Chapter 32 - West-wing Tower

Zoie's shoes stepped onto the carpet that had once been a regal red. Now it had been greyed down and ruined.

I coughed as I inhaled the smell of ashes. "Do you know the location of the tower?"

Reynard was just a few steps ahead of me. He was carefully stepping over where the carpet was gathered in folds while his eyes swerved from wall to wall for something best known to himself, but when I called out to him, he looked back. 

"What was that?" he asked, pausing in the middle of the corridor, illuminated from above by a broken skylight. I daresay, he looked extremely mysterious. Eerie, even.

I shivered. "The tower," I repeated after a while. "Do you know the way to get there?"

Reynard's eye brows eased back. "'Course I do. Just follow my lead."

Still uncertain, I picked my way through the obstacles of dropped buckets, several single shoes and even some guard jackets. It seemed as if the site hadn't been cleaned after the sad event. The whole time, I was painfully aware that this was the place where the grim reaper had given Emery a visit. 

The west wing looked like it had almost a week ago, the red curtains still draped in front of the tall with their golden tassels dangling , glass windows, the chandeliers still hanging in place, the number of expensive framed paintings still displayed neatly on the wall, but everything had a most contrary feel to it.

It was like I was visiting a murder scene after the crime had already taken place. Everything still looked the same, but there were various subtle hints which pointed out that something was very wrong. Even if everything seemed unchanged, one couldn't continue to live in that place without bearing the constant weight of the previous occurrence in the mind. 

That is how I felt.

"Reynard," I heard a whisper escape my still-pink-stained lips. "Doesn't it feel painful to remember what happened here?"

Reynard didn't slow his pace. It was getting darker as we proceeded towards the heart of the building and Reynard's black cloak was proving it difficult to instantly spot him, but the constant assuring sounds of him clumsily clinking and thumping over stuff proved that he was still near me. A relief not taken for granted. 

"I never got to know what happened, but I've roughly gotten the gist of it," he answered quietly after what seemed like years. "Was it an accidental fire?"

My mouth twitched and my feet stopped moving as Lorelei's words came to mind. 'Arson' she had said with unmoving lips and wide eyes as I remembered them so clearly. 

"I'm not sure," I replied grimly. "Nobody looked into it much further and Father ordered us all to keep our mouths shut. It's probably become a taboo topic amongst the residents of the palace."

"Right," Reynard grumbled. "But do you have your suspicions?"

I did not enjoy this topic. "Let's just say it was an accidental fire."

He glanced back, surprised, but didn't pry further.

After a while of walking and stopping at the wrong doors we finally made it.

"Well, here we are, this's the door to the tower."

The whole while I had been walking with my gaze lowered so as not to trip and fall over something. When I finally lifted my eyes towards where I believed Reynard's silhouette was supposed to be, I saw a faint shape of a door. 

"This…?" I treaded softly over the floor towards the said door. 

It wasn't the usual, gorgeously carved wooden doors that most rooms in the palace seemed to have. This was a more worn down, more untouched sort of door, with no intricate carvings but two parallel metal planks horizontally embedded into the wooden planks, holding them together.

"Ah..." I muttered as I fingered the door handle. My fingers trailed downwards towards a large, square shaped piece of metal and with a loud clunk, it was announced that the door was locked. "It's locked," I said almost to myself.

Reynard was shifting through something in his pocket beside me. "It's rusted and quite decrepit so I bet I can pick this open," he grunted and yanked out something that glinted under the faint moon light. I'm sure it was a piece of wire. 

He then proceeded to crouch and took an attempt at opening the lock, trying not to make any loud sounds. What he was doing reminded me of those cringey 5-minute diy videos online that everyone used to watch whenever there was nothing else to watch or they just needed to make new slippers out of water bottles. I had once caught Jieum looking distressingly at one of their videos and believe it or not, it guided watchers about how to cheat in tests without getting caught. I'd picked up a thing or two from them myself, admittedly.

After a few more clinks followed by a loud sigh, I realized that he hadn't been able to hack it open. 

"No luck?" I asked, desperate.

