Lewis was glad that Emily knew her way around the castle; he had decided after five minutes of being dragged from one corridor to another. To say that the castle was complicated would have been a huge understatement. The twisting and turning corridors were bad enough without having to pause every couple of minutes when a guard ran past.

‘In here,’ Emily said, pulling him towards a large oak door. It had taken them the best part of an hour to get from the courtroom on the second floor to the fifth floor alone.

Checking that the corridor was still deserted, she turned the door handle, pushing him into the room ahead of her awkwardly as the chain on the amulet dug into his neck, pulling them back together again. As she closed the door behind her, the chain slackened.

‘This is it,’ she said, letting go of his hand for the first time since he had rescued her from the courtroom as they shuffled away from the door.

Looking around, Lewis examined the room. It looked as if it had been ransacked. Piles of papers were flooding onto the floor from the desk at the far end of the room. One of the paintings had been removed from the wall, and the contents of a safe that it had hidden spilled out. On the stone wall opposite, a huge tapestry had been slashed in several places.

Amongst all the mess, Lewis spotted something familiar. Leaning against the front of the desk was his bow, and his bag sat beside it. After the guards had caught them in The Green Valley, all their possessions had been taken from them. Whether it was Edmund or someone else, he didn’t know, but they had found their way into The King’s Office.

‘What do we do now?’ Emily asked as she pulled the chain of the amulet over her head. Moving into the centre of the room now that she was free, she looked around.

‘Edmund said there was a secret escape in here,’ Lewis said as he looked around.

‘Where?’

‘He didn’t say,’ Lewis replied. ‘He just said that it was only ever found by the king because he spent all day staring at it.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Emily said as she stood with the desk behind her, looking at the door they had just entered the room through. ‘I’ve seen Sebastian’s desk in a dozen different places in this office.’

‘I’m just telling you what Edmund said,’ Lewis said defensively as he took off the amulet and stuffed it into his pocket.

‘What did he say exactly?’ Emily asked. ‘Word for word.’

‘He said the kings are able to find it because they spend every day staring at it,’ Lewis replied, walking over to the portrait of Sebastian that Emily had once told him about.

‘All of the kings must have moved the desk around, though,’ Emily muttered as she walked around the desk as if it would make any difference.

Muttering his agreement, Lewis caught sight of his reflection in the window. Emily had been right; he thought there were some similarities between him and the young Sebastian Vandemark.

‘Well, it can’t be on this wall,’ Lewis said, gesturing to the window as he watched the tiny torches of the guards running around below them. ‘It’s just a straight drop down to the courtyard.’

‘No,’ Emily agreed without looking away from the door that she had shut behind them. ‘That wall has always had the pictures of the kings on it.’

‘They’ve always been in the same place?’ he asked as he walked over to the tapestry.

‘Wait, what did you say?’ she asked, suddenly looking up.

‘I asked if they'd always been in the same place,’ Lewis said, examining the family tree. It was just as Emily had described it. Beneath Sebastian, an intricately stitched branch connected first to Dominic, then Anthony, and Danielle. Where Dominic’s face had been stitched into the tapestry, someone had slashed through it. It wasn’t the only face that had been slashed, though. Whoever had done it had also slashed Sebastian himself and George’s brother Vincent.

‘That’s it; you’re a genius,’ Emily said, rushing over to his side.

‘What did I do?’ he asked, taken aback.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

‘The kings have been there all the time,’ Emily said. ‘Edmund said the kings spend all their time looking at it. All the pictures are looking at the tapestry. You did it.’

‘I did?’ Lewis said, unconvinced, as he watched her pull aside the tapestry. As she ran her hand along the stone underneath, there was a soft click. ‘What on earth?’ he muttered as a stone doorway opened in the wall to reveal a dark tunnel.

‘Where do you think it goes?’ Emily asked as she peered into the darkness.

‘How about we find out? Lewis said as he picked up a lamp that sat on a small table next to the tapestry.

Picking up his bow, he handed the lamp to Emily as he picked up his bag. He couldn’t decide if it was heavier than he remembered or if he had gotten weaker after surviving on scraps in jail for the past week. Throwing the bag over his shoulder, he gestured for Emily to lead the way into the tunnel.

The tunnel was narrow, with barely enough room for them to walk side by side. When Lewis was inside the tunnel as well, he turned to face the stone doorway that was barely hidden by the tapestry. Before he could try and work out a way to shut it again, the stone door snapped shut with a bang that echoed through the tunnel.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Lewis said, nudging her forward gently.

