“There’s a staircase at the end of the gallery,” Alex said, hurrying alongside. “It goes down to the kitchens and a back door.”

“Lead the way,” Ned ordered him, but then staggered as Cecilia suddenly wrenched her hand from his hold. Before he could catch her again she hurried over to the gallery wall.

“I know I’m uncultured,” Alex said, staring at her incredulously, “but is this the best moment to appreciate art?”

“Secret passages,” Cecilia said. Frowning up at the portraits, she muttered as she rapidly sidestepped beneath them, tapping the wall under each frame. Ned heard fragments of names—“Zenobia, Mary, Arthur”—and recognized them as characters from Branwell Brontë’s early writing. He’d tried to read those stories once as part of his preparation for infiltrating Morvath’s mad brain but hadn’t got far. They were dense, strange, and altogether disturbing. One thing he did remember was Morvath’s favorite character, the great pirate and rogue Alexander Percy.

And there he was, all bright ringlets and snazzy collar, gazing poetically along the gallery from within a gilded frame. Ned dashed over to the portrait. Surely the most likely place for a secret doorway would be beneath this original, albeit imaginary, lord of Northangerland. But Cecilia shook her head.

“Maria Henrietta,” she whispered, and shoved at the wall beneath a small ink sketch of a woman. The wood parted, and Cecilia turned to flick her hand at him, urging him to hurry. Ned glanced along the gallery, ensuring they were unseen, then slipped after her through the opening. An intense odor of rot made him grimace, but it was more appealing than being murdered by a lunatic pirate. Alex entered after him, and as he eased the door shut as silently as possible, a pitch blackness shrank the world into nothingness.

“Does he know this passage?” Ned whispered.

“Yes,” Cecilia replied, so close her voice brushed warmly against his throat. “But it originally opened under Percy like you thought. My mother switched the portraits; I just couldn’t remember which one. If we—”

Ned clapped his hand over her mouth. Footsteps knocked slowly along the gallery floor.

“Cecilia,” Morvath called. “Don’t hide from me. It’s not a nice way to treat one’s father.”

The steps drew closer. The three pirates huddled back from the door, unwilling to move through the narrow passage in case Morvath heard them—but anxious he would hear their breathing, their heartbeats, if they stayed still.

Tap. Tap. He was testing for the secret door. Zenobia—Mary—

Cecilia thought she would suffocate. She bit Ned’s hand and he yanked it away with a hiss. But it did not help. The old, stale darkness was pressing against her, forcing her breath back into her lungs. She felt a scream building inside.

“Come now, daughter,” Morvath called. “Where is your loyalty? I know you’re with that two-faced Lightbourne. Don’t listen to him. Don’t trust a word he says. He’s no scoundrel; he doesn’t have a truly bad bone in his body. You’ll be so much happier with Frederick. You and he will be the prince and princess of thieves, and I will be England’s king.”