Chapter 34
The Secret Passageway

Hans and Angela crept out of the darkened laundry. They pressed themselves against the wall of the corridor and slid to the kitchen entrance.

Three vats, six spits, an enormous stove, and a stack of firewood ran down one side of the kitchen. An oak counter and cupboards, interrupted by a spiral staircase, ran down the other. At the far end, a lamp lit the entrance to the storage areas. An elderly cook rocked on a stool beside it, faced away toward a slop trough, peeling potatoes.

“How do we get past her?” Angela whispered.

Hans nodded to the spiral staircase. “We can go up to the banquet hall, cross over, and take stairs down on the other side.”

“Good plan.”

They edged silently through the kitchen. As they reached the staircase, the cook loosed a great sneeze. She turned around, rubbing her eyes.

Hans and Angela ran up the stairs. Past the first spiral, the light dimmed. Past the second it disappeared. They touched the outer wall and slowly made their way to a landing. There was a short walkway to a wall of velvet curtains. Light shone through the slit where they’d been pulled together.

“This is it,” Angela whispered. “The banquet hall’s beyond.”

Hans and Angela peered through the draperies. A stern-faced woman was adjusting chairs. “That’s the housekeeper who poured me a bath,” Angela gasped. “I’ll bet she poured the milk that drowned Georgina, too.”

Hans frowned. “With her here, we’ll have to cross above.”

The housekeeper looked at the curtains. “Who’s there?” She marched toward them. “I said, who’s there?”

Hans and Angela ran back to the spiral staircase and scrambled up into the dark, the housekeeper in pursuit. Eight spirals later they burst into a torchlit corridor. They turned left and ran past a series of doors flanked by suits of armor. As the housekeeper entered the hall, they dived between sets of decorative chain mail coats and leggings.

There was a strange silence, save for the housekeeper’s labored breathing. “It’s you, isn’t it, Georgina? You’ve come back,” she said at last. Her voice was full of fear and regret. “Or is it you, Isabella? Or you, Clara? Or maybe it’s all of you I hear, walking these halls, haunting these stairs and parapets. Leave me alone. Please. It wasn’t my doing.” Her whimpers disappeared down the staircase.

Angela shivered. “Hans, I’ve been in this hallway. It’s where Arnulf locked me when I was first here. But the spirals have spun me around so much I’m not sure which way we’re facing. We could be crossing the banquet hall or going in the opposite direction.”

Hans paused. “With the housekeeper down those stairs, we can’t go back the way we came. We can’t stay here, either. Anyone could come around a corner and see us.” He wet his lips. “According to the map, there’s a hidden passageway behind the rooms. But how do we find it?”

Angela thought of the nighttime visit of the last archduchess. “The paintings! The entrances are behind the paintings!” She opened the door to a pitch-black room. “Grab a torch.”

Hans took a torch from a sconce in the corridor and followed Angela into the room. On one wall there was a depiction of the devil swallowing lost souls. Angela ran her hands behind the frame. She felt a catch and pressed it. Nothing happened. After a flurry of fingers, she found a second catch. She pressed them both. The painting swung open.

Angela peered through the holes in the devil’s eyes. “This is how Arnulf spies on his guests.”

Hans wasn’t listening. He was headed back to the corridor.

“What are you doing?”

“Returning this torch. If it’s missing, it’ll draw attention. Besides, its light would shine through the peepholes and give us away.”

“How will we keep from getting lost?” Angela panicked.

“We’ll count our steps. If we’re lucky, we’ll find stairs leading down to the storage area. If not, we’ll retrace our steps.”

In a moment, he returned and shut the door. Angela found his hand in the dark, drew him into the secret passageway, and closed the painting. They inched forward, hands held high to protect their heads from support beams.

After two hundred steps, the corridor forked in two. They turned left. A few steps more and Hans stubbed his toe. “We’ve reached stairs,” he said, “but they go up not down.”

Ahead, two dots of light pierced the inky black: peepholes. The sickly sweet smell of camphor, mandrake, and rotting flesh drifted through the holes. Hans and Angela heard a familiar voice on the other side.

“Lord High Chancellor,” Arnulf said. “I need council from the land of the dead.”