‘How did you do it?’ Emily asked quietly as they moved down the tunnel as quickly as they could without the lamp going out.

‘Do what?’

‘Find a way to get us out of trouble again,’ she said, glancing at him.

‘It was Edmund’s plan, not mine,’ Lewis replied. ‘Without him, we would both be dead by now.’

‘I wonder why he would help us, though,’ Emily muttered more to herself than Lewis.

‘I guess we’ll find out when we get out of here,’ Lewis said. ‘He said he couldn’t answer any questions here but he would in Whitecliff.’

‘Is that where we’re heading next?’ Emily asked, moving ahead of him when the tunnel narrowed as it turned sharply to the right.

‘Seems like it,’ he said. ‘I wish I could just go back to the cabin in the forest and stay there. I don’t want anything to do with Tristan anymore.’

‘I wish we could go back there too; I really liked the forest,’ she said, echoing his thoughts. ‘Maybe we could find somewhere nice in Whitecliff.’

‘Maybe,’ Lewis muttered.

‘Where is Whitecliff exactly?’ she asked curiously after a couple of minutes of silence.

‘It’s a little port village on the south coast,’ Lewis explained.

‘Have you ever been there?’

‘No, it’s a long way south of Tristan.’

‘I’ve only ever left the city once, and that was with you,’ Emily said. ‘I wish I knew what the rest of the world was like.’

‘It really depends where you go,’ Lewis said.

For the next hour or so, he told Emily all he could about the towns outside of Tristan as she hung on to his every word. He had never met anyone with such a thirst for knowledge as her. Everything he told her seemed to fascinate her.

‘Look,’ she said suddenly, cutting across his story about locals seeing a strange creature living in Belhurst Lake. Glancing sideways at her, he saw her pointing down the tunnel, where there was a tiny pinprick of light. ‘Is that the end of the tunnel?’

‘It could be. I guess there’s only one way to find out,’ Lewis said as they both sped up, eager to be out of the cold, dark tunnel.

With his story about the creature in Belhurst Lake long forgotten, they hurried down the tunnel as fast as it would let them. All the while, the ground was sloping downward slightly.

The closer they got to the light, the larger it got. As they got nearer, the flame in the lamp flickered weakly in the gentle breeze before it finally went out. After so long, first locked up in the jail, and then the hour or so that they had spent in the tunnel, he savoured the feeling of the fresh air.

In half a dozen more quick strides, they stepped out of the tunnel and onto a rocky ledge. As the moonlight shone through a gap in the clouds, it fell on a vast, open land that was covered in patches of snow.

From their vantage point on the mountainside, Lewis could just about make out a dark shadow on the horizon, which he guessed must be the nearest town. They had made it. They were free.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Emily whispered, still in awe of the landscape that lay before them as she breathed in the fresh air deeply. ‘We’re free.’

‘I know,’ Lewis replied, glancing sideways at her.

Slowly she turned to him, looking up at him, and the smile that he hadn’t seen since they had been allowed to say their goodbyes spread across her lips. It took only a fraction of a second before he couldn’t help but smile as well.

With the lamp still in her hand, she flung her arms around him, hugging him tightly. ‘You did it,’ she said excitedly as he hugged her back, his bag slipping off his shoulder. Slowly, she pulled away from him slightly, her eyes finding his. ‘I knew you would find a way.’

‘Well, it was more Edmund, but... he started to explain before she leant forward again, Emily’s lips finding his as her excitement bled into the kiss.

Caught off guard, he froze for a moment, but it was enough for Emily to pull away again, flushing in the moonlight. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly as she looked away. ‘I just-’

This time it was Lewis’ turn to cut her off as he closed the gap between them again, kissing her gently. It took her a fraction of a second to react, but as she kissed him back, he felt a fire rushing through his veins, burning brighter as the flames roared with approval.

When they finally broke apart, they just stood there in silence for a moment, their arms still wrapped around each other.

‘So, what now?’ Emily asked quietly, breaking the silence.

‘I guess we should head for Whitecliff,’ Lewis said after a moment’s thought. ‘If you want to?’

‘I’ve always wanted to see the sea,’ she said slowly.

‘Whitecliff it is then,’ he said with a smile. He adjusted his bag with one hand as he took hers in the other, leading her down the rough track that led down the mountainside.

It was going to be a long journey, but he didn’t mind. The hundreds of questions that he had for Edmund could wait. They were free, and that was all that mattered.