Crud! Just the office left to look through again.
Inside the office, she ran her hands over every vertical surface and had almost finished when she heard footsteps.
Krol shouldn’t be back yet, should he?
Why would she think he’d ever give the true time of his return? He was the kind of suspicious person who liked to show up and catch people not doing their jobs.
She found a closet full of musty books and papers. Squeezing inside, she pulled the door almost shut behind her. With the tiny crack of the door being ajar, she could watch who showed up.
The door to the hallway opened, and Eriko walked in with a second guard. He strode around the room to the desk, pulled a drawer open, and moved his hands around. “Got it.” When he closed the desk, a key on a metal chain dangled from one hand. He handed it to the other guard and said, “Give this to Davoot. Tell him to open the stable doors and remain outside to relock them when instructed. This key will be returned to me no later than daylight.”
“Yes, sir.”
They both headed for the exit. Eriko said, “Don’t forget to stop by the room of the servant with the two different eye colors.”
Alifair froze still as a deer staring into headlights. Why would they be coming by her room?
The men exited into the hallway, their footsteps clicking on the hardwood floor in the direction of the stairwell to the main room.
No more time to search for Rez.
Alifair wanted to kick something. She had to be close to finding her.
Instead, she had to beat the guard back to her room, which meant racing through a hallway partially exposed to the great hall. No moving slowly to hide her presence.
As soon as she heard the door click shut, she hurried over and tested the knob. Still unlocked.
She stuck her head out and checked.
Both men were headed for the wide stairs to the main hall at a leisurely pace. As soon as they stepped around the corner to the other stairs, she rushed to the door that led her back downstairs and out the unlocked door, which she now had to relock.
Her fingers trembled with the hairpin. Relocking was more challenging for her because she never practiced that.
She felt the latch catch, tried it once, and took off down the hallway and around the corner, almost skidding to a stop.
Eriko spoke to two guards at the bottom of the stairwell.
Whispering, she uttered a don’t-look-at-me chant in their direction, repeating it continually as she slowly eased down the wall. They wouldn’t hear or see her if the chant worked correctly. The door to her room awaited thirty steps from where Eriko and his two men talked.
Swallowing hard, she decided speed would be more in her favor than moving around the end of the wall at a snail’s pace—no time for second-guessing.
Hurrying and chanting softly, she never took her eyes off Eriko.
She’d made it almost to her door when he held his hand up to the men, silencing them.
She did her best to emulate a statue.
Eriko turned slowly, his gaze taking in everything around him.
This was one of those times she had to be all in to survive. She whispered the mantra faster and faster, her gaze watching his, and pleaded for him not to turn her way.
But he did.
Still murmuring the chant, she kept every muscle in her body still except her heart. Not much she could do about that without terminating her life.
Eriko stared right at her.
She wanted to whimper in fear. The only reason she didn’t was due more to her throat closing tight than any wise action on her part.
