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ones a silent presence in the shadowy room. Kade grabbed his elbow. "Listen."
After a heartbeat, he heard it too. Voices, echoing down through the long galleries locked in cold silence.
Thomas hurried back to the archway, trying to pinpoint the direction. Tracking the sound echoing off so much stone and marble wasn't easy. The men might be in any one of the several galleries and long halls that led up to the Grand Gallery. Neither he nor Kade had spoken in louder than a whisper, and it was doubtful that whoever was coming this way had heard them.
He motioned for Kade to follow and they crossed the spriggan-haunted foyer, and Thomas chose a smaller hall used for diplomatic processions, where the sound had for a moment seemed louder. They went down it, keeping to the partial shelter of its supporting pillars. The voices had ceased.
"I don't think this was it," Kade whispered.
"No, it must be another--"
They both heard the footsteps at the same time.
Kade looked around frantically. "There's not enough glamour in here."
Thomas searched hastily along the wall and found the unobtrusive servants' door that was designed to blend into the paneling. He went to it, sliding his hand down the crack that marked it until his fingers touched the catch. He pulled it open. Inside was a cramped stair leading up into the wall. Climbing it, they came to a landing with a damask-curtained doorway and another broader stair leading down and away from the hall. Thomas pulled the curtain back and saw that the door led to a small musicians' balcony, one of many spaced around the gallery.
He put his hat aside and crouched down, crawling out to look down through the balusters. Kade followed him.
Denzil and Dontane walked into the gallery from an archway below. So the bastard's alive, Thomas thought, brows lifted. Dontane had been imprisoned in the Cisternan Guard House during the attack, and Thomas had assumed he had been killed with the others. The two men were ar