“I know. I did. Luckily I landed on me bum—pardon the expression, miss—and like I said, I’m well padded. But it weren’t no worse than when my old dad used to take his belt to me when I was a kid.” She helped me into a sitting position. “I ain’t half glad I am to see you. You’re a proper toff to come and rescue me. I knew you would, of course.”

“I hate to disillusion you, Queenie,” I said, “but I’m now a captive with you, not your rescuer.”

“Where are we, miss? This ain’t half a creepy old place.”

I looked around. We were in a circular chamber. A glimmer of gray light came in through a small grille near the bottom of one wall. Apart from that, every surface was stone. There was no door of any kind.

“I rather fear we’re in the oubliette we were joking about earlier.”

“The oobly-what?”

“It’s a place where you put unwanted guests,” I said. “I’ve heard of them in old castles but I’ve never actually seen one before. You step on the wrong slab, it opens and you fall into a dungeon where nobody will ever find you again.”

“Ooh, don’t say that, miss.” She grabbed at my sleeve. “Someone’s going to find us, aren’t they?”

“I hope so,” I said. But even as the words came out I wondered who actually knew of the presence of this place. Matty had obviously been told about it because Vlad had grown up here and knew every nook and cranny. But did others know? Servants? Dragomir? I had a horrible vision of everyone hunting for me throughout the castle and not finding me, while Queenie and I starved to death. Not the ending I would have chosen; in fact, I think I’d actually have preferred to marry Prince Siegfried if I’d had an option—which shows you how desperate I was feeling. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re going to get out somehow, I promise. How did you come to be in here, by the way?”

“I don’t rightly know,” she said. “I saw a man taking what looked as if it would be a shortcut to the kitchen. He opened a door in the paneling and he went through, and I saw he was going down a staircase so I thought I’d follow him. Next thing I knew, I was falling down a shaft and I landed up in here.”

“This man—what did he look like?”

“I can’t really tell you. He was dressed in black. One of the servants, I thought.”

“Did he have light blond hair?”

“Now that you mention it, he did.”

“Then he thought you were following him for a reason. That’s why you landed up here.”

“Who is he, miss? A criminal?”