SundayPANIC ONLY TOOK A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS SO FAR, AND EVELINA was impatient to be on her way. She wasted no time in investigating every crack and corner of her room—a process that took the remainder of her first day in Magnus’s castle aerie. She repeated the entire process the second day, just to be sure she had missed nothing.The door was locked with a heavy iron affair that belonged in a dungeon. Evelina wasn’t sure she could lift the key that opened it, much less pick the wretched thing. Access to the chimney was blocked with an iron grate. The casement window was not locked, but looked over a sheer drop to the crashing waves below.The floor and walls were all solid, unless one counted a few chinks in the mortar large enough for rats. The tapestries hid no secret doors or listening holes, and, though faded, appeared to have been recently cleaned. Lifting the carpet—a threadbare affair of Persian design—revealed nothing, either, outside of a hidden pile of dirt one of the maids had sought to disguise.Defeated, she sank to her knees on the carpet before the fire.
