Page 23 of This Prince Is Not Charming

Marsten wrinkled his nose. “Sorry?”

I massaged my temples. “Let’s give Lila some space and get to work looking for loose stones.”

* * *

My hands were red and swollen and throbbing from yanking stone after stone from the tower walls.

Light splintered in, revealing shocks of blue sky and green treetops outside, but all the gaps were so small it was hard to see anything other than that.

Marsten frowned at his long painted nails, one of which was now broken. “It took so long to grow these.”

“And what do we do now?” Liadan gestured to the small, flat stones spread out in the middle of the floor.

We’d let the light in, which I thought would be enough, hoping Morton’s words were some kind of clue. Now it felt like we’d just wasted all our time and energy on the wrong thing.

“That’s odd. It looks a little bit like a puzzle, just like Ceri said,” Lila said from where she sat, knees drawn to her chest. She hadn’t moved in an hour but had stopped crying, which was an improvement for all of our ears.

“Oh, now you choose to help.” Meera’s tail flicked back and forth behind her as Lila hiccuped.

“Who’s antagonizing her now?” Marsten mumbled under his breath.

“How are you seeing a puzzle?” Liadan frowned. “All I’m seeing is a big pile of blocks.”

I stared at the jagged edges of the pieces, thinking of all the puzzles my father, Cillian, and I had put together over the years. The way Cillian and Father could look at all the pieces and immediately begin picturing how they fit together.

Cillian would grab my hand, then take my finger and slide it along the smooth outer edges of the pieces. Start at the border, he’d whisper in my ear, and it’ll all slowly come together.

“The border,” I said, then knelt and picked up one of the flat stones that had a curved, smooth edge. “I think Lila is right.”

Siobhan picked up another piece with a rounded edge, reaching it out and fitting it with mine.

Everyone was still for a second before we started moving at once, picking up pieces, laying them out, yelling and switching them around. Even Lila had jumped into action. The excitement in the room built as the puzzle slowly came together. We moved and pieced and talked, and then finally, we stood back, all of us craning our necks to try and figure out what we were looking at.

Clio tilted her head, her fiery hair flickering. “A circle?”

“Perfect,” Meera said, “another thing that makes absolutely no feckin’ sense.”

The puzzle trembled, and it began shifting, opening, making all of us back away.

“Not this again.” Liadan bit her bottom lip.

I braced my legs, my whole body tensing, but this time, the floor didn’t drop from beneath us. Instead, the circle puzzle began to break apart piece by piece, all the chunks falling into some dark abyss until the whole circle had broken away to reveal a gaping hole in the middle of the tower.

“At least we didn’t fall into this one,” Marsten said.

Siobhan took a cautious step forward, peering down. She gasped and pointed. “A way out!”

The rest of us rushed forward, and I could just make out stairs that led downward in a spiral. They unraveled step by step like a rug into the depths of the tower.

“Oh my godwitches.” Lila fell to her knees. “We’re free. Grayson, I’m coming back to you. I swear it.”

Meera’s eyes rolled upward. “You’d think she’d gone to war and back with how she’s acting.”

Marsten snorted.

“So who’s first?” Liadan asked with a shaky voice, peering down into the dark abyss.

“I will go first.” Siobhan stepped forward, head high, but Meera was already prancing down the stairs ahead of her.