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“The Ritual Room?” I think back to the night in question. I’d waited in the library for Kasey. The rest of the house, however, had been quiet. I shake my head. “I don’t think so…

“Wait,” I say as something comes to me. “Some of the tunnels down here were lit.”

As opposed to right now, when the torches sitting in the sconces are dark.

“Then it’s possible they were meeting somewhere else and then entering these tunnels from that point.”

The trouble is there are so many tunnels that branch in all directions.

“Which way should we go?” I ask.

“I don’t think it matters, little witch.”

I can’t quite suppress the pleasant shiver that endearment evokes.

I decide to head down the same one I took when I last fled this room. We haven’t gone a hundred feet when the tunnel splits apart.

Did I go left or right last time? I’d been so hyped up on adrenaline, I don’t remember.

On a whim, I go right, Memnon close behind me. Then I make a left. Then a right. The torches hiss to life as we go. Eventually, we hit a staircase that lets out into the Everwoods.

We backtrack, then begin again. Ten minutes later, we hit another exit, this one leading into a crypt that smells like mold and old bones.

“Hey look,” I say, nodding to the stone coffin as I drag away a thick web. “It’s my second lover”—I squint at the name—“Ephigenia. I’ll wake her in another year when I get tired of you. I do so like burying my lovers.”

When I turn to look at Memnon, his face is displeased.

Too soon for jokes apparently.

We retrace our steps and try again, the torchlight making our shadows dance. The futility of what we’re doing is starting to set in. I don’t even know what we’re looking?—

Thump.

The sound echoes off the walls from somewhere far ahead of us.

Memnon and I look at each other, then we both quicken our pace.

This is probably a bad idea,I say silently.

Don’t tell me you’ve lost all your courage now,est amage.

In the distance, the tunnel dimly glows, the light growing brighter the closer we get. Either we are recrossing our old tracks, or another person is down here.

If someone else is down here, we shouldn’t assume the worst of them,I caution.It could be literally anyone. Maybe Henbane’s staff uses these passageways.

For what?Memnon challenges me.Casual get-togethers? These tunnels were created for illicit purposes.

They weren’t,I argue.They were created to avoid capture.

Yes, Memnon agrees.That would be considered illicit behavior.

Fuck, I guess it would.

The two of us finally get to the previously lit hallway. A little farther down it opens up into another subterranean room similar in size and structure to the one beneath the residency hall. But where the latter room was empty, this one is full.

I pause as I take it all in. It looks almost like a witchy clubhouse. There’s a lit candelabra hanging from the ceiling. Along the right wall is a series of inset cabinets and shelves. On several of them rest moth-eaten grimoires, their clashing magic pooling in the air above us. On another shelf is a crystal ball and a scrying bowl and a bust of a woman with a very large nose and a determined air about her.

Across the room is a massive tapestry depicting an enchanted forest. Beneath it are several chests and an armoire painted with flowers and serpents. A few broomsticks lean together in the corner.