The Runner (Part I of the Runner Series)

Chapter 35

I blink, uncomprehending.

"Did you hear me?" Sera steps forward, her eyes searching my face urgently. "They know you're the Runner. They know that Princess Megra is a traitor. The guards are coming for both of you right now. You have to take the Princess and get out, while you still have a chance."

I shake my head, desperately trying to sort through the wave of information.

"I..." Gradually, everything begins to sink in. I stare at Sera, at her pale face pinched tightly. "How do you know who I am?"

"I figured it out the day they discovered the prisoners escaped. They said someone disguised as a guard helped them and I remembered the uniform I found in your room."

"So you knew? This whole time?"

She shrugs. "It made sense. You didn't behave like the rest of the ladies, and you were kind to the servants." A small smile plays on her lips. "You are exactly the kind of person I always hoped she would be."

I run my hand through my hair, willing my mind back to the task at hand. "And you say the King knows?"

"Someone turned you in. I don't know all of the details, but the word is the King was told that you and the Princess are planning to run away and start a rebellion against him. He has ordered your arrest."

Meg. I have to find her. Get her out.

"Find Dr. Cain," I tell Sera, thinking fast. "As quickly and quietly as you can. Tell him I have to move Meg out now and he must bring a carriage to the west entrance. Immediately, before they put the Palace on lockdown."

"What about you?"

"Tell him not to wait for me. I'm going to find my own way out."

She nods, moving with her trademark briskness to the door. I follow her and together we peer left and right down the hallway. A few servants scurry back and forth, but there is no sign yet of any guards.

Sera slips out first, heading back to the main stairs. I turn in the opposite direction, toward the servants' passage.

"Sera." I grab her hand just before she leaves. "Thank you."

She smiles, broader than I've ever seen. "Anytime, Miss."

We drop hands and turn to run in separate directions. I take the servants' stairs up to the next floor, pausing momentarily in the stairwell to kick off my sandals. I hitch up the layers of my dress and glance both ways down the fourth-floor hallway.

Finding it abandoned and hearing no warning sound of armour clinking in the distance, I slip out into the hall, creeping toward Meg's room.

The door is locked tightly. I try the handle a few times, then press my ear to the wood, frowning when I hear nothing from within.

She isn't here. I know I saw Grayson pull her up the stairs... so, where would they go? I bite down hard on my lip and think.

Meg wouldn't wish to go anywhere too private with him. Knowing her, I'd guess she would want to be somewhere spacious—somewhere she could be found if needed.

The library.

I tear down the hallway, slipping back into the servants' staircase just as the sound of several heavy footsteps reaches the fourth-floor landing behind me.

My breath echoes in my ears as I run up the spiralling staircase to the seventh floor, emerging from behind a bookshelf when I reach the library. It is only when I begin weaving my way through the crowded aisles that I start to doubt my plan. What if Meg isn't here? What if she's returned to the Hall? I may already be too late.