“Achoo!”

The princess sniffled, then shifted uncomfortably on cold stone. As if to insulate herself from the damp chill in the air as much as Roger’s riveted gaze, she drew a nondescript sable cloak around her shoulders even more closely. Resigning herself to the uninterrupted scrutiny of her companion, she returned his unabashed attention with a sidelong glance. “So… you two are friends?”

Blinking one, twice, thrice, Roger gave a response little distinguished by its eloquence. “Eh? Er, I mean, what do you mean, Your Highness? Oh wait, I suppose it’s ‘Your Royal Highness’, isn’t it? I’m sor—”

Princess Sophia’s sigh of impatience formed a small cloud about her chapped lips. “With Zephyrin. Dy Valensis. You do know him, don’t you?”

“Sure do. He’s my dormmate…” An epiphany slowly dawned in the young noble’s eyes. “Wait a minute!” he said urgently, straightening himself with a jerk. “If you’re here, then where’s Zephyrin?”

“We switched places,” the princess said, before a guilty look briefly crossed her features. Roger guessed the reason for her chagrin easily enough. “Don’t worry, Your Royal Highness—”

“Have you already forgotten that you’re supposed to call me by a false name?”

“Ah, that’s right! Don’t worry Riowen, even if I’m caught and tortured, I won’t breath a word.”

As the princess regarded him dubiously in the darkness, Roger continued, “But I’m sure it won’t come to that. If Zephyrin’s at the palace, things’re sure to turn out right.”

Despite her manifest ambivalence, something akin to intrigue showed on the princess’s traits. “What makes you say that?”

“Zephyrin…” Roger trailed off as he pondered his words, before resuming confidently, “It may take him some time, but he’ll make the right choice in the end. I just know it.”

The princess arched an eyebrow, the motion combined with her short-cropped hair forcibly reminding Roger of his absent comrade. “Odd child,” she muttered under her breath, but Roger thought her expression seemed a shade less troubled than even a minute ago. “You keep calling me a child,” he replied in good cheer, “but you hardly look a day older than my classmates.”

“I’m a grown woman. My tenth nameday fell four months ago.”

“Four months—yer ten years old?!” Roger gawked at the girl, who was seated now but would surely loom over him were they to stand face to face. “What of it?” she answered, defensive in her tone and posture.

Roger opened his mouth but was interrupted by the creaking of rusted iron. Both the boy and princess tensed up; shoulders sagged in relief as a familiar face revealed itself. Holding the heavy door ajar, the Grand Prefect spoke with low urgency.

“Your Royal Highness? Dy lé Prah? Please, come with me. The time for our departure has come.”

As the princess and Alérian rose to their feet to pass through the dank stone corridor and into the lyceum’s library, Roger drew close to the princess. “What?” whispered the princess none too kindly, looking warily as the boy’s face grew ever larger before her own. Roger hesitated a moment, then leaned in to whisper in her ear, “I’m sure your family’ll be fine!” A gap-toothed grin; and then, as an afterthought: “Oh, and don’t fret about your hair. You’re still really pretty.”

Acknowledging this remark with an uncomprehending look at first, the princess ended up releasing a little huff of surprise. With a glance at the aged priest’s back rapidly retreating back, she seemed torn between prompt pursuit or staying to put Roger in his place—possibly with an incisive word or a swift kick to the shin, he thought. After another moment’s indecision she opted for the former course of action, turning and soon emerging from the passageway into the lamp-lit library, her smiling fellow fugitive treading on her heels.

“Marshal!”

The queen flinched as gleaming steel passed through a sprawled combatant’s throat, but retained enough composure to call out again. “Marshal dy Cassade! I order you to stop! Desist from this unnecessary cruelty!…”

The marshal regarded the queen laconically as he tugged a handkerchief loose from his breast-pocket to wipe down the gory blade of his cane-sword. “I apologize for this unpleasant sight, Madame. You may wish to avert your eyes as we push ever deeper into the enemy’s ranks.”

Displeasure shone brightly in Adelaide-Estelle’s gaze. “It is not to the unpleasantness of war that I object, but needless slayings of my husband’s subjects! Surely there is no need to go to such lengths once the foe has been subdued. ”

Restowing the bloodied handkerchief, the old general spoke in a gruff tone hardly befitting an address to nobility, much less his sovereign’s wife. “These rogues ill deserve your sympathy. Perhaps your senses cannot grasp their magic, Madame, but I can. These are highborn scum sworn to a rotblood cause, and a better end for them than suffocating on their own blood I can scarcely imagine.”

More than mere dismissiveness or a mere lapse of courtesy, there was a vindictive coarseness to the marshal’s speech that Zephyrin couldn’t help but note, an exultant savagery coming to the forefront. Like a bloodhound back in its element after long winter months in the kennel, he thought. The trappings of civilization, while more or less willingly adopted, nevertheless remained intrinsically foreign to his temperament. If awash in a tide of blood, the presentiment came to him, this man would deem himself happier than others standing knee-high in a treasure house’s gold.

As they left behind the Millenary Hall and advanced through the palace’s never-ending corridors in haste once more, the marshal grimacing as he dragged his right leg along, the queen and several members of her entourage flushed and breathing hard, Zephyrin had the grim thought that, if their wild endeavor was to succeed, more brutality would be required of him than the marshal.

Roger watched quizzically and Princess Sophia with overt curiosity as Father Athand stopped them in front of a tome-laden shelf, one of many in the two-storied atrium. Working quickly, he began withdrawing and tossing dusty volumes to the floor indifferently, then reached in and started—or so it appeared—to palpitate the dusty gaps left in the shelves.

Then, the mute incomprehension of the children gave way to astonishment as—with no indication of magic at work—the darkwood bookshelf simply revolved on itself, grinding to a halt once fully turned to its side. Beyond, a steep, slimy staircase and abyss of indeterminate depths awaited.

Roger’s jaw dropped. “I thought the secret passage was just a tall tale!”

The direness of their predicament failed to keep a glint of humor from shining in the Grand Prefect’s eye. “Passages. There are several leading down to the Old City. The plans of the monastery were carefully thought out in the event of hostile incursions, human or otherwise.”

“Where does this one lead?” asked the princess.

The Grand Prefect paused before answering. “The Catacombs.”

Roger’s cautious excitement turned to apprehension as he blanched; by his side the princess said nothing in response to this development, but the creasing of her brow spoke plainly of her uncertainty.

Father Athand smiled wryly. “I do not expect this foray into the bowels of Old Lutesse to be a pleasant one. Yet, as the saying goes, ‘needs must when the dragon dives’; this passage is our surest means of evading the notice of the rebels.”

Looking on with lips tightly sealed, Roger’s eyes flicked from the Grand Prefect’s cool gaze to the princess’s troubled expression. “Are you prepared to enter?” the priest asked, a note of gentleness moderating the militaristic brusqueness that occasionally surfaced in his tone.

The princess took a deep breath, reserving a split-second glance for the darkness that yawned before the small party. “I’m ready.”