It was like stepping into a jewel box. Tomes of every imaginable color climbed the walls, the gold leaf on their spines glinting in the firelight. The room was tiny, but so tall I wondered if it took up two stories. There was, of course, another rolling ladder, and the only wall space not filled with books was taken up by an enormous fireplace. Who the hell kept all these fires going? Oh, right, the staff.

Apart from several squashy leather chairs and one particularly squashy leather love seat, the only furniture in the room was a giant oak desk. I hopped up onto it, swinging my feet back and forth.

“Hmmm.” Jamie stopped abruptly in the middle of the room. “I have…a feeling.” He fell to his knees and began knocking on the floor, pressing one ear to the boards. “Sounds a bit…different…hollow, perhaps…could be something…right about…here!” He pulled up one corner of an Oriental rug with a flourish, revealing a trapdoor.

“You’re joking.” I slid off the desk. It was definitely a trapdoor. I’d never seen one in real life, but there was no mistaking it. There was even a little handle to pull it up by.

“Where trapdoors are concerned, I never joke. Well, hardly ever,” he amended. “If I could think of a really brilliant pun involving trapdoors, I would simply have to succumb.”

“You knew that was there the whole time!”

“How dare you malign my sleuthing abilities!” Jamie cried. “Madam, you have cut me to the quick! Perhaps I am simply preternaturally gifted at finding trapdoors. Did you consider that possibility?”

“I considered it. But I also considered the possibility that you’re full of crap.”

“A definite possibility.” He grinned. “Shall we?”

“It feels less mysterious now that I know it was a premeditated trapdoor,” I grumbled.

“The premeditated trapdoor,” Jamie mused.

“That sounds like a bad Nancy Drew book.”

“Oh, bother Nancy Drew. It’s my title, not hers. I’d read a book called The Premeditated Trapdoor. Perhaps I should write one.”

“First of all, I came up with that title. Technically. And second of all, I think the premeditated aspect takes all the mystery out of it. Doesn’t sound like much of a page-turner to me.”

“The door may be premeditated, but the destination is not.” Jamie tapped the side of his nose. I’d heard the word “premeditated” so many times in the last couple minutes it had lost all meaning. He threaded his fingers through the small silver ring and pulled, lifting the wooden door aloft until it swung open to reveal the top of a flight of stairs.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked.

“Ladies first.”

I peered down the hole, then looked back up at Jamie.

“Are you frightened?” he asked kindly.

“No!” All I’d seen were a couple stairs descending into black nothingness. What could possibly be frightening about that?

“Shall I go first? Check for monsters, bogeymen, that sort of thing?”

“I think I can handle a bogeyman.” I repeated it back the way Jamie had said it, bogeyman, not boogeyman.

I took a deep breath and planted my foot firmly on the top step. Satisfyingly sturdy. All right, then.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,” Jamie recited.

“Is that part of The Premeditated Trapdoor?” Down another step. I still couldn’t see the bottom of the stairs.

“Hardly. It’s Poe. Move along, then, Dylan.”

“Yeah, yeah, nevermore.” Step. Step. “I’m going.”

I reached a hand out into the darkness until I connected with the wall, trailing my fingers along it in the absence of a railing. Maybe lack of railing was standard trapdoor operating procedure, but I could have used one right about now. Carefully, I moved down, one foot in front of the other, until there were no more steps. The bottom. I inched forward, until suddenly the minimal light source was extinguished.

“Jamie!” I gasped. This was a kind of darkness I hadn’t experienced since Heaven and I accidentally ended up in the basement during the church lock-in.

“Quite all right, Dylan?”

“No! Why did you close the door?”

“I didn’t want to alert the others to the existence of the trapdoor.”

“I’m sure if you know about it, the people who actually live here know about it,” I grumbled. “What if we get trapped down here?”

“Impossible. We’ll simply nip back up and push the door open. Easy.”

“If we don’t break our necks stumbling around in the dark first.” I reached a hand out in front of me. “Exploring a black hole isn’t really that exciting.”

