?


    Somehow, I managed to daze all of the guards at once.


    But Enzo and I didn''t have time to stand around and try to figure out how I did it. There was no knowing exactly how long this spell of mine wouldst, and for all we knew Selena had already been alerted to our location. We seemed to have an unspoken agreement to run as fast as we could, and that was exactly what we did. We ran across thergewn that led up to the mansion, weaving through the stupefied guards, and bolted up the steps to another door that was slightly off to the side. We could reuse the same entrance we had used before, but we also couldn''t simply walk in through the front doors, Instead, we used a small wooden door that was tucked into the corner of the mansion; and, much to my surprise, it opened to a set of stairs that were going down.


    With onest apprehensive look at each other, Enzo and I shut the door behind us and began our descent.? 2024 N?v/el/Dram/a.Org.


    The stairs led to some sort of old root cer. The floors and walls were all made of cobblestone, and when I flicked on my phone''s shlight, I noticed that there were rows of shelves containing all sorts of weapons.


    This wasn''t a cer, it was an armory.


    And it was a packed one, at that.


    Enzo walked over to a shelf that contained arge amount of swords and picked one up, inspecting it in the light of my shlight.


    "Damn," he said quietly, turning the de this way and that. "It looks razor sharp."


    I swallowed nervously. "Put it back," I said. "We need to move."


    Enzo nodded and slowly put the sword back on the rack. I never exined to him the premonition that I saw in the portal about my life being intertwined with Selena''s, but I had a feeling that he knew something about it. But now wasn''t the time to talk about it.


    I had to push away the thought that we might not ever get to talk again after tonight. If I was going to die, then I didn''t want Enzo stopping me. Selena had to be stopped for the sake of both realms, and if Enzo knew that I was potentially marching to my death, then he would let the world burn instead of letting me do it.


    All I could do to keep myself going was hope that what the old man said was right; that no one needed to die.


    But, of course, those were just the ramblings of an old man.


    Enzo and I quietly made our way through the armory, which branched off into several tunnels. The longer we walked, in fact, the more I realized that there must have been an entire tunnel system under the mansion.


    "Hey," I said, peering into one of the dark tunnels. It went so far that I couldn''t even see where it tumed. "Do these go under the entire mansion?"


    Enzo shrugged. "Probably," he replied. "It would only make sense, the first royal family that built this mansion probably had all sorts of escape routes. It''s probably how your father and Selena escaped when the Crescents tried to assassinate you."


    "Just thinking about it makes me sick," I said with a shudder. I wondered what had happened that night; how did ite to be that the Crescents only managed to steal me and kill my mother? Was it just pure luck that my father got Selena out?


    "It''s alright," Enzo replied gently, squeezing my hand. "You don''t have to worry about that now. There are bigger things to think about tonight."


    However, Enzo''s words didn''t make me feel any better. In fact, they only made me feel worse.


    I couldn''t hide it anymore. A thick, choked sob caught in my throat and echoed through the damp tunnels. I mped my hand over my mouth, but there was no stopping it at this point. The tears were already flowing.


    Enzo stopped and pulled me close, hugging me tightly while I cried. His chest muffled my uncontroble sobs, but it wasn''t enough to silence mepletely.


    "Hey, hey," Enzo whispered, pulling away just enough to bend down to my level and hold me by both shoulders. "Shh. Talk to me."