Sir Illius Molick was a man of habit. Order was soothing. Calming. Disorder was not. That was probably why the few successful revolts by the rebel group had upset him so deeply. Sir Illius Molick simply did not approve of disorder.
But a man of habit was a man easily led into a trap.
Every night after dinner, Molick joined King Salir in His Highness’s chambers to discuss who knew what—though Mally suspected the conversation revolved around his number one problem: the rebels. Then, at precisely ten o’clock, Molick would join his favorite knights in his personal study. They talked, smoked and drank. It was this nightly gathering that Mally and Lita began to consider seriously.
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Mally and Lita spent a whole week planning. Mally wasn’t even bothering to kid herself. If they were caught trying to steal the key from Molick, they wouldn’t receive a short trip into the dungeons. Stealing something off Molick’s person would be a serious crime.
The only reason they had focused on Molick instead of King Salir was because Molick required that his favorite drink be brought to him during these nightly gatherings. King Salir had his own private stock of wines to choose from in his chamber, leaving him in no need of a servant to pour him a goblet full.
Nathan always handled Molick’s wine.
“He’s going to be really suspicious that we want to take the wine this one night,” said Lita in a hushed undertone as they walked to the Servants’ Chamber for breakfast. “Should we tell him why?”
Mally shook her head.
“He’ll ask too many questions,” Mally whispered, though the idea of Nathan joining them was highly tempting. “We’ll just have to insist. ‘You’ve been working so hard, Nathan. Let us take this one and you turn in early.’ Things like that.”
“Things like that,” Lita repeated nervously.
Mally shot Lita what she hoped was a confidence-boosting smile, but the only thing that changed on Lita’s pale face was her mouth tightening.
They entered the Servants’ Chamber and easily found Nathan sitting beside Gerda. Seeing the two of them together sparked an idea in Mally’s brain.
“Good morning, Nathan,” Mally greeted him cheerfully. She buttered him a muffin.
“Thank you,” said Nathan, his eyebrows rising in mild surprise.
“Say Nathan, Lita and I were thinking, why don’t you let us take care of Molick’s wine tonight?” Mally said nonchalantly.
Nathan’s eyebrows rose into his hair. Gerda stared at Mally. Lita shuffled her feet.
“Why would you want to do that?” Nathan asked.
“It’s our treat. You and Gerda hardly get to spend any time alone together.” Mally stopped there, hoping that Gerda grabbed hold of her hint.
Gerda’s eyes widened dramatically and she said eagerly, turning to Nathan, “Oh, let them do it, Nathan. Just for tonight.”
Nathan couldn’t begin to argue, with Gerda smiling so brightly, and he nodded to Mally and Lita.
“He always takes a bottle of black currant wine.”
“At ten o’clock?”
Nathan nodded.
Jubilant, Mally turned on her heel and walked away from Nathan and Gerda. She wound her arm through Lita’s and whispered in her ear, “Now we get some dreamless sleep.”
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It could have been that the reason Lita was so pale was that she had agreed to cause a major distraction in Archie’s kitchen, something that was just as dangerous as stepping on a knight’s toes. Upon entering the kitchen, Lita quickly scanned the busy room until her eyes landed upon a giant stack of apples, piled precariously on a table. Shooting Mally a knowing glance, she strode straight toward the mountainous stack.
“Hello, Archie!” she said so loudly that Archie and Rosa flinched. They hadn’t heard them enter. Lita slapped Archie on the back.
“Good morning,” Archie replied, his mustache twitching peevishly.
“Say, this is quite the pile of apples,” Lita commented. “What are you going to do with all of them?”
Sensing the impending explosion, Mally began to inch slowly backwards toward the cabinet where Rosa kept her herbs.
“Be careful around those!” Archie yelled, but it was too late. Lita had ‘accidentally’ bumped into the table, sending the mountain of apples rolling. Like a waterfall, they cascaded onto the floor, covering every inch of stone.
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry!” Lita kept repeating as Rosa and Archie dove for the table, trying to catch the ones that hadn’t yet fallen.
Quick as a flash, Rosa and Archie fully occupied, Mally yanked the cabinet doors open, found the jar labeled ‘Dreamless Sleep’ and poured a good handful of the tea mixture into a very thin sack. She replaced the jar, closed the cabinet, pocketed the sack, and spun around to see Lita, Archie, and Rosa on their hands and knees retrieving apples. Somehow, all the apples Lita touched went sailing across the room.
“Out! Out! OUT!” Archie screamed, looking more and more like a raging bull. Lita stumbled in her haste to follow Mally out of the kitchen.
“Did you get it?” Lita asked breathlessly, her cheeks flushed from the excitement of goading Archie and living to tell about it.
Mally patted her pocket and nodded.
“So all we have left to do, is put this into the bottle and wait for them to fall asleep,” said Mally confidently.
The grin upon Lita’s face faltered slightly.
“My aunt always told me, ‘Never poke a sleeping cat in the eye.’ I wonder if she would say the same thing about Molick?”
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A quarter of an hour before ten that night, Mally and Lita once again entered Archie’s kitchen. At the sight of Lita, Archie’s eyes narrowed and his mustache bristled.
