I really wasn’t sure. And that was scary.
I swam on. The passage wasn’t arrow straight, as I presumed, but full of twists and turns, snaking through the hard rock. In several places there were rock falls—no doubt caused by some sort of seismic activity, because the rock just looked too heavy and solid for it to be any sort of wear—and the sharp edges scratched my belly as I squeezed past. Trae would have struggled, even if he had been able to hold his breath long enough.
Finally, the water pressure began to ease. Though the water felt no warmer and the visibility was no clearer, I knew I was nearing the top.
My head broke through the water, and I blinked. Once the protective film retreated across my eyes, I looked around.
Though it was pitch black, I could see well enough. I guess that was one of the benefits of being a sea dragon. We had to see in the darkest of waters, as well as through the murk of the loch’s deep waters. This well held little in the way of problems.
The walls here were as rough-hewn as the walls of the tunnel, the marks of the picks that had hacked through the rock still very evident even after all this time. Sludge and God knows what else slicked the walls, some of it hanging in thick green tendrils. No light twinkled from high above. Indeed, there was nothing to indicate this well had an exit point at all. The only indication I had that there was an escape was the faint stir of fresher air through the dank atmosphere of the well.
I reached for the handholds carved deep into the rock and began to climb.
Chapter Fourteen
The air was cold against my skin, seemingly colder perhaps than the water. It crept across my body, stealing
the warmth from my skin, settling into my bones.
I reached the top of the well and pressed a hand against the thick metal cover. It was heavy, thick with rust that flaked away as my fingertips pressed against it, but nevertheless it was basically solid to the touch. I took a deep breath, then pushed with all my might.
The cover slid up and back, and clanged to the ground with an almost bell-like sound. It seemed to reverberate across the silence, a sharp call to arms to anyone who was listening.
I scrambled over the lip of the well and dropped to the cold stone of the ground as the last of the bell-like reverberations faded away and silence returned. I remained there, my muscles taut and limbs trembling—whether with fear or the readiness to run, I couldn’t honestly say—listening for anything that might indicate someone had heard the crash of the cover and was coming to investigate.
Nothing. No footsteps, no alarm.
I rose and squeezed my hair to help dry it, then found the stairs and padded upward. My feet slapped lightly against the stones, making little noise.
The door at the top of the stairs was heavy, made of metal like the well cover but nowhere near as rusted. I gripped the knob and turned it carefully. The door creaked open, revealing a long corridor lit by a solitary bulb about halfway down.
These were the corridors I’d briefly glimpsed in the mist this morning, and they were a part of the old sections of the house. The newer additions to the basement—the cells—were ahead and to the left. If I went right, I’d reach the old stone staircase that wound up through the largest of the turrets to the roof. If the morning mist was right, the exits on the other floors were still well hidden. If I could get the kids to the stairs, they’d have a clear run to freedom.
But that was a whole lot of ifs.
I slipped through the doorway and headed down the corridor, keeping to the shadows and hoping they hadn’t installed motion detectors in the time I’d been away. I ran through the patch of yellowed brightness, then walked on, passing several semi-open doors. The rooms beyond were silent and dark, and I felt no immediate inclination to investigate. Not until I knew what lay ahead, anyway.
I padded on, my bare feet making little noise on the stone. Each breath sent little puffs of white drifting into the darkness, but I couldn’t actually feel the cold. The night and my own nature had seen to that.
I reached the tunnel junction and stopped. In the distance to the left there were voices and music, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize it was a TV, not the guards, I was hearing.
I risked a quick peek around. The guard station had been installed at the junction between these old corridors and the newer ones that led down to the cells. The guard sat in the middle of the room, his feet propped up on the desk and munching on a sandwich as he watched the TV.
To get to my mother and the kids, I’d need to get past that man.
How long had it been since I’d left Trae standing by the loch’s edge? Surely it had taken me at least twenty minutes to traverse the twists and turns of the passage? And yet there was no sound, no alarm. Nothing to indicate he’d begun his diversion.
But even if there were only a few minutes left of his twenty-minute limit, I couldn’t risk waiting. The longer I stood here, doing nothing, the more chance there was of getting caught. The guards didn’t just sit in the box watching TV; they patrolled regularly.
I worried at my lip for several seconds, trying to think of the best way to distract that guard without getting myself caught, then turned around and walked back to the first of the storerooms. Inside were lots of boxes and equipment, but on the shelf lining the back wall, I found a box of tools. I grabbed a heavy wrench and several small screwdrivers, then left.
A quick peek around the corner told me the man hadn’t moved. I took a deep, calming breath, then tossed one of the screwdrivers toward the guard’s box as hard as I could.
It hit the wall several yards shy of the box, and fell to the ground with a clatter. The guard didn’t turn around, didn’t move.
I cursed silently and tried again. This time the screw-driver clattered to the ground much closer, and the guard jerked around. I ducked back behind the wall, my breath caught in my throat as I listened for his reaction.
For several seconds there was no sound other than the TV, then the chair creaked and footsteps echoed on the stone. There was a pause, and while I imagined the guard bent over to inspect the screwdrivers, I didn’t dare look.