "I can't fail! She needs me. Don't you see? She never needed me before. She was always the one who was going to protect me. Protect everyone. But now I have a chance to save her . . ."

A sudden thought struck Erian so hard that she took a step backward. "The secret passageway! Llor, didn't Captain Alet say it went all the way up?" She knelt in front of her brother, forcing him to look at her and not at the swirling spirits and smoke outside. "All the way up to the Queen's Tower?"

"Yes!" Excited, he pulled them until they were running back through the corridor.

"It's not really a secret. It's a dumbwaiter, a lift," Erian told Arin as they ran. "The kitchen staff uses it to send food up, so they don't have to climb all the stairs."

"Yeah, you could ride in it! Like you're food!" Llor said.

"It's controlled by a crank in the kitchen," Erian explained.

Arin was nodding. "I've used it before, to send a cake. But how-"

This could work! It really could! "We could go turn the crank for you, and you could ride it up." The two of them together should be able to turn the crank-it hadn't looked that hard.

And behind her, she heard a crackle.

Glancing back, she saw ice spread across the wall. It looked like a many-figured hand reaching to grip the palace. "Ice spirit! Run faster!"

Wind whipped around them, hurling shards of ice in every direction. One hit her cheek. She felt it sting and then felt wetness and knew she was bleeding, but she kept running, stumbling over her feet but running faster.

Behind them, in a nearby corridor, the spirit shrieked.

"Faster!" Llor shouted.

Turning a corner, they reached the dumbwaiter, and Erian, with Arin and Llor, lifted the door. "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Erian cried. She could hear the spirit in the corridor behind them-she didn't know if it had seen them or not. Maybe it had gone another way. Her fingers felt so cold that it hurt to move, and the wind continued to howl. It was close but not here yet.

Arin pulled on the rope, raising up the lift. She engaged the lock that kept it from plummeting when she released the rope. "Run, both of you! Get to the kitchen! Before the spirit finds you!" Without looking back to see if they'd obeyed, Arin tried to climb in-and Erian saw at once she was too tall. Inside, the cupboard itself was large, but the opening was narrow. She couldn't fold her legs enough to fit through. She tried to shove herself in, grunting and wincing. "Can't do it," she panted. 

Llor hopped from foot to foot. "I'm little! I can fit!"

Arin was shaking her head. "It's too dangerous! If anything goes wrong, if a spirit finds you, you'll be trapped. I can't let you go. I have to find another way."