Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

In the slanted rays of the setting sun, the black door looked like the gateway to the underworld. It didn't help that the air lingering in this hallway was perfumed with the acrid notes of Ossian's forge.

Not for the first time since I decided to raid the crystals did I consider casting the Scouting Spell. It would be nice to know if Ossian was down there, and I hadn't had the forethought to cast a Tracking Spell on Ossian's footsteps. Though, the Scouting Spell could reveal my location just as much as his, or anyone else's position in the castle, and then I'd have to explain exactly why I was camped outside the forbidden door.

I'd just have to chance it.

He gave you two hours before dinner. You must be quick!

Pulling open my foraging bag, I rooted around until I found the box of Illuminate matches. Prying it open with my thumbnail, I carefully selected one of the few matches I had left and struck it against the striking paper. The match flared a bright yellow, and I hastily whispered, "Flash of light, reveal to my sight."

If there were any wards present, they would illuminate like strands of spiderwebs in the light of the match. White, if they were your basic trip-wire alarm or booby trap, and yellow, if they posed a dismemberment risk and/or equally nasty outcome. The first, I could probably befuddle with Caer powder, but the second required delicate spellwork I was not prepared to perform.

The Illuminate match revealed nothing .

Could he really be that arrogant? Or was his fae magic so advanced or unique that an Illuminate match couldn't detect it?

The matches rattled like oracle bones as I tapped the box against my palm, debating. Nothing had prevented me from touching the door before—I'd pounded on it to get his attention after my first success with the plants to no ill effects. And with the castle usually devoid of anyone other than me, the Brotherhood, Mrs. Bilberry, and the woodchucks, there was no one he needed to guard it against. His word was law here, and everyone was too intimidated by or too in love with him to disobey.

Except me.

I slipped the matches back into my bag and brought green magic to only my index finger. Here goes. My finger pressed lightly against the keyhole.

The door unlocked without a fuss and actually swung open an inch or two of its own accord as if to welcome me inside, revealing a sliver of the blue-lit stairwell.

Unlike the farmhouse door, I didn't trust this one. Leaning forward, I called down in my best approximation of a crow, " Ca-caw, " and prepared to make a run for it. Better for an imaginary beast to take the blame instead of me.

An anxiety-riddled moment or two passed where I was sure Ossian was going to come charging up the stairwell or a Brother was going to walk past the junction at the end of the hall, but no one discovered me. Well they certainly would if I remained here waffling about in front of an open forbidden door. I wiggled out of one boot and hurled it at the door, the leather dampening the sound of impact.

The door swung open wider with no ill effect.

"It can't be that easy," I muttered, turning to the window just a few steps away.

At this time of year, there were always insects who had found their way inside and were struggling against the glass to free themselves. Stink bugs, moths, ladybugs, a house fly or two. I couldn't in good conscience use a live one to test for any unseen disintegration spells, but as it happened, there were some dead ones littering the sill. I selected a drab stink bug, returned to the open doorway, and flicked it right in.

Its shell made a slight click as it landed against the stone step, unharmed.

Well, apparently it was that easy.

I retrieved my boot, sucked in a deep breath, and began my descent.

I touched nothing, not even the wall for balance as the steps curved down. It was too easy to leave a trace, and Dad had taught me many a way to find them. I could only imagine that a high fae, and a King of Beasts, knew all those tricks and more.

At the base of the stairwell, the blue light radiating from the sconces and the sleeping forge illuminated not only a smithy, but a dungeon.

The dark stones held none of the dankness associated with such subterranean jails, the blue flames keeping everything dry and mold-free. There were two additional doors, one at either end, that led to what I assumed were storage rooms or perhaps a tunnel access to the outside world. Bars of iron imprisoned dwarves, a feral fairy with navy blue skin, rare forest creatures like fishers and blue herons, and more than one human of the other persuasion. Particularly that one woman with her ankle shackled to an iron ring in the floor in front of a potions worktable.

She must've heard my gasp over the crackling of the torches, for she looked up from where she was dumping the contents of gold bowl into a miniature cauldron. Her actions were so deft and her outfit so weather inappropriate—a crop top hoodie that barely covered her sizable bust, denim short-shorts designed to show off her willowy legs, high-heeled ankle boots—that it was hard to reconcile the fact that she was indeed a witch who knew what she was doing.

The hedge witch gave her white hair an imperious flick over her shoulder, perched her hand on her thrust-out hip, and said cuttingly, "Well it's no wonder why he's got me making this stuff day and night. Of course it's for you ."

"Do I… know you?" I whispered.

She snorted, giving me an up-down glance so full of contempt it rivaled one of Grandmother's. "Not in this life, apparently. I'm Brandi with an i , and you're the reason we're in this mess."