“It’s not my fault I’m hungry! We’re always chasing death—can’t we stop just once to have lunch?”

Sally shook her head. “I can’t believe the king put his life in the hands of you two.”

“You’re one to talk,” Tom said. “We’re on our knees in the damp, on hard stone! All you’re doing is holding a lantern. Like the light is going to bring them running.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this better?”

She slipped the hood over the lantern, plunging the cellar into total darkness.

“How am I supposed to find a rat now?” Tom complained.

“Try eating more cheese—see if that works.”

I’d had enough. “I swear to the angels high in heaven, I am trying to find a poisoner here. If you two want to keep playing the goat—”

I froze.

Sally pulled the hood from the lantern. “Did you see a rat?”

“Shadow that light,” I whispered. “Shadow it!”

Once again, the room fell into darkness.

I let my eyes adjust for a moment. Then I stared across the cellar.

“Look,” I said. “Over there.”

Tom’s whisper came from the black. “You realize we can’t see where you’re pointing, right?”

“The wall, opposite the door.”

Silence. “I still don’t see anything,” he began, but then he fell quiet, too.

On the far side, where there should have been nothing but shelves, there was light. Just a sliver, a thin line rising from the floor, almost to the ceiling.

“The lantern,” I said.

Sally removed the hood again. The lantern’s glare wasn’t much, but it was enough to cause the light to fade from sight.

“I thought this and the wine cellar were the only rooms underground,” I said.

Sally looked at me. “So did I.”

We moved closer. Against the wall were three shelves, each full of folded linens and old kitchen utensils. I motioned for Sally to step off to the right. She kept the lantern shining, but up close, with the shadows cast by the wood, I could make out the light again, all along the left side of the center shelf.

“A secret door,” I said. There had to be a passage behind it. “Look for a latch.”

Sally put the lantern down and joined us as we fumbled around the wall. We poked at the shelves, behind the linens, into the bricks, the mortar between them. Finally, Tom found it.

There was a lever up high, above the middle shelf. He pulled it.

Clack.

The shelf came forward an inch, grinding against the stone underneath. Light bright enough to see even in the lantern’s glow made a vertical line in the wall.

Tom grabbed the shelf and pulled it the rest of the way. Its hinges creaked, echoing deafeningly in the cellar.

And that’s when they attacked us.

CHAPTER 35

ALL I SAW WAS A silhouette.

It came at me from the passage, suddenly in my face. I reacted this time: I reached for my pistols. I just managed to get a palm on one of the grips.