She lifted her shoulders and met Imeyna's eyes. “Down,” she said. “Got it.”
Imeyna didn't look convinced, and when the rest of the group dispersed, she stayed behind.
“Are you okay?” Imeyna asked. Rayne resisted the urge to sink into the older girl’s arms as she had done when she was younger. It was Imeyna who had found her in the Silver Hills between Dusk and Shade when Rayne was a twelve-year-old with no place to go, and Imeyna who had taken her in even after finding out what had happened to Madlin. Even as she grieved over her little sister’s death, it was Imeyna who had kept Wido from killing Rayne in revenge. And it was Imeyna who taught Rayne how to fight, how to stay alive. If there was anyone that Rayne truly wished to be worthy of, it was Imeyna.
“It's just strange,” she said, “to be this close to them after so long. I don't even know them anymore.”
“And they don't know you,” Imeyna said as if that was meant to be reassuring. “I do. You can do this.”
Feeling bolstered by Imeyna's confidence, Rayne left the alcove alone. While the others were to go create the distraction, Rayne was the main event. The corridor was crowded and loud, and she was able to blend in effortlessly with the flow of the servants. Even among those working the party, Rayne felt that almost-forgotten sensation of anticipation and excitement.
Of course, she could never admit it, but she missed the parties and the dresses and the five-course meals. She missed her family's dais, where her place as the youngest was always beside Edlyn and their brother, Rin. Rin with the stern set of his mouth, his smile betrayed by the crinkle in the corners of his eyes. Edlyn who laughed with her mouth closed and would put a tiny, gentle hand on Rayne's shoulder to get her attention. Sometimes Rayne remembered these little details and felt the pang of homesickness. That was when she would have to call up the memories she had pushed down deep inside of her. Madlin's screams, her father's hand white-knuckled around a whip's handle. Blood and torn flesh and salty tears.
The way down was not easy to find but after trying several doors, she finally came upon a circular staircase that descended into the darkness. As she lowered herself into the narrow stairway, the sounds of the party drifted away and the air grew even colder. There were no windows and no natural light, and not even a breath of wind. Had this been her sister's life for five years? Where Rayne's days had been full of sweat and swords and fresh air, Edlyn had been trapped in the dark. Their father had let his rash decisions ruin both of his daughters' lives.
There was a torch in a bracket on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. The stone walls rose into arches high overhead, so high that the torchlight barely reached, leaving the pinnacles cast in shadows. There were multiple doorways, the corridors beyond them all dark. She stood at the entrance to each, and when she got to the third, she felt something tingle in the pit of her stomach. She took another step forward and a torch flared to life in the distance, its light steady in the stillness. This was the one.
It had been this way since leaving Dusk, though she couldn’t say why. She felt magic even though she couldn’t use it. It was like being trapped in a glass box with something she wanted just on the other side—visible and very nearly within reach, but utterly inaccessible. She ran up against the glass wall every time she reached for it. It was unheard of in Casuin for a woman to have any control over magic; wielders were exclusively men, blessed by Enos. Imeyna thought it was because she was a direct descendant of Casuin Crowheart. Merek thought it was indigestion. Rayne didn’t know what she thought about it, and so she tried to ignore it.
Rayne wrapped a scarf around her mouth and nose and pulled her hood down low so that only her eyes were visible. She would have covered those, too, if she didn't need to use them. The going was slow and careful—she didn't know what kind of traps the wielder might have set and whether or not her Crowheart blood would protect her from them. It should, since, according to Imeyna’s source in Dusk, the enchantments allowed only Edlyn’s family to enter her rooms. In spite of her absence and betrayal, Rayne was still family. She allowed herself only a moment’s thought to wonder what could have happened if she hadn’t been a Crowheart and had approached these tunnels. Would a false torch have led her down the wrong path, leaving her to wander the labyrinth beneath the city until the end of her days? Would she have been crushed or trapped or hunted by some beast?
She kept her fingers on the walls, the icy cold biting into her hands. The corridor stretched long and dark both in front of her and behind her, lit sparsely by intermittent torches. Every time she reached a torch without incident, she hoped to be at her destination, but there was never any sign of her sister's cell, so she continued, the air growing colder as she went. She had to be outside of the palace now, maybe beneath the town's cobblestone streets.
It was as she approached one of the darkest parts of the corridor, where no light from any torch reached, that her nose registered the smell of a smoldering fire. She froze, barely breathing, her hand sliding along the wall until her fingers felt an invisible gap in the stone. Reaching up and over, she stretched to gauge what she believed to be the outline of a stone door, and though she could feel its edges, there was no handle. What she did find was a smooth piece of stone covered in engraved lines in the center of the door.
She had seen this before. Merek was a spellwielder, able to imbue items with magic by etching the right words or runes into its surface. Her father kept a whole regiment of spellwielders, called the Sons of Enos, who imbued their weapons with spells for strength and accuracy and agility. Merek did that for the Knights, but he also enjoyed its more frivolous uses, the most common of which was locking doors so that only certain people could enter, guaranteeing Rayne and Merek a bit of privacy in their overcrowded town. She squinted in the dark, studying the door in front of her and trying to decide if this was the same spell.