Chapter 11: Third Board From the Window

Nesta's POV

We went back into the Mercer house at two in the morning, through the laundry door.

Rhys had the key, because it was his house, and my mother had told us which board.

She had stayed at the lake with a blanket and the stove.

She had said she would not go back through that door for anything.

"Third board from the window," she had told us. "Under the iron bed. Do not lift the bed. Slide it."

The servants' wing was dark.

Rhys went ahead of me with a hand out behind him, and I held onto the back of his jacket.

The cloth was damp and smelled of rain, and under it he was very warm.

Her room was at the end of the passage.

It had a narrow bed, a chair, and one window, and nothing on the walls.

Eight years, and she had not hung a picture.

I knelt by the bed.

The third board from the window had a hairline gap along one side.

I slid a kitchen knife into it and eased it up, and the board came out in my hand.

Underneath lay an oilcloth bundle tied with string.

My hands shook so hard I could not untie it.

"Footsteps," Rhys said.

Very quietly, from the passage, a door opened.

He caught my wrist and pulled me up, and I snatched the bundle against my chest.

There was no time to put the board back.

The only door in reach was the linen cupboard, narrow and half full of folded sheets.

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