Steel Roses

Stairways beyond Bookshelves

 Beldon lay there for a long moment, his legs still in the library, his torso inside the wall.

He blinked and slowly turned himself over, wincing, rubbing the back of his head. He'd landed on thick uneven stone that hadn't seen light or contact in a long time if the amount of dust that settled on him was anything to go by.

Grimacing, he looked up to see where he had fallen and his hand dropped, his eyes widening.

From the light of the library, he could just make out the last few steps of a stone staircase that spiralled up out of sight.

Slowly getting to his feet, dropping the book back into the library, he stepped forwards, taking the first few steps up the stairway and looking up around the corner. Torches on the walls flared to life, illuminating the way for him, making him jump.

He stared for a moment, then looked back towards the doorway. It didn't look like it would close. Looking up again, he hesitated for just a moment, before sweeping up the stairs, looping upwards, hallways branching off the stairway each time he reached a new floor.

He stepped into one of the hallways on the forth floor and walked along it, the firelight very dim here but enough for him see by.

Though not enough for him to see the huge spider web he walked straight into – spider attached – making him jolt in disgust, spinning around, pulling it off him and backing straight into a wall.

There was a clank by his right ear and he looked around, confused. His eyebrows rose and he spun around to the wall.

A slot in the wall had opened a crack.

Sliding his finger into the gap, he slid it aside and looked through the tiny space. His eyes widened. He was looking into one of his music rooms on the forth floor. He didn't use it but it was the one he had found all the violins in – which he had moved down to the second floor music room.

He pulled back and looked down the hall. Closing the slot, he moved down the corridor, feeling for the next slot, pulling it open when he found it. As he thought, he was looking into one of the lounge rooms. So these corridors probably ran all the way through the castle.

He peered through the slot, finding the clock on the mantelpiece. He still had a little time. He closed the slot and kept going, coming across more stairs, going up and down through the rooms and floors. Some rooms he looked in through the walls, some from the floors – seeing the rooms by cleverly placed mirrors he had never noticed before – and some he looked down on from their ceilings.

He made his way through the corridors, looking into rooms every now and then to figure out where he was – the corridors didn't quite line up with the rooms after all depending on how he looked into them – until he opened a slot and looked through and he didn't recognise the room before him.

Lit by moonlight, he could make out a broken piano and tore drapes.

He stared for a moment, then pulled back, eyes wide. He could see into the locked rooms of the West Wing with these tunnels, whoever had locked the doors hadn't covered the slots. Then again, he probably wasn't supposed to be here to find the slots.

He was just about to continue, when he heard a clock strike nearby. He spun around, it was a quarter to seven and he still needed to get back. He wouldn't have time to get ready at this rate.

Racing away back through the halls, he peered through the slot of the first room in his wing and stopped, thinking for a moment, then he ran and took the first right he could find, going down another flight and turning left then right again.