Page 98 of His Wicked Charm

“That will take days. You must stay here with us in the meantime. We can all look for the Sanctuary. It will be great fun. Won’t it, Con?”

“Of course.” Con wondered if Lilah was aware of the natural way she had turned toward him, the inclusion of him in issuing the invitation. “That’s settled. Let’s look at the book.”

He pulled the book from the cabinet and handed it to Alex and Sabrina. Sabrina shook her head in amazement. “This is so unbelievable. I hardly know what to make of it.”

“You could find nothing about the location of the tunnel?” Alex asked. “How did Sir Ambrose find it?”

“By reading one of our ancestors’ journal. Unfortunately, he didn’t explain it further, and the journal is more or less illegible now.”

“What are these designs on the cover?” Sabrina asked, tracing the symbols with her forefinger. “They’re lovely.”

“They’re triskeles. Sir Ambrose had an obsession with threes. The spirals, we’ve read, mean eternity or perhaps an endless rebirth. It was an important symbol to him. One can find them as decorations all over.”

“Yes, and I’ve examined every one of them,” Con added. “I can’t help but think they’re involved somehow, given Sir Ambrose’s affection for them. But I’ve pushed and prodded and twisted every blasted one I could find, and I haven’t been able to find one that opens anything.”

“Alex,” Lilah said suddenly. “I just had a thought. Perhaps you could—I mean, do you feel anything from it?”

Alex shook his head, rubbing his hand over the leather front. “Excitement, anticipation, but that’s recent, probably you and Con. I can tell it’s been in Con’s hands.” He shrugged and handed the book to Sabrina. “I can try it with this old journal, but the older something is, the harder it is to read.”

They were all quiet for a moment, contemplating their lack of discovery. Sabrina, once again gliding her fingertips across the gilt symbols, said, “You know...this is probably silly, but if you’re looking for spirals, what about the one we’re standing on?” She nodded toward the steps leading down into the circular staircase.

“My God,” Con breathed. “Do you suppose? Hidden in plain sight.”

Almost as one, they hurried to the staircase and started down the stairs. “The most likely place would be in the floor at the foot of the stairs, don’t you think?” Con asked. “A trapdoor into either the tunnel itself or another staircase?”

Alex agreed, but still all of them scanned the walls of the tower as they descended. When they reached the bottom floor, they went over it even more thoroughly, but they found nothing.

Lilah sighed in frustration, wiping the dust from her hands. “This seems like such a perfect place.”

“Let me check something.” Alex ran back up the stairs. Lilah turned questioning eyes to Con, who only shrugged. It wasn’t long until they heard the clatter of Alex’s steps descending. “I think I may have it.” He popped out the courtyard door, and in a moment came back in.

“Alex, what the devil are you doing?”

“I know the likeliest place for it.” Alex’s eyes were shining, his words rapid. “The door into the tower from the gallery is set in the corridor wall. But then you take a step or two into the room before the curved walls start. That space between the straight corridor and the round tower is a sort of very short hall or a very deep door frame. But here—” he gestured behind him “—the walls are perfectly round, no doorway. On the outside, you can see that the square space between the house and the tower is bricked in all the way up and down.”

Con’s eyes lit up. “Creating a perfect shaft in which to hide a closet. Or stairs.”

He rushed to the wall where a door into the house should have been and skimmed his fingers over the rough stone. “There’s a crack.” He ran his fingers up the wall, following until it turned and started in a horizontal line. “It’s a door.”

“Now we just need to figure out how to open it.” Two feet over, Alex was tracing the line downward on the opposite side. “I can barely get my fingernail into it.”

Con ran his eyes over the wall, then thought to look up. Above him, attached to the bottom of the stairs, was a single narrow wooden slat. The sharp thrill of discovery ran through him. He tugged on one end, and it moved beneath his hand. He pulled harder, and a third of the bar slid up to stop at a forty-five-degree angle.

Grasping the other end of the bar, he pushed that portion of the slat upward until the two ends touched, forming a triangle with the stationary middle section below. There was a distinct thud, and a section of the wall eased open.

Alex gripped the edge and pulled. The small door was heavy but well balanced, and it swung out easily. All four of them crowded in, staring down at the small staircase twisting downward.

“The secret passage.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

LILAH STOOD, TRANSFIXED. Power flooded up, twining around and through her so that she almost vibrated with it. It tugged at her viscerally, and she moved toward the open door.

“We’ll need a lantern for that,” Alex said.

“Two,” Con answered. He turned and saw Lilah, and his face whitened. “Lilah! Are you all right?” He hooked an arm around her waist, stopping her movement.

When Con’s arm wrapped around Lilah, pulling her against his side, much of the massive rush of energy flowed out of her into Con. She could see by his raised eyebrows that he, too, felt the sweep of power.