No One Leaves the Castle by Christopher Healy

Author:Christopher Healy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

16

The Hidden Passage

Kade’s face turned pale. “Those are . . . blackmail notes,” he muttered.

Netta shook her head. “Who would have imagined a nice, grumpy old man like that could be a lying, thieving killer?”

“No, this is Runar’s handwriting,” Kade said. “He wrote these notes!”

Netta shook her head. “Who would have imagined a nice, grumpy old man like that could be a blackmailer?”

“And a busy one, too,” said Lila. “His victims have already responded to the notes.” She flipped the papers over to reveal the replies, each in a different handwriting: “I implore you to keep this to yourself.” “What do you want from me?” “I’ll give you anything to keep this secret.” “Just tell me what to do.”

“Runar was blackmailing four people?” Netta said. “That’s impressive for a guy his age.”

“And he already had responses from all of them?” Kade muttered in confusion. “When did he even have the time for that? Before this morning, he hadn’t left the castle in weeks.”

“He wouldn’t need to if his victims were also in this castle,” said Lila. “Do you recognize any of the handwriting in the replies? Your father? Maybe Hecatina?”

“Hard to say with them all being so shaky,” Kade said. “But I suppose it would be tough to keep a steady hand while responding to a blackmail threat.”

Lila reread the notes. “I’m beginning to think every person in this house is hiding some dark secret,” Lila said. “No offense.”

“I can’t take offense when you’re right,” he said. He took a deep breath. “There’s something I should confess . . .”

“You killed Runar?!” Netta blurted.

“What? No!” Kade said.

“You killed the other person?!” Netta blurted.

“No! What other person?”

“Whoever that’s referring to.” Netta pointed to the “I know who you killed” note. “If Runar wrote it, clearly it’s not about his murder. Unless he wrote it after he died. But then the handwriting would be much tinier. Ooh, can you picture Runar as a cute little mini-zombie?”

“Kade, I believe you were about to confess something,” Lila said. No matter how much she had to admit she liked Kade, his urgent desire to find the Incantatoribus hadn’t been sitting right with her. She had a feeling he wanted that book for more than just dealing with their bubble problem.

“Yeah, um, Runar and I had a sort of secret plan,” Kade said haltingly. “Getting me into the Superlative Sorcery Academy wasn’t just about the prestige, or even just to tick off my dad—although that is a nice side benefit. I got into that school with Runar’s help . . . so I could bring it down from the inside.”

Netta readied her mandolin. “Ooh, this is going to be great stuff!”

“You can’t write about this, Netta,” Kade pleaded. “I’m telling you because it might be important to the case, but neither of you can tell anyone else. It could ruin my whole future.”

Lila motioned for Netta to put away her instrument. “Go ahead, Kade.”

“Well, nowadays, basically all new wizards come out of the academy,” Kade said. “But if you go back a number of years, before my time, that wasn’t always the case.

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