CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 55

I hadn't laughed so much and so hard in my entire life.

Sage pawed at my leg, trying to rouse me from my laugh-induced coma. I was still lying on the floor staring up at the vaulted ceiling, my cheeks sore and tingly, with salty tears that had slid down my throat and dampened the neckline of my dress. My palms gently rubbed the ache from my belly from howling in laughter for so long.

Sage's claws scraped through the fabric of my dress, stinging my thigh, as he nudged me again, letting out a half-hearted bark.

"Okay, okay," I murmured, pushing him away. Levering upwards by my elbows, I sat up and then rose. The heavy messenger bag's strap dug painfully into my shoulder bone. Using the cottony skirt of my dress I wiped my wet cheeks dry before heading to the kitchen on unsteady legs.

Holy hellsgate.

The Crowthers really thought I was frightened of them. That I'd be cowering in a dark corner, broken and weeping in despair. It was the funniest thing I'd ever heard come out of Graysen's mouth. And his worried expression when he'd asked—he'd truly been concerned.

Filling a glass with water, I drank fully, sighing with pleasure at the cool water saturating my parched throat. A soft ringing of glass on metal chimed through the air when I placed the empty vessel in the sink to deal with tomorrow with my very own hands, since the servants had the weekend off.

Entering the bathroom, I padded to the vanity and rose on tippy-toes to pluck my toothbrush from the glass canister perched on a shelf. Pulling open a drawer, I retrieved the toothpaste, unable to help the snickering when my gaze landed on the shallow wicker basket filled with a myriad of new toothbrushes still sealed in their display packets. I shook my head at Graysen, he had no idea what I'd done. Ten minutes later I'd finished brushing my teeth, washed and moisturized my face, and combed all the knots and snarls from my hair, tossing the long length over my shoulder.

The bedroom door swished open over the dark carpet, and I was greeted by warm copper glowing from my bedside lamp like the sun, while icy silver glistened from the waning moon hanging in the sky. The chilly night air was kept at bay by the wild magic vibrating across the open space cut out of the tower to allow the moonlight to flood across my bed.

Tossing the black messenger bag onto the mattress, I stripped out of my dress and underthings, leaving everything where they fell on the floor. My nighty slid over my figure in a ripple of silk. Sage wagged his tail as he trotted into the narrow bedroom. I pulled the bed's blankets aside and my legs slipped against soft sheets as I climbed inside, wriggling to get comfortable and tucking the blankets up around my hips.

For the past few hours, I'd spent my time undisturbed in the library, hunting through the computer's archives, trying to dig up the Keep's blueprints. Of course, there weren't any. And when I searched through the digital catalog for books I thought might include floor plans within their pages, I failed to find them on the bookshelves. They'd obviously been removed.