Mark of Betrayal (Dark Secrets #3)(9)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“Trouble?”

“Yes. The scrolls and parchments we keep are very old. If you handle them the wrong way, you could destroy them.”

“So, why is Arthur allowed to take me down there—I thought we didn’t trust him?”

“We don’t. Yet.” She glanced at Mike. “But he’s been handling those scrolls for hundreds of years. He’s had access to them all—we’ve nothing to hide from him in the Scroll Room.”

“Well, when I can see it?”

“Later,” was all she said.

At the very end of the corridor, another grand door greeted us; just like the library door, but white.

“Your room,” Morgaine said, letting go of my hand.

“And on the east wing,” Mike said, stopping behind me, “it’s identical. Only difference being there’s no library, so there’s an extra few rooms.”

“Now, normally the rooms on the third floor are for high-ranking officials only, but we’ve been forced to make an exception to that rule.”

“What do you mean?”

“The second room from the stairs there—” she pointed down the hall, “—will be Arthur’s.”

Mike’s nostrils flared.

“Why?” I asked, looking away from him. “Is Mike gonna let him be on my council now?”

“No. It was a condition of his helping us that he get a room in the same wing as you.”

“On the same floor,” Mike added, the flaring nostrils spreading out to make his face go red.

Morgaine laughed. “Mike tried giving him a room on the ground floor.”

“It was still in the west wing,” he said.

“Yes,” Morgaine said with mocking sympathy. “But it didn’t quite go to plan, did it, Mikey?”

I laughed into my hand. “Has he arrived yet?”

“No,” Mike and Morgaine said at the same time.

“So, what about the rest of them—the House—where do they all sleep?”

“On the second floor. These windows—” she motioned down the front wall of the manor, “—are all bedrooms downstairs. The corridor runs through the manor in a straight line, from one end to the other.”

“And our rooms are the biggest in the manor,” Mike said.

“Why do you get a big room—why not Morgaine or Arthur or someone?”

“These rooms are given to people in the highest command.” He patted my door, standing proudly. “I’m head of security. I am supreme.”

I smiled at him, seeing more of my ‘best friend’ Mike—the one I grew up with—than I’d seen in ages. I think, in some ways, being so far from home, with no one here that I really knew, it made me feel closer to Mike, like he was a part of my family—a bit like a brother, and not so much like a…well, let’s just say some of the love confusion trickled away with the sense that he was my only family here.

I reached for his hand as Morgaine reached for the doorknob, and light spilled into the corridor; as my eyes adjusted to the unfamiliar space, I smiled and stepped through. “Oh. Morg. It’s—it’s amazing.”

Light colours cast softness around the L-shaped room; four windows on the south side of the manor showed nothing but a blue sky, and to my right was a parlour, furnished with pieces of white or mahogany furniture to tie in pleasantly with the airy, summery feel in here. My bed was white, wide enough to sleep six of me, and adorned with enough pillows to stuff a warehouse.

“I’m guessing you’re happy with the colour scheme?” Morgaine said.

I nodded. “Mm-hm. It’s perfect.”

“And look at this—” Morgaine walked over to a dresser on my left. “This was Arietta’s. David thought you might like to have it.”

“Arietta’s? Why is Arietta’s dressing table here?”

“Arietta and the boys came to stay here nearly every second summer until she died. This was Arthur’s room.”

“Really?” I waltzed over and sat on the blanket box at the end of my bed. “Then, shouldn’t he be staying in here?”

Morgaine opened her mouth to speak, but Mike scoffed loudly for her.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I said, then stood up and wandered over to the windows near my bed, realising, when a calm breeze blew in, billowing the soft white curtains, that the window was actually a door. “I have a balcony?”

“Yes.” Morgaine stepped up and pushed the chiffon aside, tying it back with a ribbon on the wall. “Mike has one, too.”

“Can I go out there?”

“Course.” She presented the path.

When I stepped onto the white marble floor, the world opened out around me, like the walls just slinked back into the shadows. The sky went on forever over a darker blue in the distance, what I assumed was the ocean, and the gardens Mike mentioned earlier shone proudly below us; greens and creams of grass and stone paths, and sprinklings of colour from cherry blossom trees and rose bushes. There was even a hedge maze at the base of a long, grassy walkway. Beyond that, the enchanted forest bordered the manor, and all the way toward the east wing, a sweeping breeze swayed the long grasses in a field, rising up over the stone edge of my balcony and brushing my hair back with the scent of the ocean. “If I say ‘wow’, do you think that would describe it?” I reached for Morgaine’s hand again.

“Yeah,” she said, standing beside me. “I think that about covers it.”

“And if you look closely—” Mike pointed to the east, “—you can just make out the top of the lighthouse from here.”

I looked along his arm, trying to see it.

“Once you’ve been down there and you know where it is, you’ll be able to spot it easier. It’s white, so it kinda blends in with the day.” He dropped his arm.

“I can’t wait to see it.”

“Not alone, though. Okay?”

“Not even the lighthouse?”

“Even I wouldn’t recommend it, Majesty,” Morgaine said.

“Why?”

“It sits on a steep cliff, about a four hundred foot drop—only sharp rocks beneath.”

“Where’s the beach?”

“Between the cliffs, left of the lighthouse. If you sit up on the roof, you can see it.”

“You sit on the roof of the lighthouse?”

“Of course.” Morgaine leaned on the railing. “I like to sit up there when there’s a storm.”