Lita calmly glanced around the kitchen.
“I see you’ve cleaned up the apples,” she observed cheerfully.
Archie’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Rosa,” Mally said quickly, afraid Archie was about to knock Lita atop the head with a skillet. “We need Molick’s wine.”
“You’re taking it?” Rosa asked in surprise. “Nathan always does.”
“We’re doing it for him tonight,” Mally explained.
“Nathan and Gerda are having a romantic evening to themselves tonight,” Lita explained. Her lips twitched. “And no knights are allowed.”
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“A date? How wonderful! I always thought those two would do well together.”
Rosa handed Mally the dusty bottle that was sitting on the countertop.
After they had closed the kitchen door, they hurried to Molick’s study with seven minutes to spare. The study was empty.
“Molick must be with the king,” Mally said quietly, tip-toeing into the room.
“Hurry,” Lita whispered tensely, peeking into the corridor.
Mally uncorked the bottle and poured it into its decanter. She then withdrew the tea bag with the dreamless sleep tea from her pocket and lowered it into the wine by its thin string.
Mally only had to wait five minutes before Lita rushed to her from the door.
“He’s coming,” she hissed.
Heart racing, Mally pulled the stained bag back out of the wine and put it once more in her pocket. Mally and Lita both curtsied deeply when Molick entered the room. For a moment he frowned at them and Mally wondered fearfully if he would ask them why Nathan was not there. But instead, he turned his back to them and withdrew a fat cigar. Seconds later, a group of knights marched through the door, not sparing a single glance at Mally and Lita except for three of them: Sir Brian, Gibbs, and Bayard.
Lita handed Mally the crystal goblets and Mally tried to pour the dark wine without it spilling due to her suddenly trembling hands.
“Where is Anon?” Molick asked the group of knights, as Mally and Lita passed out the goblets.
“It doesn’t look like he’s coming tonight,” said Gibbs with the tone of a tattle-tail, drinking deeply from his goblet. He frowned slightly and looked at his glass. Mally stiffened and shot a nervous glance at Lita. The tea did taste strong …
Gibbs shrugged and took another swallow.
“I shall inform him in the morning that my orders are mandatory,” said Molick.
Gibbs finished his glass and raised the goblet into the air. Lita quickly refilled it.
As time ticked by, Mally started to feel sweat bead upon her forehead. Was it going to work? When she had taken the dreamless sleep tea, the effect had been almost instantaneous. Had they steeped it long enough? Did it even work in wine?
Lita glanced at Mally, her eyes mirroring her own fears. What if they didn’t fall asleep?
But then quite suddenly, Molick’s hand twitched. Gibbs yawned widely. Bayard’s head drooped. And before Mally’s eyes, the knights all fell fast asleep. Vinsus was slumped in his chair. Sir Brian’s feathered hat had tumbled off his head.
Carefully, Mally and Lita stepped through the splayed legs and dropped goblets to Molick. The spilt wine looked like blood on the rug. Even in her tense state, Mally wondered how badly Meriyal would react to the dark stains.
They had never decided who would be the one to actually take the key, but it was clear that Lita had no such intention.
“Go on,” she hissed.
Taking a deep breath, Mally pulled Molick’s coat more open and froze.
“Which key?” Mally moaned.
Lita, looking horrified, stared at the dull, iron ring attached to Molick’s belt. Some twenty keys dangled from it.
“Take all of them,” was her hoarse reply.
Hoping desperately that the catacomb key would be amongst them, Mally gently removed the key ring from Molick’s hip. She nearly jumped out of her skin as he grunted in his sleep. Lita had retreated to the door and was frantically waving for Mally to move quickly.
Once she had closed Molick’s study door, Mally expelled a shaky breath and leaned up against it. But Lita pulled at her arm.
“Come on!” she insisted. “We don’t know how long that tea will last!”
They used the shortest route they knew to the catacombs, which were located far below the castle, like the dungeons.
The catacombs had been banned from public visitation when Mally was five. She remembered not understanding why her father was so upset by the news, and when she had asked why she had been even more baffled. Tombs? Visiting the dead? It terrified her. But now she thought she understood better: the knights had already closed off Bosc Bell Tower and had begun changing the laws. Sealing the catacombs was just another part of their new regime. But was there more to it? Mally couldn’t help but wonder. Had there been another reason for Molick to lock the catacomb’s door? Had someone suspicious tried to pry open the young princess’s casket?
They traveled down a long, narrow set of stone stairs, worn and misshapen from years of use. The air grew steadily colder, and their breath came out in a misty vapor before their eyes. Lita had grabbed a burning candle on the way and it threw valuable light on the increasingly dark stairwell. Finally, the erratic candlelight illuminated a large wooden door with heavy ironwork at the bottom of the stairwell.
Mally and Lita stopped. They glanced at each other, each silently encouraging the other, as Mally inserted the first key on the ring into the door’s lock.
It didn’t fit. Fumbling, she tried the next. And the next.
Beginning to panic, Mally asked, “Do you have any idea what it looks like?”
