Quicksilver - Amanda Quick [45]
“That is the corridor where we found the carriage,” Virginia said. “The one that leads to the cell where Becky was held prisoner.”
“Yes. We are not far from the mirrored chamber.”
They rounded another corner. The lantern light splashed down a short stone passage. There was a door midway along the hall. It was closed.
Owen stopped. “That is the door to the mirrored room.”
She halted beside him. They were standing so close together in the narrow confines of the stone passage that the hem of her cloak brushed against his leg.
“This corridor looks just like all the others,” she said. “How did you find me the other night?”
“The place reeks of violent energy. That room is the focal point.” Owen studied the closed door. “The other night when I came down here I feared that I would be too late.”
She knew from the flat, cold way he spoke that if he had found her body in the mirrored chamber, her name would have been added to his personal list of those he had failed.
“But you weren’t too late,” she said gently.
He did not respond to that. He went toward the door, flattened his back against the ancient wall next to it and motioned for her to do the same.
“In the event we encounter another clockwork guard,” he explained. “The stone is our best protection.”
He reached out with one gloved hand and opened the door. It was not locked. The heavy iron-and-wood door swung inward slowly. The interior of the room was drenched in darkness. Virginia listened closely. She knew that Owen was doing the same. There was no clank and thump of mechanical claws.
Owen pushed the door wider and moved into the opening. He held the lantern aloft.
“Empty,” he said. “No clockwork devices. But someone has recently redecorated.”
Virginia looked past him. The bed still stood in the center of the chamber, but it was neatly made up with pristine, crisply ironed linens and a pretty quilt patterned with pink roses. There was no sign of the bloodstained sheets.
“I can understand that the person who removed the body would have taken the bloody sheets,” she said. “The killer did not want to leave any evidence of the crime. But why take the time to remake the bed?”
“If whoever stabbed Hollister had no practical means of getting the bed out of this room,” Owen said, “he or she might have remade it in an attempt to conceal the bloodstained mattress in the event that someone else discovered this chamber.”
Virginia studied the bed. “No, I don’t think that was the motivation. That bed was made up with great care and the highest-quality linens. The quilt is beautiful and expensive.”
“Hollister was a wealthy man,” Owen reminded her. “All the linens in the household are no doubt costly.”
“No, not all,” she said. “The servants would have had separate, much less expensive bedding. Whoever changed the sheets on this bed used the finest available, the ones that would have been reserved for the master and mistress of the household. In fact, that quilt looks feminine. I suspect it was intended for Lady Hollister’s bed.”
“An interesting observation,” Owen said. He looked intrigued. “It fits with my suspicion that Hollister was murdered by his wife.”
“But she is at least half mad,” Virginia said.
“Only a madwoman would kill her monstrous husband and then use her own fine linens to make up the deathbed.”
Virginia shuddered. “Yes.”
Owen walked into the center of the room. Virginia followed, her talent still lowered in an effort to suppress her intuitive reaction to the terrible energy in the chamber. All of her senses were shrieking at her to run. She knew that Owen was aware of the same ghastly currents.
She looked around uneasily. The flaring light of the lantern reflected endlessly off the mirrors, creating walls of cold flames that extended into an infinite darkness.
“It’s as if we were standing in some anteroom of hell,” she said.
“Yes.” Owen turned his attention away from the bed long enough to survey the walls of mirrors. “Which raises the obvious question: Why did Hollister create a room like this? If he was a glasslight-talent, surely he would have found