She’d distracted him. He’d turned his attention away when Clare yelled, and it had allowed the tall creature to rush him and force him to the ground.
Dorran was strong, fierce, and resourceful. But he was also exhausted.
Her heart ached. She’d wanted to be with Dorran to keep him safe, and she’d done exactly the opposite. If he’d been hurt, she wasn’t sure she could forgive herself. A dark part of her mind took it a step further and asked what would happen if he was already dead. The pains across her body suddenly felt insignificant to the way she ached inside.
Clare moved as silently as she could. She breathed through her mouth to minimise the noise and try to reduce the overpowering smell as she curled her body. She kept her leg still so as not to disturb the chain and felt around the restraint. It had been manufactured out of thick metal. The shackle had been intended for someone larger and didn’t fit around Clare’s leg properly. She thought, if she could turn her foot at the right angle, she might be able to squirm through.
The chattering noise around her rose in volume, and Clare froze. A slow, steady clicking—louder than the sounds around it—was coming closer. Clare tried to pinpoint its direction, but the darkness was too disorienting.
Quick. Before whatever’s coming arrives. This might be your only chance.
She gave up trying to be silent. Clare got her fingers under the shackle, testing its size, and began to pull it over her foot.
The fit was close. But even with her heel pulled in and toes pointed, Clare didn’t think she could get her foot through. Not without something to help it slide over the skin.
“She is blind. Let us have some light.”
Clare froze. The voice belonged to a woman, but not like any woman she’d ever heard before. The words were spoken slowly and enunciated crisply, with a faint accent that Clare couldn’t pinpoint. The voice rang with authority. She could easily imagine it belonging to some kind of aristocracy. At the same time, it had been distorted. The words sounded too dry, almost cracked.
She shrank back from the voice. A moment later, a soft hiss was accompanied by the glow of a freshly lit candle. The light was weak, but Clare had spent so long in the dark that she still squinted.
The hissing and chattering grew louder. Shapes scurried back from the light, their distorted faces watching it warily. Then Clare saw the woman holding the candle and had to bite her tongue to stop a scream.
The woman stood tall, well over seven feet. Her papery-white skin was creased, partially from age and partially from the distortion her body had undergone. Lines around her lips told Clare that they had been pursed often in life. She suspected she would have seen frown lines around the eyes as well, except the lower lids had drooped. They created dark crescent-moon shapes below the eyes, where once-pink skin had turned black. It made the stark-white eyeballs seem poised to slip and tumble out. Steel-grey hair had been wrapped into a bun on top of the creature’s head, though wisps sagged out of the formation.
The woman wore a dress that would have been magnificent before it had been torn. Its high collar brushed her chin, and its dark-red bodice was entwined with black lace trim. She clasped the candle in a bony hand, unconcerned with trying to protect her fingers from the dripping wax. She had eight fingers on each hand. Then Clare’s eyes moved down, and the malformed hand became the least of her concerns.
The dress’s skirt had been shredded. Dark silk strips rustled with the woman’s every step, and behind them, Clare could see legs. The woman had insect legs.
Clare pressed her hand over her mouth as she tried to shuffle farther back. Her thigh slipped over the edge of what she realised was a dais, and she froze.
The woman’s legs moved rhythmically, almost as though she’d had them her whole life. It was clear she hadn’t, though. Gore still stuck to the exposed bone segments. They ended in sharp protrusions, like a crab’s legs, and had too many joints. Clare counted six full-grown legs, but others were still developing. Two more had burst from the woman’s waist. They wiggled uselessly in the air with every step she took.
“Well?” The woman’s upper lids descended in what would have been a slow blink if the lower lids had met them, then they fluttered back up. “Show your respects to the mistress of the house.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Madeline Morthorne,” Clare whispered.
The woman’s chin lifted a fraction of an inch. She swept towards Clare, the horrible clicking from her spindly feet echoing through the space. The candlelight flickered around them, and Clare tore her eyes away from the woman. The area she was in seemed to be a cavern. Rough stone walls surrounded her, and she couldn’t see the ceiling. She tried to count the creatures in the space. There seemed to be more than a dozen, but it was hard to be sure when they were moving incessantly, scurrying across the ground or climbing the stone walls.
She hazarded a question. “Where am I?”
Madeline’s nostrils flared, but her voice was steady and measured as she answered. “Below the cellar. In my private rooms.”
That meant the secret passages had to spread through the whole house. They were well-built but not well used… until recently. She guessed previous generations had installed them as shelters for a worst-case scenario. A paranoid woman who built her family’s home in the middle of the forest seemed like just the sort of person who would turn them into a maze of secrets.
Her head throbbed, and her arm ached. The cold metal was an unpleasant weight on her ankle. As Madeline circled her, Clare chanced a look at the chain. It was short and bolted into the edge of the stone slab, trapping her on the dais. The shackle wasn’t quite large enough to pull over her foot, not without scraping the skin.
And once she got out, she had no idea which direction to go. No matter where she looked, all she saw were unyielding stone walls and the relentlessly chattering hollow ones.
“You’re not like the others.” Clare spoke carefully, afraid of flaring anger, but trying to feel out the exact extent of the situation.
Madeline’s eyebrow quirked up. “Of course not. They are only servants.”
Clare swallowed. Now that she was looking, she realised the pitiable creatures were still wearing scraps of maid uniforms. She recognised the woman from the basement, with the many-jointed arms. She crawled upside down, her breastbone pointed at the ceiling and saliva trailing down her cheek and into her hair. The spines growing from her back scraped across the stones. The dress clinging to her jutting hips had the neat black-and-whites that Clare guessed the staff must have worn before the world fell apart.
She looked aside and saw the maid she and Dorran had encountered in the attic. He’d commented that she wore the collar of a dress. It was discoloured and had been splattered with blood from some gory feast. If it hadn’t been so stained, Dorran might have recognised it as the collar of one of the staff’s uniforms.
“These are your entourage,” Clare muttered.
“My servants.” The voice took on a biting threat. “My personal maids who care for my needs. They have gone witless, but they still know their mistress well enough to mind my commands. Most of the time.”
As she passed one of the creatures, Madeline extended a hand. Her multitude of fingers curled under the maid’s chin as it cowered, eyes wide and adoring. Madeline’s fingers twitched, and pricks of blood appeared at the creature’s throat. Then Madeline stepped away, and the maid crumpled to the ground, shaking and head bowed in reverence.