The Door

I spend the next day learning.

The work is meaningless. Just logs and axes and aching shoulders. But I learn the castle. Who goes where, when. Where the guards don't look.

Guard shifts change at six in the morning, noon, six in the evening, midnight. Four rotations, six hours each. The corridor with the locked door has two guards at all times, but during shift changes there's a window. Maybe ninety seconds while the fresh pair walks from the guardhouse and the old pair waits to be relieved.

Ninety seconds isn't much. But it might be enough.

I watch from the woodpile, from the courtyard, from the corridors when I can find excuses to walk them. Nobody pays much attention to the new guy wandering around looking lost. They expect it. Probably happens with every arrival.

Tom notices I'm distracted. "You alright? Seem like you're somewhere else today."

"Just getting my bearings. Lot to take in."

He accepts that. Why wouldn't he? It's a reasonable thing to say.

By afternoon, I've mapped three routes to the east corridor. One through the kitchens—busy, lots of witnesses. One through the main hall—too exposed. One through a back staircase that seems to be used mainly for storage. Quieter. Darker.

That's the one.

I eat dinner in the great hall with everyone else. Zoe sits with Dr. Fraser and the medical team. She waves when she sees me, gestures for me to join them.

I shake my head, hold up my plate, find a seat in the corner instead.

She looks hurt. Then she looks away.

Better this way. Better if she's not involved.

The food tastes like nothing. I eat it anyway. Watch the guards by the main entrance as they check in for the evening shift. One of them will rotate to the east corridor at midnight.

Six hours.

I go back to our room early. Tell Zoe I'm tired, which isn't a lie. I haven't slept properly in days. My body's running on something else now—adrenaline, maybe, or just the cold certainty that I need to know.

She's still awake when I lie down. I can feel her watching me in the dark.

"Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

A pause. "Never mind. Get some rest."

I close my eyes. Wait. Listen to her breathing slow as she drifts off.

The castle settles around us. Voices fade. Footsteps in the corridor grow sparse, then stop. Somewhere distant, a door closes.

I count the hours in heartbeats.

At quarter to midnight, I open my eyes.

Time to move.

---

The castle at night is a different place.

The corridor is dark except for a few torches guttering in their brackets. My footsteps seem impossibly loud, but I've learned to walk quietly. Heel to toe, weight distributed, staying close to the walls where the floor is less likely to creak.

The back staircase is empty, just as I'd hoped. I descend slowly, one hand trailing the wall for balance. No windows here. The darkness is almost complete.

At the bottom, a corridor stretches left and right. I go left. Toward the east wing.

Voices ahead. I flatten against the wall, hold my breath.

Two guards walking past, talking quietly. Something about a card game, who owes who money. They don't look my way. Why would they? They're heading to bed after their shift.

I wait until their footsteps fade. Then I move.

The corridor with the locked door is around the next corner. I check my watch—a minute past midnight. The old guards should be waiting for relief. The new ones should be walking from the guardhouse now.

I peer around the corner.

Two guards standing by the door. Alert but bored. One yawns. The other shifts his weight, ready to be done.

Footsteps from the far end. The relief patrol approaching.

This is it.

The old guards straighten up as the new pair arrives. Brief exchange of words. A handover that takes longer than it should—someone made a joke, someone's laughing.

I don't wait. While all four of them are focused on each other, I slip around the corner and move toward the door.

Twenty metres. Fifteen. Ten.

They're still talking. Still not looking this way.

The door has a handle. A lock. But when I try it—

It opens.

They don't lock it from outside. The guards ARE the lock.

I slip through and pull it closed behind me, slow and silent.

Darkness. A staircase leading down.

I descend.

The air changes as I go deeper. Colder. Damper. The walls are rougher here, older stone. This part of the castle wasn't renovated like the rest. It was left as it was.

Or hidden as it was.

At the bottom, another corridor. Torchlight ahead. And something else.

Voices. Movement. The sound of someone coughing.

I move toward it.

The corridor opens into a larger space. A row of cells carved into the stone, iron bars across the front of each. Six cells. Four occupied.

A guard sits at a small table near the entrance, back to me, reading something by candlelight.

I freeze. But he doesn't turn. Doesn't hear me.

I press myself into the shadows of an alcove. Watch. Wait.

