We’d decided to leave the trapdoor in the morgue open, hoping a guard would come across it if something terrible happened to us. I hoped they hadn’t already started pursuing us. Thomas brushed against my arm in the dark, a gentle reminder he was there beside me.

“We probably disturbed a nest of rats, Cresswell. No need to get your drawers in a bunch.”

I heard the smile in his voice before he answered. “When that’s the most comforting thought you can come up with, things aren’t going very well. Though I’m pleased you’re thinking of my underthings.”

Before I could respond, the distinct sound of footsteps broke through my thoughts. The tread thumped loud enough for me to determine that there were at least two people pursuing us. Or whatever secret we might be about to unearth. They were getting closer. Suddenly, the possibility of Moldoveanu and Dăneşti coming upon us wasn’t the most fearsome thought. We had no idea who the Order was or how many people might be involved.

“Whoever is heading toward us probably isn’t the kind of person we’d want to meet in an abandoned place, far away from where people can hear our screams, Cresswell.”

I could hear Thomas fumbling in the dark, and imagined his hands flying around the wall. Steps echoed behind us. Long shadows folded themselves around the corner, pointing out those who did not belong to their masters. If we did not find a hiding place now…

A quiet groan followed by an exhale of stale decay indicated Thomas had wrestled the door open. I prayed our pursuers hadn’t heard it. “Ah. That did it. Let’s hurry, shall we?”

Remembering the door that housed vampire bats sent gooseflesh skittering over my skin. I was not keen on experiencing that delight again but saw no way out of it. If the Impaler or the Order was hunting us, I’d much prefer the bats. Light bounced from torches or lanterns, and hushed voices curled into this tunnel. It was time to move.

We slipped inside the black chamber and closed the door, blind to what might be watching us. An acrid scent hung in the space, as if something there had rotted away a long time before. An eternity might have passed while we waited in the unlit room for our uninvited intruders to move along. Thomas must have reached out, his fingers getting caught in my hair.

“Honestly?” I whispered harshly. “Must you paw at me now?”

“While I’ve thought a great deal about groping you in this delightfully macabre setting, Wadsworth, I doubt my mind has the ability to will it into fruition.”

“Do you swear?”

“On the potentially empty grave of Great-Great-Great-Uncle Dracula, yes.”

“Then who is, Cresswell?”

Instead of answering, I felt Thomas step before me, his hands—invisible in the dark—slowly drifting from my bodice to my cheeks before he moved away. If they weren’t tangled in my hair, then who—or what—was? My heart thudded in a frantic pace. Swallowing my rising panic, I slowly eased the lantern on. The small glow filled the enormous space as if it were molten gold spilling across the ground. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and when they finally did, an illuminated, hideous face grinned wide before me.

I inhaled sharply, almost dropping the lantern and forgetting about what might have touched my hair. My limbs went weak once I’d put together what I was staring at: a smattering of stalactites twisted in a half-circle along with some shadows cast by protruding rocks, which offered the odd impression of a demon giving us a sharp-toothed grimace. Beyond the hanging stones, I could see that the tunnel continued on for quite some distance.

“I have a… I’m not sure. I think it’s a feeling. I must be coming down with something.” Thomas’s stance was as rigid as his clamped jaws, his joke an obvious attempt at lightening our situation. “It’s as if a bunch of snakes inhabited my body at once. Most unpleasant.”

“Ah yes. But you’re experiencing feelings, Cresswell. That’s a vast improvement.”

Continuing to play the light around the area, I noticed pale, silvery threads hanging between the stalactites. I broke away from Thomas, hoping to better inspect the sinister formation. A shadow twitched away from the ceiling and dropped to eye level.

A spider almost as big as my fist peered at me through reflective eyes. Covered in thick black bristles, it boasted fangs almost as long as my thumbnail. Ice ran in rivulets down my neck. If the threat of being murdered or expelled hadn’t been so great, I’d have screamed until my lungs gave out.

A drop of thin crimson liquid dripped from the tips of its fangs; whether blood or venom, I couldn’t tell. Deep inside, that scream was battling to emerge. Thomas held his hand up, taking a cautious step toward me.

“Focus on how handsome I am. How much you want to press your lips against mine. And definitely do not panic, Wadsworth. If you scream, I’m going to join you, and then we’re both in trouble.”

Everything inside me threatened to go dark. When someone warned a person against something, it usually meant that was precisely what they should be doing. Against my best judgment, I held the lantern up, arm shaking slightly, and spotted two more spiders dangling above our heads.

