His arm went around Clare’s back, and he helped her across the cavernous space. She had to limp, but Dorran took a lot of her weight as they passed the furnaces and moved towards the stairs in the opposite wall.
The running furnace—the one funnelling heat into the gardens—was down to coals, but the heat coming out of it was still immense. The metal stairs glittered in its glow, like strips of orange running up the wall. As they drew closer to the stairway, Clare pulled Dorran back. “Wait.”
“What’s wrong?”
She squinted into the shadows surrounding the staircase. The space was too dark—she couldn’t even see the walls. When she turned her head, she could still make out the scrabbling noises at the secret door they’d come through. Her mouth turned dry. “It’s a trap.”
Dorran’s eyebrows pulled together. “You think so?”
“Yes. It’s too easy. If we were just dealing with mindless hollow ones, there would be nothing strange about them picking at a locked door. But Madeline is in control. She wouldn’t send them to waste their efforts at that door—”
“Unless she wanted to herd us away from it,” Dorran finished, realisation crossing his features. “Which means she must be waiting for us ahead.”
“Somewhere.” Clare continued to scan the dark stairwell and the walls surrounding it. She couldn’t see anything. But almost as though the creature behind them felt their hesitation, the scrabbling intensified.
Dorran held the torch ahead of them, trying to light the space as much as possible. Clare felt torn. They couldn’t stay in the furnace room. Her energy was quickly dripping away, and the hollow had seemingly limitless endurance. But if she and Dorran tried to climb the stairs, they would be doing so essentially blind.
“Put more wood in the furnace,” she murmured. “They’re trying to lure us into their element—the cold and the dark. If we’re going to confront them, it should be on our terms—right here, where it’s warm, and where we can see what’s happening.”
Dorran nodded and fixed the torch into a holder in the wall. He unfastened something from his belt and offered it to her. Clare realised he’d been carrying the fire poker she’d dropped. She wrapped both hands around it like a bat as she alternated between watching the stairwell and watching the furnace.
Clare tried to listen for the telltale scraping noise heralding the hollows’ approach, but it was hard to be sure what she was hearing through the furnace’s crackles and the unseen creature attacking the far door. Dorran moved swiftly, gathering wood from the stack in the nearest wall and tossing it into the furnace. The logs were big, but the heat was intense enough that they caught quickly. He built the fire up until it was roaring, and all traces of cold left Clare. When he returned to her side, sweat dripped from his jaw. “That’s as much as I can manage without cooking myself.”
“It’s perfect.” Clare squinted at a shadow near the stairs that might have been a rock or might have been something more. The furnace’s light spread out in a semicircle, beating its way through the shadows and dousing the environment in a red tint. “Let’s throw the torch up there and see what we can shake out.”
Dorran took the torch from the wall and crept towards the stairs. Clare followed closely, her poker held at the ready. They stopped twenty feet from the base of the stairs, and Dorran wound his arm back then hurled the flaming torch up.
They watched it spiral. Its light caught on the walls and on parts of the stairs then, horrifyingly, illuminated three pairs of glinting eyes.
“There they are.” Clare took a step back as the torch clattered onto the stairs. The creatures, hissing and spitting, scuttled away from the light. The metal clanged as they charged down the stairs. Dorran picked up the shovel and stepped in front of Clare. As the first of the hollow neared, he swung. A meaty thwack rang out as his weapon connected with a skull.
The creature skidded across the stone floor, but the other two quickly took its place. Like the hollow ones in the forest, they were moving recklessly, unafraid of the weapons. Clare brought her poker down on one of the monster’s protruding shoulder blades, dislocating it, and Dorran followed up with a swing that connected with the creature’s side. The blow sent it tumbling away in a mess of limbs and teeth. It came to a halt in front of the furnace. Dorran followed it, darting in just long enough to jab the shovel’s edge into its chest and force it into the inferno. The monster let out a deafening screech as the flames swallowed it.
The second monster charged Dorran. Clare moved to deliver a jab, throwing it off-balance and allowing Dorran to get behind it. A solid blow sent it skidding after its companion. It convulsed as it fell into the furnace. Already, the other hollow one seemed to have disintegrated in the flames.
Something’s not right. Panting and shaking, Clare inched close to Dorran as she watched the third and final hollow one regain its feet. The fight seemed… not easy, but too convenient. There had been more than a dozen maids in the cavern. One was still occupied with the door, but the rest were unaccounted for. So why are we only being made to fight three? Madeline acted as though she had control over them, as though they obeyed her orders. So why aren’t we being swarmed? Unless…
A sprinkle of sand caught in the light as it fell. She looked up. High above her, two eyes flashed in the light. Something large moved across the ceiling. Clare took a sharp breath as the shapes resolved themselves.
Madeline led the remainder of her fleet. Her clawlike feet dug into the stony ceiling. Strips of her torn dress fluttered around her like flags. Behind her were the remaining hollow. Their pale bodies contorted horribly as they squirmed across the ragged ceiling like insects.
Clare gasped and yanked Dorran back, closer to the furnace. “Above!”
He bludgeoned the hissing maid away then looked up just in time to see the monsters release their hold on the ceiling. They plunged down, twisting in the air, extending their arms and legs towards the floor. Dorran and Clare had only a second to move, and they both leapt back to avoid the outstretched limbs.
Madeline hit the ground in an explosion of dust and cracking stone. She rose out of the plume, standing tall, back straight and neck high as her insectile legs lifted her to tower over them.
A choking noise escaped Dorran. Shock froze his expression.
Madeline’s unblinking eyes fixed on him as she stretched one long hand towards her son. “Dorran. Come.”
The words were said with such unyielding authority that Clare flinched. She looked at Dorran, afraid of how he might react. For a second, his eyes reflected pure, blind terror. Then they cleared. He braced his feet, his face hard, and raised the shovel.
Madeline’s nostrils flared. “I said come.”
He matched the harshness in her voice. “No.”
His mother’s expression twisted. She threw her hand outwards, and five maids swarmed Dorran. Clare tried to block them, but they scuttled past her, pushing Dorran back, separating him from Clare.
Madeline turned towards Clare. The matriarch’s eyes seethed with loathing, and her lips twitched, barely containing her fury.
Before, it wasn’t personal. She wanted me gone because Dorran liked me, but that’s all I was to her: an inconvenience. Now she really, genuinely hates me because I ruined everything for her. Dorran knows she’s here now. He knows what she’s done. And she’s a woman who isn’t used to being crossed.