Page 52

Oh, God, they were locking her in.
Breathing fast, she whirled around and went to the door, rattling at the handle and of course not getting anywhere because the guard had turned the key.
‘You don’t need to lock it,’ she called through the door, trying not to let her voice shake. ‘I—I promise I won’t leave. Please. Just…don’t lock it.’
‘Sorry.’ The guard’s voice was unapologetic and flat. ‘His Majesty’s orders.’
A scream rose in her throat, but she fought it down hard. That wouldn’t help, she knew, and it would only make her panic worse. And as for the guard—well, no one had ever listened to her screams, so why would he?
But you’re the Queen now, remember?
Was she, though? She didn’t feel like one. She had a feeling that if she gave an order the guard would only laugh in her face, and she wouldn’t blame him.
Closing her eyes, Guinevere rested her forehead against the door, her palms pressed flat to the wood on either side of her. She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
It was only a room. Just a room.
After a moment, her heart still hammering in her ears, she pushed herself away from the door and turned around.
The room was just as it had been, and yet she could also see the past laid over it like a palimpsest.
Over there was the doorway to the bedroom that her mother had used when she was alive. Once Guinevere had been at a curious stage about her, and had wanted to see what was inside, but she’d been found by her father, who’d ripped her away from the door and flung her onto the floor in a rage. He’d screamed at her never to go near that room on pain of a sound thrashing. She’d been six.
Her brothers had known she wasn’t allowed to go into the Queen’s rooms and so of course they’d tried to chase her there, hunting her down in the palace hallways like dogs after a fox. They were years older than she was, and bigger, and they’d been cruel. Her father had done nothing to stop their bullying of her because she was ‘only a girl’.
He’d wanted another son, not a tiny, delicate daughter, and when she’d come to him weeping, after having her hair pulled, or her dresses ruined, or her knees skinned after they’d pushed her over, he’d only told her to stop being a ‘fraidy cat’ and said that if she didn’t want to be bullied she had to stand up to them. But she’d tried to do that once and had been given a black eye for her trouble.
She’d tried very hard after that not put herself at risk of being hunted, but for her brothers it had been their favourite game. They’d liked ruining things that were precious to her—especially any hints of prettiness and femininity. They’d thought pouring oil on her favourite dress was a joke, as was tearing pages out of her favourite books. Once, they’d crept into her bedroom at night when she was ten and fast asleep and cut off all her hair.
She hadn’t been able to escape them and no one had done anything to protect her. Sometimes she’d wondered what her life would have been like if her mother had still been alive, and whether her mother would have protected her. But it had been pointless thinking about that. Her mother was dead and being frightened of her brothers all the time had been her constant state of being. Yet some small part of her had refused to be beaten, and so even though her pretty dresses and long, curly hair marked her out for more bullying she’d worn them anyway in a show of defiance.
That hadn’t helped her, though.
The only thing that had was finding the secret passageways in the walls. No one knew they were there—certainly her brothers didn’t. So when it had got bad she’d simply disappeared into them, finding her way to other hiding places around the palace.
Life had become more bearable then, and although her brothers had tried relentlessly to find out how she managed to disappear, they never had. And after a few years, as they’d grown into men, they’d stopped looking and eventually forgotten about her entirely.
Guinevere took another breath, and then another, willing the fear to go away. Because she wasn’t in danger now and there was nothing that could hurt her.
But the panic wouldn’t go away, and the knowledge that she was trapped here, the way she’d been trapped in this palace for so many years, began to close in on her.
Staying in these rooms was impossible, the weight of her memories and the terror sitting on her shoulders crushing, and there was only one way to deal with that.
Breathing deeply, Guinevere went into her mother’s rooms and into the dressing room where the big carved armoire was. She went over to it and pulled open the doors, then stepped inside.
It was always difficult entering the secret passageways through the armoire, because the only reason she’d found them in the first place had been because she’d taken refuge in the armoire one day when her brothers had been chasing her.
They’d worked out quickly where she was and had locked the door of the armoire, telling her they were going to tell their father where she was and he’d give her a thrashing.
She’d become panicky and had kicked at the back of the armoire, since kicking at the door had failed to open it. The back had turned out to be not solid wood but thin veneer, and her foot had gone straight through it into…nothing.
After she’d kicked more of the veneer away she’d seen that there was a narrow doorway in the wall behind the armoire, and an even narrower pitch-black corridor. The darkness had scared her, but anything was better than being shut in the armoire and waiting for her father to find her, so she hadn’t thought twice.
She’d escaped into the corridor beyond.
She did so now, even as the fear continued to lap at her, squeezing her chest and throat, making her feel as if she was suffocating.
Then she was through the armoire and into the safety of the darkness beyond.