“I wonder how often they get fed. Not much activity happening in these tunnels.” Thomas turned around and cursed. My attention slid behind him, focusing on the door we’d come through. It was practically a living organism, there were so many arachnids on it.

“Thomas…” I nodded at the door, though he was already transfixed by it. “There have to be over a thousand of them. Every bit of its surface is alive with movement.”

“Lycosa singoriensis…” Thomas muttered the Latin to himself, his focus more intense each time he repeated the words. His emotions had been discarded as one would remove gloves, replaced by that cool mechanical mask he sometimes wore. “It’s a Romanian tarantula.”

“Wonderful. Are they venomous?”

“I… I’m actually not sure.” Thomas swallowed hard, the only indication of how scared he now was. “I don’t believe so. At least not this breed.”

“Are they all tarantulas?” I asked.

He slowly shook his head, methodically inspecting each bit of movement. Of course they weren’t all tarantulas. Why would a castle filled with so many nasty ways to perish house only harmless spiders? My heart thrummed a panicked beat.

We needed an escape plan, but a quick survey proved there weren’t many options. We couldn’t go back the way we’d come—too many spiders blocked our path. Arachnid eyes glinted from several hundred points in the near-darkness, obscuring any alternate exit.

I took another hasty step back and tripped over a large rock. I cursed, then directed my light to the ground and saw I was wrong again. It wasn’t a rock.

What I’d stumbled over was a milky white skull.

“Oh, my goodness.” I nearly collapsed, terror pressing in from all angles. If there was a skeleton here, that didn’t bode well for our chances of escaping. “Thomas, we should…”

Eight long legs slowly curled from the skull’s eye sockets while another eight crawled from open jawbones. Both impossibly large spiders stalked toward me, their movements as disjointed as an undead monster lurching toward its next meal. If the villagers told these types of stories to their children—tales of man-eating spiders lurking below the earth and then produced their carcasses—then no wonder they believed vampires existed, too. Why denounce one monster when there was proof of another?

My vision swam with undulating black, and it wasn’t from the lack of oxygen making it to my brain. Spiders were pouring in from cracks and crevices, demons being called from their nether realms. We needed to move. Immediately.

I handed Thomas the lantern and gathered both my skirts and wits. Something fell onto my shoulder and brushed my throat. I reached up and felt a spider tangling itself in my hair. I could handle removing organs from corpses, and rooting around inside the gelatinous innards of most deceased things. I was not above admitting that a spider burrowing into my hair was too much. Its legs scuttled down the exposed flesh on my neck. I screamed.

Reason left me. I flung myself over, shaking my hair wildly, trying not to scream again as the spider crawled along my neck, darting away from my batting hands. Before I dislodged it, a sharp pinch pierced the skin near my collar. Panic swept over me in sickening waves. “It bit me!”

Thomas dropped the lantern and was on me in an instant. “Let me see.”

I was about to pull my collar aside when another spider fell before us. All I saw was Thomas’s mouth form an O of surprise before I yanked my skirts up to my knees and ran, forgetting all about being quiet. Let whoever was in the tunnels brave the tarantulas on their own.

Muscles in my limbs shook so hard I could barely keep moving, but I ran as if the rumors about Vlad Dracula being a strigoi were true. At this point, I was willing to believe anything.

I lost momentum for a fraction of a breath, tripping over my ruined skirts. Something sharp pierced my calf, and I staggered to the side. Pain shot up my leg as if someone had pricked me with several mortuary needles at once. “Ouch!”

I choked on another yelp. It was impossible to tell if another spider had bitten me or if I’d sliced my leg on debris that likely consisted of more human bones. Stopping to check was an option I could ill afford. Thomas swept a mass of spiders off the doorknob, then pulled us through the door, the light swinging and causing the world around us to tilt. This was a circus house that had lost its magical illusions. We sprinted as if our very lives depended on our escape. I hoped we weren’t leaving behind one horror for the next.

Several minutes later, we emerged from the dark tunnel into another quiet space, bent over and wheezing. Thomas collected himself and held the lantern up; the dim light showed it to be an enormous stone room. I wanted to scan our surroundings, but couldn’t swallow enough air to steady myself.

Before fully catching his own breath, Thomas placed the lantern next to me and sat on his heels, examining my wounds. His hands were cool and precise as they peeled my ruined stockings down. A crease of worry worked its way between his brows.