“The first?” Ashwini repeated. “What do you mean, the first?”

“There are two hiding staircases. They lead to different places.” I was about to look for the other one when I heard her footsteps clatter up the staircase. I spun around. “Wait! You don’t know where that’s going to end up!”

I raced after her. The stairs were steep and narrow, positioned in the middle of the room with a door at the top that seemed to lead nowhere. Ashwini turned the doorknob, and when the door opened, in spite of the fact that the door was hovering by itself in midair, I could see the cozy lavender walls and white panels of a room on the other side.

Panic seized me. I grabbed hold of Ashwini’s arm, hauling her back before she could step over the threshold into the room. The momentum nearly sent us both tumbling back down the stairs.

“Kiki!” she protested.

I slammed the door shut. “This is the wrong staircase. That room? That was the Room with No Doors.”

“I just saw a door!”

“And if you’d stepped into the room, that door would have sealed shut and vanished.”

Ashwini blinked. “Are you telling me that if someone were to accidentally get themselves stuck in that room, they’d have no way out?”

“Pretty much.” I stomped back down the staircase. “You were almost stuck in there forever.”

Just like Lej had almost fallen down a dark chasm right outside the palace.

There was a pause. Ashwini must have seen something on my face, because hers softened and she said very gently, “Almost, Kiki. I was almost stuck in there forever. You’re the reason I’m not.” And then, as if she was surprised, she added, “You do know what you’re doing.”

Did I know what I was doing?

But as soon as that question crossed my mind, I knew the answer. I had kept Lej from falling. I had stopped Ashwini before she’d stepped over the threshold.

I had laid these traps. I knew how to beat them.

“You see?” said the palace. “You know the way. You just got lost for a little while.”

For the first time in days, I didn’t feel like I was hopelessly out of my depth. For the first time in a long, long while, I wasn’t afraid or uncertain. I could do this.

I reached for a loose rainbow thread at the cuff of my pajamas and tore it free. I tied it around the bottom post of the staircase’s white iron handrail.

“What’s that for?” Ashwini asked.

“So that we know this is the wrong staircase next time we see it.”

She realized why this was necessary as soon as she got off the staircase. The moment her feet touched the solid floor, the staircase literally zoomed across the room and out the door to find a new hiding place.

We found it twice more before we finally stumbled across a staircase without the bright thread knotted around the bottom post. It led us safely to the third floor of the palace, where we found the music room, the observatory, the royal family’s bedrooms, the nursery, and the playroom.