The prisoners are visible in the dim light. One sleeps, curled on a cot. Another paces, muttering to himself. A third sits against the far wall, head in hands.

The fourth is watching me.

Sitting on the edge of their cot, perfectly still, eyes fixed on the alcove where I'm hiding.

They've seen me.

For a long moment, neither of us moves.

Then, slowly, deliberately, they put a finger to their lips.

Stay quiet.

And they glance at the guard, then back at me, and tilt their head toward the cell.

Come closer.

---

I wait until the guard shifts in his chair, turning a page. Then I move.

The shadows along the wall give me cover. I stay low, stay slow, keep one eye on the guard's back. He doesn't turn.

The fourth cell is at the end of the row, furthest from the guard's table. The prisoner watches me approach with calm, measured eyes. A woman, maybe forty, with close-cropped grey hair and a face that's seen hard weather. She doesn't look afraid. She looks like she's been waiting.

I crouch by the bars. Keep my voice barely above a breath.

"Who are you?"

She doesn't answer directly. Just watches me with those steady eyes. "Someone who asked the wrong questions." Her voice is quiet, controlled. "Like you're doing now."

"What is this place?"

"What does it look like? Hugh's solution for problems he can't solve any other way." She glances toward the other cells. "Garrett over there stole food from the stores. Multiple times. The one pacing tried to start a fight that nearly became a riot. And Mitchell..." She pauses. "Mitchell killed someone. In a dispute over a woman."

So. Thieves, brawlers, killers. People who'd broken real rules, not people Hugh wanted silenced.

"And you?"

Her expression doesn't change. "I saw something I wasn't supposed to."

I lean closer to the bars. "What did you see?"

She studies me for a long moment. Weighing whether to trust me. I see the calculation happening behind her eyes.

"You're new," she says. "Arrived a few days ago. The soldier with the rifle they won't give back."

"How do you know that?"

"Word travels. Even down here." She leans closer to the bars. "You don't trust them either. I can tell."

"What did you see?" I ask again.

"Two weeks ago. Couldn't sleep—ironic, given where I am now. I was walking the walls, trying to clear my head. And I saw them."

"Saw who?"

"Hugh. Marcus. Half a dozen guards. They went out through the north gate, middle of the night. Quiet. No torches."

My chest tightens. "Where were they going?"

"I followed. Kept my distance. They met someone in the forest, maybe half a mile out." She pauses. "Raiders. A group of them. Maybe ten."

"Hugh was meeting with raiders?"

"More than meeting." Her voice drops even lower. "They had prisoners with them. Our people—or so I thought. Hands bound. Heads covered. I assumed it was an exchange. We'd captured some of theirs in a skirmish last month, and they'd taken some of ours."

"That sounds..." I hesitate. "Reasonable. A prisoner swap."

"That's what I thought. Until I saw who they handed over."

The air feels colder suddenly. "Who?"

"A woman named Catherine. And a man—I didn't know his name, but I'd seen him around. Working in the kitchens." She meets my eyes. "They weren't raiders. They were ours. Mugdock residents. And Hugh handed them over like cargo."

I want to disbelieve her. Want to find the lie in her words.

"Maybe you were wrong. It was dark. You said the prisoners had their heads covered—"

"I know Catherine. We shared a room for three weeks when I first arrived." Her voice is steady, certain. "I know how she walks. How she holds herself. It was her."

"Why would Hugh give our own people to raiders?"

"I don't know. I never got the chance to find out." She gestures at the cell around her. "The next morning, Marcus came to my room. Said I was being detained for theft. Said they found supplies in my belongings that I'd stolen from the stores." A bitter smile. "I hadn't stolen anything. But here I am."

The guard coughs. I press myself against the wall, heart pounding. But he just shifts in his chair, turns another page.

"What happened to Catherine?" I whisper. "And the man from the kitchens?"

"Gone. The official story is they left—wanted to try their luck elsewhere. But they didn't leave. I watched them being handed over to people who would kill them or worse."

"You don't know that. The raiders might have—"

"Might have what? Invited them for tea?" She shakes her head. "I've seen what raiders do. We all have. Hugh knows too. He handed those people over anyway."

I don't have an answer for that.

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask.

