Mia's heart sank.
A faint scent of fir lingered in the room, but he was gone.
She moved silently along the wall, surveying her surroundings.
There was not a single wrinkle in the bedding, and the parchment scrolls on the desk were neatly stacked.
Everything was orderly, unlike a room someone had just occupied while driven out of his mind by a drug.
Where had he gone?
Mia's gaze swept every corner of the room.
The window was shut tight.
The only exit was the door she had come through.
No.
Her gaze settled on a huge wardrobe in the corner.
Its placement was odd. It did not sit flush against the wall, leaving an unnatural gap. An obsessive subordinate like Philip would never tolerate such an imperfection.
Mia approached and gave the wardrobe an experimental push.
It was heavy, but not immovable. Applying leverage, she slowly pushed the heavy wardrobe aside, revealing the rough stone wall behind it. Near the bottom of the wall, a wooden board looked newer than the surrounding stone blocks.
She reached out and lifted it. The board came away easily, revealing a pitch-black opening barely wide enough for one person to pass through.
There really was a secret passage, though it was little better than a dog hole.
Mia crawled inside without hesitation.
She did not push the wardrobe all the way back into place, leaving it partly open so she would still have an escape route if anything went wrong.
In the darkness, she could hear her own heartbeat.
The passage was narrow, its walls rough rock and its floor uneven.
It had clearly been dug recently.
She felt her way forward, the air growing increasingly damp.
The passage sloped downward, then upward again.
After a few dozen steps, she caught a faint