“If only we had a torch.”

“A torch? What is this, Frankenstein?”

“Torches aren’t merely for monsters, Dylan.…Just a moment…” I heard footsteps and the rustle of fabric. “Ah, here it is.” A soft click, and a beam of artificial light pierced the gloom. “A torch.”

“A flashlight,” I responded. For the first time, I could see the low stone ceiling and narrow walls. It reminded me of when Hugh Jackman dragged that guy through a sewer in Les Mis, which was a mostly unremarkable movie, except for the fact that it inspired Heaven to cut all her hair off. Which I thought was totally bizarre, because who wants to look like a dead, toothless prostitute? Of course, Heaven ended up looking totally stunning, like Lupita Nyong’o. If I cut all my hair off, I would definitely look like a dead, toothless prostitute. Actually, I’d probably just look like a boy. “Did you stash that flashlight down here?”

“The Premeditated Torch is, naturally, the follow-up to the smash best seller The Premeditated Trapdoor.”

“That is seriously the worst idea for a book series I’ve ever heard.”

“Nonsense. Dashing British hero and his plucky American lady sidekick explore uncharted territory? It’s brilliant.”

“Plucky?” Eh, I’d been called worse. “And this territory has already been charted. By you.”

“But it’s uncharted for you, my plucky American lady sidekick.” I turned to see him grinning at my side. “You can hold the torch, if you’d like.”

“How benevolent of you.” I grabbed the flashlight. “Guess that makes you the sidekick now.”

“Lead on, then.”

I pointed the beam of light straight ahead, seeing nothing but more Hugh Jackman sewer tunnel. It was crazy to think that we were wandering in this passage beneath the castle while everyone else just walked around oblivious above us. I wondered how many other people knew it existed. Probably everyone. But it was nice to at least pretend that I had found somewhere secret to hide from TRC. Even if that somewhere was a damp, airless tunnel. At the end of that hall, we came to a fork—the passageway seemed to continue endlessly in each direction.

“How long does this go on for?” I marveled.

“The tunnel system is quite extensive. I believe it goes beneath the entire main building, and may connect to some of the outer buildings. I’m honestly not certain.”

“That’s crazy.” I shook my head. “Why all the secret passageways?”

“It’s only a theory, but the bulk of the estate was built during a time of political upheaval. Perhaps it was an escape system.”

“Huh. Which way?”

“Up to you.”

I pointed the flashlight to the left, to the right, to the—

“Jamie,” I whispered. “There’s something glowing down there.”

“Turn off the torch.”

I did. In the darkness, it was easy to see a faint blue-white light to the left.

“Magic,” I whispered.

“Sorry?”

“What? Um, nothing!” Obviously, it wasn’t magic. Obviously. “We have to check that out, right?”

“I would expect nothing less from the intrepid heroes of The Premeditated Trapdoor!”

“You’ve gotta let that go,” I groaned. I turned to the left, switching the flashlight back on and swinging it in front of me.

“Ow!”

“Dusty?” I asked curiously. The flashlight’s beam illuminated my sister, squatting in front of a shoe box with her iPhone clutched in her hand.

“I said, ow! Honest, Dilly, you’re shining that thing right in my eyes.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I pointed it at the ground. Dusty blinked, shaking her head. “What are you doing down here?”

“Facebook. For some reason my phone only connects to the Internet down here if I squat real low. Makes no damn sense.”

Ah. Probably scrolling through her bazillion friends and admiring her selfie collection. Lest she forget even for, like, twenty minutes how popular she was.

“Why are you Facebooking in a dark tunnel?”

“I hid a phone down here. You know TRC doesn’t want us to have any kind of contact with the outside world. Spoilers.”

“Yeah, God forbid it leak on the Internet what your color scheme is.” I rolled my eyes. “America would be devastated.”

“I don’t make the rules, Dylan.” She dropped the phone back in the shoe box at her feet.

