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staggered as the floor slipped suddenly under his feet. Deafened by the noise, he waited for the thousands of tons of stone to come crashing down on top of them.
The walls shuddered back into stillness.
For a moment Thomas and the other guards stared at each other. "What..." whispered Baserat.
Dubell had rocked back on his heels with the concussion but he kept digging away at the clay seal. It broke under the pressure and he shoved his hand back into the niche. "It's empty," he said, and began to curse Grandier.
Thomas hauled Dubell to his feet. "Come on," he said and led them at a run toward the stairs. It might have been the city armories, he thought. The two long stone buildings housed stores of gunpowder and stood on the opposite side of the inner wall from the Gallery Wing. But even if both had gone up at once... No, there was no accidental cause for an explosion like that; the palace was under attack, from outside or from within. He tried to remember who had been on duty in the building overhead, and where Ravenna was likely to be at this time.
They reached the staircase at the far end of the shadowy darkness. Thomas took the lamp from the guard who had had the presence of mind to bring it and held it up. The narrow stairs spiraled upward, unblocked as far as the light reached.
Thomas said, "Load your pistols."
Dubell took the lamp and moved to peer uneasily up into the stairway as the guards loaded their weapons with the swiftness of long practice. By the time Thomas closed the cover over the priming pan of his second wheellock and tucked it back into his sash, he had calmed himself enough to think clearly. If the few of them were going to do any good, there could be no mistakes.
He started up the stairs, the others following behind him. The four-story climb might have stretched to infinity.
They had reached the second flight when there was a yell from behind and Thomas turned back. Treville was slumped on the stairs, clutching his sid