Free The Hidden Princess by Katy Moran Page A

been down here for almost six years. Long enough for a corpse to become nothing but bones.
    “We need to see,” I whisper, urgent and panicking, and I blow on my palm till the warmth of my breath coalesces into a globe of silver light.
    “I can’t go any closer.” Iris gasps, as if she’s trying not to be sick. She flattens herself against the nearest wall, holding one hand up to cover her mouth. “Can’t you smell it, Lissy? The iron?”
    What has my life become? A prisoner scurrying around in the dark, my only friend a Hidden girl with a broken mind; the pair of us planning a murder? My heart races and I squat down, my gown trailing in the damp, sticking to my legs. Shadows leap, but the skeleton is easy enough to see – lying face down, one arm reaching out, strands of wiry grey hair still plastered to the skull. Not Rafe then. Or Dad. They were both blond last time I saw them, but perhaps years of wandering alone in the darkness would be enough to strip the colour from anyone’s hair. Tears spring to my eyes, trailing down my face. What must it be like to die down here, so desperate and alone? I know I’ve got to take a closer look, to know for sure who this was. I reach out, reluctantly brushing my fingers against a wizened strip of fabric still stuck to the ribcage. It looks as if it has been nibbled by mice. Or rats. Another wave of cold horror rolls over me. I take the fabric between thumb and forefinger, tugging gently. Silent, it comes away from the bones and I hold it up to the globe of light resting in my other palm.
    It’s tweed. Stained green tweed.
    I know that jacket. I saw it, years ago, hanging in the boot room at Hopesay Reach. I never met the owner, but I know who he was. Who I hope he was – anyone can take a coat, after all.
    “It’s Miles Conway,” I whisper.
    Iris draws in a deep, shuddering breath. It’s always horrible to see the effect iron has on the Hidden. How they can’t even bear to be near it.
    “Miles,” she whispers. “He’s the one who opened the Gateway last time. Twenty years ago – Rose’s lover, her mortal knight.”
    I look down at the stained, rag-draped bones.
Miles
. It really could be him. He must have died searching for Rose. Miles grew up with legends of the Hidden – stories of so much power that he couldn’t resist finding out if they were true. Miles and Rose. Mum and the Swan King. They were both so young. So completely and utterly stupid and naive.
Oh, Mum
. I’m never going to see her again: there’s no breaking a Hidden bargain, and I came to the Halls with my father to save Connie’s life. She’s cursed. If I leave, she’ll die. Even if I wait down here for years and years – the entire length of Connie’s life – by the time I walk out into the daylight again, Connie and most likely everyone else I know will be dead and gone. Mum, Dad, Rafe. Joe. All gone. The world will have moved on without me, and I’ll be a stranger to everybody. Even then, the Swan King will still have my blood – how could I ever be sure he wouldn’t release the plague?
    Unless he were dead?
    “Maybe Miles came looking for Rose,” I say, quietly. “How awful. And it was all for nothing: he had no chance of finding her.” I’ll never forget the moment Joe killed Rose, flinging that iron knife into her face as she tried to stop us escaping back into the mortal world through the Western Caverns, her cry as she lay dying. We thought we were free. We thought we’d won. We couldn’t have been more wrong. My father always wins. Every time.
    “I don’t care, Lissy!” Iris hisses. “Just search him and find the iron –
please
. I can’t stand it for much longer.”
    “I don’t think we should be here. What do you want me to do, Iris? Kill my father? Is that what you’re asking me to do?”
    Iris stares at me, cowering against the damp earthen tunnel wall, as far away from the stench of iron as she can get. “Please, Lissy.”
    Mum
. All this started with