Steelhands - Jaida Jones [184]
“Something the matter, Balfour?” Luvander asked, in a bare whisper.
“Pardon?” Balfour asked, shaking his head. “No, I’m fine. It’s nothing … Just this place; it seems …”
“It’s quite eerie,” Raphael cut in. “Though I’m man enough not to be affected, I for one plan on spending as little time as possible here.”
“I agree,” Balfour said, though he kept peering around Ghislain, as though he was still searching.
“Things could get messy, here,” Ghislain said, pitching his voice low, so that I had to crane over Laure’s shoulder to hear it. “Helped myself to a few different key rings while I was up there, but I’m not sure what goes where, not to mention none of us knows where we’re going yet, so it might take some time. If we run into any guards, I plan on disposing of them. If anyone here’s got a problem with that, you can go upstairs and slip out while everyone’s still watching Mary Margrave’s fireworks display. Got it?”
“Now that you mention it, I do love fireworks,” Luvander said, tapping his chin, then breaking character immediately when everyone rounded on him. “Honestly, it was just a joke. Pardon me for attempting to lighten our spirits before they leave this mortal earth entirely. See if I do you any more favors.”
“We’d all be real grateful if you wouldn’t,” Ghislain said, but he wasn’t wearing a frightening expression, so I figured he couldn’t be all that upset about it. His sharp features were merely grim and exaggerated by the shadows—looking much like the beastly mask in the back room of the Yesfir hat shop. He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out three separate rings of keys. “Someone take these. I’m gonna want my hands free for other things.”
“He means removing heads from bodies,” Raphael confided.
“I’ll do it,” Balfour said, reaching up with gloved hands. He glanced over at Laure, who’d made an impatient move for the keys herself, and offered her a small smile. “Perhaps you can aid Ghislain in giving me cover?”
“Yes, that sounds much more dangerous than trying keys in cell doors,” I said, patting her arm. “You should absolutely accept.”
“Don’t have to patronize me,” Laure said, shaking me off.
Since the hallway was well lit, and I didn’t see myself tripping over the last few steps in the dark, I allowed her to do it.
“Weird place,” Ghislain said. “Seems like all the guards were upstairs. Now, why would that be?”
Then, without waiting for the rest of us—not even bothering with a rousing promise of our soon-to-be victory—he rose like the terrifying specter of every bad dream I’d ever had about pirates along the coast or bandits on the main roads and marched deeper into the hall.
Though I’d been holding my breath for some terrific event—another of Margrave Royston’s fearsome explosions, perhaps—none came. Ghislain looked left, then right, then back at us, shrugging his big shoulders. Another one of his signs, I supposed.
Laure, Balfour, and I scurried after him; Luvander and Raphael were only seconds behind.
“I don’t see any cells,” Laure hissed, looking deeply suspicious. “Are you certain we’re in the right place?”
“Nope,” Ghislain said, heading arbitrarily to the right. “Wish the only man who knew a lick about the blueprints in this place hadn’t run off like that. Hate flying blind.”
“We needed him for our grand distraction,” Luvander pointed out. “I offered to don a dress and one of my best hats, but no one seemed to like that idea very much.”
I found myself giggling—the sort of humor a man embraced before heading to the gallows, I supposed—and did my best to suppress the sound, so that I merely sounded as though I had a bad case of fear hiccups.
We passed by several doors, all of them uniform and perfect—made of iron, with no decorative scrollwork or designs of any kind. I saw Laure peering at a few of them curiously, but when the keys didn’t work in their locks, Ghislain hadn’t stopped to examine them: nor had he attempted to bust them down