“No, you just break them.”

“What do you want from me, Dyl?” Dusty jammed the lid back on the box with more force than was necessary, then rose to face me, eyes flashing. “I’m stupid if I go along with the show; now you’re givin’ me grief for goin’ against it. Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.”

“I was just—God, Dusty, it was just a joke.” Was she going to cry? It was kind of hard to tell in this light, but it looked like she was turning red like she did when she was going to really cry, not in the fake way she cried when her old boyfriend got the wrong flowers for prom, or when she was crowned Miss Mississippi. “Sorry, okay?”

“Whatever.” She tapped her fingers briskly beneath her eyes, swiping away any eyeliner smudges. Because of course she couldn’t look less than perfect for one single second. “I’m gettin’ enough crap today, and I don’t need any more from you.”

“Are you feeling better, then?” Jamie asked solicitously. Oops. I kind of forgot he was there. Something about spending too much time with Dusty turned me into an obnoxious eight-year-old all over again.

“Oh. Yes, I’m all right. Just a bit of a tummy bug. It’s the food y’all eat here. No offense, Jamie.”

“None taken.” He shrugged. “Britain’s culinary foibles are a long-standing punch line.”

“Not anymore,” I argued. “Think of all the great British chefs. Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsay. Nigella Lawson.”

“Thank you, Food Network,” Dusty snapped. “The food’s heavy. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

“Yeah, because we never eat butter. In Mississippi.”

“Do you have to argue with every single little thing I say?” Dusty heaved a long-suffering sigh.

“Is Mississippi particularly known for its butter?” Jamie asked politely, ignoring the daggers I was glaring at Dusty.

“Um, no, not particularly,” I admitted. “But the South is kind of notorious for drowning everything in butter. Buttered biscuits. Buttery grits. Butter, well, everything.”

“Ah, I see. Like Britain’s much-maligned culinary reputation. A sort of cultural joke that might not always be accurate.”

“Exactly.” Dusty jumped in. “Mama always cooked everything in Pam.”

“Pam?” Jamie repeated curiously.

“It’s a fat-free cooking spray,” I explained. “Not important. Don’t you have a tour to be getting back to?”

“Don’t you?” Dusty replied pointedly. “I’m sorry. Were you two tryin’ to be…alone? Together?”

“Dusty!” I shrieked. “Shut up!” I could feel my face getting hot. And then hotter still, as I realized I had just shrieked in what probably sounded like repulsion to Jamie, but was actually just embarrassment. Oh God, this day…just…had…to…end. At least I’d proved that it was scientifically impossible for a human being to spontaneously combust from mortification. Otherwise I would have been long dead.

“We were simply exploring the castle,” Jamie said smoothly, as if my outburst hadn’t happened. Dusty, on the other hand, was sporting an annoying expression of amusement. “Looking for trapdoors, secret passages, that sort of thing. As you can see, we succeeded admirably. As did you, apparently.”

“Apparently.” She shrugged. “Fine, let’s get out of this cave. I think I can handle Her Royal Pain in the Ass again.”

I snorted. Dusty was so much more fun when she wasn’t pretending to be perfect.

“Walk, Dylan. You’ve got the flashlight.”

Never mind. She was just bossy and annoying. Sighing, I turned back the way we’d come.

“So, Jamie, I don’t know if she’s told you, but Dilly’s quite the track star.” I looked behind me. Dusty had threaded her arm through Jamie’s.

“It’s cross-country,” I muttered grumpily. “It’s different. I’m a distance runner. I don’t hop over things.”

“Yes, she’s quite sporty,” Dusty cooed. “You could never tell it by the way she slouches and eats like a hog, but she’s a real little athlete.” There was nothing more annoying than Dusty in full-on Southern-belle mode. Also, what was her game here? I couldn’t tell. Was she trying to sell him on me, or scare away the only friend I had in this godforsaken frozen chunk of rock?

Whatever it was, she was up to something, and I didn’t like it.