The Beautiful Pretender (A Medieval Fairy Tale #2)(42)

Just then—“I see a light ahead.” It was faint but Avelina headed toward it. When they reached it, she could see that the light was the glow around a doorway at the end of the corridor. In fact, there were two doors—one at the end of the corridor and the other along it, to the right.

Avelina reached for the glowing door. She pulled on the iron handle and it creaked open a crack, letting in more light. As she eased open the door, she gasped and stepped back, bumping into Magdalen.

She was looking into open space and sky. On the other side of the door, there was no floor, no walls, only . . . sunlight.

Magdalen clutched Avelina’s shoulder, pulling her back. “Dear heavenly saints!”

They both stared as they looked out the open doorway. That’s when Avelina noticed the smoky black covering the walls. “The fire must have destroyed whatever used to be behind this door.”

“Perhaps it was a balcony.”

The door to their right suddenly opened. A woman stood staring at them, then said, “Annlin?”

It was the woman who had wandered around the ballroom floor the night of the ball. She stared at them with vacant gray eyes.

“Good day. I am Lady Dorothea and this is my friend Lady Magdalen.”

“Have you seen Annlin?”

“No, we have not,” Avelina said.

The woman motioned for them to come inside, and Avelina followed her in.

“Dorothea?” Magdalen whispered rather urgently behind her, questioning whether she should be doing this.

Inside was a room littered with half-burned furniture, including a bed frame that was broken and blackened, its curtains nearly entirely burned away. The window at the opposite wall was thrown open, letting in the cold air.

The walls were all covered in soot, and piles of ash and half-burned cloth lay in the corners and on the floor.

“Are you not cold?” Magdalen approached the woman and took her hand. She looked back at Avelina. “Her hand is as cold as ice.” She turned back to the woman. “Please come with us. We will take you somewhere warm.”

The woman followed them a few steps, then stopped and pulled her hand away from Magdalen. “No, I must stay here. Annlin might come back. She was here. She might come back.”

“Do you not want to go search for her in the kitchen?” Avelina asked. The woman was so thin, she seemed in need of a good meal.

The woman placed her hand against her cheek and stared into the near-empty room. “I don’t know.”

“What are you doing here?”

Avelina startled, spinning around.

Lord Thornbeck stood in the doorway. “It isn’t safe in this part of the castle.” He glanced from Avelina to Magdalen and back again. Then he held his hand out to the woman. “Endlein. Come. You should not be here either. People are looking for you.”

“Where is Annlin? Did the margrave take her away somewhere?”

“No, Endlein,” he said, as she took his hand and followed him out.

Frau Schwitzer was behind him. She took the woman’s hand and led her away, talking softly to her.

Avelina held her breath as Lord Thornbeck turned to Magdalen and her. “You should not be in the west wing. Why did you come here?”

“Please forgive us.”

“Let us go.” He ushered them out, placing his body between them and the door that led to a sheer drop to the ground far below, and then followed close behind them. When they were past the end of the corridor, he mumbled, “Need to have someone seal up this entrance.”

They stood in front of the solar, back where they had started. Would he berate them for their curiosity? Was he angry?

“The third floor of the west wing is a dangerous place. You could have been killed if you’d stepped out that door.”

“Forgive us,” Magdalen said again.

“It was I who wished to go to the west wing,” Avelina said quickly. “I dragged Lady Magdalen with me.”

Lord Thornbeck sighed and ran his hand over his eyes. “The bedchamber where I found you is where my brother died. I tried to save them, but it was too late.”

“Them?” Avelina asked.

His face was angled slightly away from them as he stared at the floor. He nodded, an ever-so-slight movement. “My brother, Henrich, and Annlin. She was his . . . they were lovers, even though she was . . . a servant.” He rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced, as though in pain. “The absurdity of a margrave and a servant . . .”

Avelina’s stomach churned. No doubt that was how he would feel if she fell in love with him. “A servant.” He said it as if it was the worst thing in the world. “Absurd.” But she couldn’t let Magdalen or him know how his words twisted inside her heart like a knife.

“We argued about it the day he died. I tried to convince him to give her up, to realize how wrong the relationship was. He was angry with me—and very drunk—when he went to bed that night. I can never seem to forget that. It was partially my fault he died. If I had not been so harsh in what I said, if he had not been so drunk . . .”

Avelina’s heart seemed to actually be breaking inside her chest at the pain in his voice and in his face. “I am so sorry.” Her words sounded empty.

“The woman is Annlin’s mother, Endlein, a kitchen servant. She became very addled, as you have seen, after the death of her daughter. She wanders up here sometimes to this room, as if she knows this was the last place where her daughter was alive.” He shook his head. “Even though she is no longer able to work, I cannot send her away.”