"Because you're asking questions. Walking around at night. Checking guard rotations." She almost smiles. "I recognise the signs. You don't trust Hugh either."

"I don't know what I think."

"Yes, you do. You're just not ready to admit it yet." She glances toward the stairs. "You should go. Guard rotation for the cells is less predictable than the door. You've been lucky so far."

I start to rise, then stop. "Is there anything else? Anything I should look for?"

She's quiet for a moment. Then: "There are people who've disappeared from Mugdock. Not many. But enough that I noticed. They're always the ones who cause problems. Who ask questions. Who don't fit." She meets my eyes one last time. "Be careful. Hugh's not what he seems. And if he decides you're a problem..."

She doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to.

I slip back through the shadows, past the guard, up the stairs. The door opens as quietly as it closed. The corridor beyond is empty. The new guards must be making their rounds.

I retrace my steps through the dark castle, heart hammering, mind racing.

Everything she said could be a lie. A criminal trying to manipulate me. Trying to find an ally, someone to help her escape.

But what if it's not?

What if Hugh is exactly what I feared he was?

---

Our room is exactly as I left it. Zoe still asleep, blanket pulled up to her chin. The window shows the first grey hints of dawn.

I've been down there longer than I thought.

I undress quietly. Slip back into bed. Lie there staring at the ceiling while my mind turns over everything the woman said.

Catherine. The man from the kitchens. Handed over to raiders in the middle of the night.

It could be a lie. She's a prisoner. She has every reason to manipulate me.

But the details. The specificity. The way she described what she saw. Not dramatic, not embellished. Just facts. Like someone who's told the story to herself so many times she's worn it down to its bones.

I think about the people I've seen here. The families. The children running between tables at breakfast. The workers heading out with purpose each morning. They seem content. Safe. Like they've found something worth protecting.

Would Hugh really trade them away?

And if he would—if he's capable of that—then what else is he capable of?

The woman's words echo: There are people who've disappeared. They're always the ones who cause problems.

I think about the conversation in Hugh's office. The way he studied me. The way he knew things about me that only Zoe could have told him.

You're asking questions. That's how I ended up here.

I should tell someone. Zoe. Someone on the inside who might believe me.

But who would believe me? I'm the new arrival. The soldier who can't sleep, who sees threats everywhere, who won't stop asking about his rifle. If I start talking about midnight meetings with raiders and people being traded away, they'll think I've lost my mind.

Maybe I have.

Zoe stirs. Rolls over. Her eyes open, unfocused with sleep.

"Jamie? What time is it?"

"Early. Go back to sleep."

She blinks at me. "You're awake."

"Couldn't sleep."

"Again?"

I don't answer. She watches me for a moment, and I see the concern there. The worry. The same look she's been giving me since we arrived.

She told them I'm struggling. Told Hugh.

"Jamie, if something's wrong—"

"Nothing's wrong. Just restless."

The lie comes easily. Too easily. But what's the alternative? Tell her what I found? Watch her face close off, watch her dismiss it as paranoia, watch the distance between us grow even wider?

I can't. I need to know more first.

"Try to rest," she says softly. "You need it."

She turns back over. Within minutes, her breathing evens out.

I lie there as the light grows stronger. The castle wakes around us. Footsteps in corridors. Voices. The distant clatter of breakfast being prepared.

Normal sounds. Normal life.

But somewhere beneath my feet, a woman sits in a cell because she saw something she wasn't supposed to. And somewhere out there, two people who should be safe are in the hands of people who would kill them.

If she's telling the truth.

If.

I don't know what to believe anymore. Don't know who to trust. The only thing I'm certain of is that I can't let this go.

I need to find out what happened to Catherine. Need to find someone who knew her, who can tell me if she really left or if she vanished in the night.

I need to find proof.

Or I need to accept that I'm losing my mind, that the paranoia's taken over, that I'm seeing monsters where there's only a man trying to hold a community together.

Either way, I can't stay in this limbo. Can't keep living with the uncertainty eating at me.

Tomorrow. I'll start looking tomorrow.

The dawn breaks fully now, pale light flooding through the window. Another day at Mugdock. Another day of chopping wood and watching guards and pretending everything's fine.

Another day of lying to everyone, including myself.

I close my eyes. The ceiling's still there when I open them again.