“No, I’ve never seen it. Shaped like a skull, perhaps?” Lita offered unhelpfully.
Mally bit back a grumble and pushed her sixth key (a large, heavy brass one) into the lock.
The loud click that reverberated around them made both of them jump. Swallowing with difficulty, Mally pushed the heavy door open. Lita helped her—the hinges had rusted. They gritted their teeth as the door moaned and groaned loudly enough to wake the dead. Finally, they shoved it open enough that they could squeeze through, and Mally and Lita stepped into the royal catacombs.
The entire royal family was housed here as well as the knights, their bones always connected to Bosc Castle. Mally’s first impression was one of dread. The catacombs were huge. The walls were thirty feet high, at least. Hundreds of caskets, some huge, others pushed into compartments in the dirt walls with silver plaques above them. Mally couldn’t see the end of the room, though she hoped that was really the fault of the darkness. She didn’t want to dwell on just how big the catacombs were. They needed to get back to Molick to return the key ring before he woke.
But there was the dust. There was so much dust—surely she’d suffocate. A disgruntled gasp made Mally turn. Lita’s hand covered her mouth.
“Let’s find it quick, so we can breathe,” said Mally, and though she knew they were quite alone, her voice was low and hushed.
Lita nodded—her nose wrinkled in distaste, she raised the candle higher so that they could see a bit farther ahead. Mally closed the door and for a moment considered locking it, but decided against it. There was no reason for anyone to try to enter the catacombs. Molick was insensate in his study and the king—well, hopefully the king was in bed.
And Mally didn’t like the idea of locking herself in an underground maze full of dead bodies.
“Where do you think she is?” asked Mally as they started down a hall. The floor was packed dirt. They passed row upon row of caskets, their smudged name plaques glinting in Lita’s candlelight.
“Middle?” Lita guessed. Then she cried, “Wait!”
Mally turned to her and watched as she lit a tall candelabra. Mally was amazed Lita had even noticed it. Its silver was so tarnished it was the exact same color as the wall.
“So we can find our way back,” Lita explained.
“Good thinking,” Mally praised. She motioned for Lita to stand closer as she wiped grime from one of the plaques.
“A knight,” said Mally. “I bet the royal family would have its own area.”
“A private suite?” Lita joked weakly.
They continued on, deeper and deeper into the catacombs, Lita periodically lighting a few candles to mark the way back to the door. They shivered from the cold and Mally rubbed her hands together. She wished for the tenth time that she’d brought a cloak.
The ever pressing darkness and profound stillness made Mally want to run as fast as she could back to the door, and by the way the candle’s light jerked and jumped about them, she guessed Lita would have agreed with her.
After what seemed like hours—though Mally knew better—Lita finally spoke the concern that she had been pointedly ignoring.
“We’re not going to find it,” said Lita.
“We will,” Mally assured her, hoping fervently that she was right.
They had come across some areas that opened up into giant caverns. In these chambers, the tombs were large and ornate with scripts and markings carved into the marble caskets. There were no plaques lining the walls. No knights or squires or advisors were housed in here. Instead, the names of these deceased were carved on the lids of their tombs.
“She’s got to be in one of those,” Mally had said when they’d entered the first cavern.
“S’ppose Lumpy got buried with his wig still on?” Lita asked with a nervous chuckle.
But there was no Princess Avona Kellen carved on any of the tombs, so they had moved on.
“Mally, this is silly,” Lita said after they’d passed the third chamber with no luck. “Even if we find her, of course she’ll be in there. Why wouldn’t she be? And we’ve been down here too long—what if Molick’s woken up?” she exclaimed, working herself into a panic.
“We have to find her, Lita. We may not get another chance,” Mally insisted, though she inwardly agreed with her. A voice had been screaming in her brain since she’d closed the heavy, wooden door: Get out! What are you doing? Run, you idiot!
“I can’t stand this,” Lita cried hoarsely. “I can’t—what was that!” Lita shrieked as they both spun around.
“A rat,” gasped Mally, trying to control her breathing. “There are probably millions down here.”
“That didn’t sound like a rat,” Lita argued loudly, her face ashen. The candle in her hand was visibly shaking.
“Stop shaking the candle!” Mally ordered. “You might blow it out!”
That stilled Lita.
“Come on,” Mally pressed, tugging at Lita’s arm. “I think I see another chamber up ahead.”
With a trembling Lita in tow, Mally entered their fourth chamber. Clearly wishing that she was anywhere else, Lita read the name of the closest tomb.
“King Sebastian!” Lita yelled so loudly that her voice echoed.
“She’s got to be here then!” Mally cried in excitement. “Bring the candle over here. Look at this one!”
They both leaned over the marble casket, holding their breath as the words Princess Avona Kellen danced in the candlelight.
“This is it,” Mally breathed as her heart raced. “Help me push off the lid.”
Lita carefully set the candle down, and with Mally, she pushed the heavy lid. It slowly moved and when it was halfway off, they stopped. Lita grabbed the candle, nearly dropping it in her haste. Heart pounding, she flung it over the open tomb and with Mally gazed into its depths.
The casket was empty.