"None."

"Just knock it down, then."

I received an alarmed stare. 

"Knock it down?" he hissed.

"Yeah, with your shoulder, you know..." I demonstrated to him how things were done but I didn't ram my shoulder into the door as I was aware from past experiences that it hurt like hell. But if it was Reynard we were talking about, I bet his shoulder muscles could handle it.

He stood up, still giving me a strange look. I'm sure I knew what he was thinking: 'Privileged princess knows how to break down doors? Shocker!'

"I didn't want to succumb to this route on purpose," he sighed. "It'll make a lot of noise. Don't want anyone catching us so far in."

I knew he was right but I still gave him a disapproving look. "I'll be on the lookout, you do whatever it takes to get the door open, alright? I'll notify you if I hear a guard."

Nodding, he walked a few paces away from the door and looked at me uncertainly before ramming his body with full force into the heart of the door. This produced a loud thud equal to the sound of a gunshot that could've brought every single person in the building to the source, unless the wing had previously been evacuated.

Worried and alarmed, I looked around for guards and ran to the nearest window to peer out at the gardens and check if anyone was approaching. The coast was clear but the door hadn't been broken down yet. 

"Again," I heard a disheveled Reynard grunt before going at it again, this time with more force. The door did budge a little and with a few more blows to it, it finally gave way.

Reynard collapsed in front of the open door with his hands frantically rubbing his victimized shoulder while I remained by the window, keeping my guard up. 

When I had made sure no one was going to come for us, I turned back on my heel and walked the few feet that it took to get to Reynard.

"Let's not waste any time," I eagerly advised his crouched figure and took a step through the doorway over his thigh. "But before we proceed, pray tell me about the time."

"It's almost 15 past 8 now," he said as he stood up. "We've got to get you out before the awakening. What time did the guards back at the ballroom tell you when you are allowed to leave?"

"A bit after 9."

My words sank in the both of us. "Right, then. We have till 9 to leave. Let's go."

The door we had just succeeded in opening led to an extremely dark, circular room. I couldn't see what was in front of me, but judging by the fact that we were to proceed up to the tower, there must be stairs here. 

Reynard asked me for my hand which I gladly took, not flustered at all by this amount of skin-ship. But I was still a bit surprised to feel that his hands were very rough and calloused. 

Without another word exchanged between us, we started going up the steps, proceeding with caution as the steps were old and creaky. 

"Stay with me," Reynard whispered, yet his voice still echoed against the close walls of the tower. "And mind your steps."

It seemed when we were a quarter of a way up when I seemed to relax, thinking we were safe. But then suddenly we heard a loud, clinking below us which bounced off the walls.

Reynard and I froze in our tracks.

"Why's this open…?" someone faintly muttered. 

"Don't. Make. Another. Sound," Reynard hissed quieter than a whisper as he brought me close to him and we flattened ourselves against the wall. 

I gathered the hem of my skirt, hoping it won't flutter or anything and pulled my hair back from anyone's line of sight. The fear hadn't gotten to me yet, the fear of doing something wrong. I just hadn't been able to fathom the fact that we were involved in something illegal and I'd been under the impression that I'd be able to escape easily with Reynard's help. But it now seemed as if things had gone wrong.

"Hello?" the guard shouted up. "Anybody in here?"

I held my breath as trickles of sweat ran down my forehead. Reynard beside me had seemed to stop breathing as well because I wasn't able to feel his chest lift again.

The guard called out again. "Hello?"

It was pitch black where we were, but down the stairs we could see a faint, orange glow, indicating that the guard was holding a lantern or a candle to enlighten his way under the dark of the night.

I had my fingers crossed, hoping desperately that he'd just walk away and a minute or two later, my wish was granted.

"Guess it just fell open," the guard muttered to himself. "Damn rust." And with that he pulled shut the old door which did so with a loud groan that travelled all the way up the tower. Only after we heard footsteps of him walking away did we remember to breathe.

Reynard gulped in the old, musty air of the tower and so did I, hoping that this ordeal would end soon.

"Come on," Reynard said.