The Mermaids Madness

behind the shelves?” Danielle asked. “Isn’t that a little cliché?”
    “Sure, if that passage were the real one.” Snow grinned and moved to the other end of the wall. “Beatrice didn’t want the trap to be too difficult to find.”
    Talia peered into the darkness. “What trap?”
    “The sixth step triggers a counterweight that slams the shelves shut, locking them behind you. If you’re lucky, someone hears you screaming and comes to let you out.” Snow grabbed a second set of shelves on the other side of the wall and pulled. These slid open without a sound, revealing another staircase. “The architecture book also unlocks the real passageway over here.”
    Talia grunted with reluctant approval. “How long has this passage been here?”
    “You would have found it long ago if you ever bothered to pick up a book.” The mirrors on her choker glowed like tiny moons as she stepped into the darkness.
    Talia looked at the trapped passage, then back at Snow, as if contemplating how hard it would be to toss Snow down those steps.
    “If Beatrice wanted us to know about Lannadae, she would have told us,” Danielle whispered. “Don’t blame Snow for Beatrice’s secrecy.”
    “She should have trusted us,” Talia snapped.
    “How many people should she trust with your secrets? Or Snow’s?”
    Talia glowered, then followed Snow down the steps.
    Danielle didn’t bother to pull the shelves shut behind them. As far as she knew, only Beatrice and the three princesses even knew these rooms were here. She hurried after the others while she could still see the light from Snow’s choker.
    The rock to her left was slick with algae and mildew. The wall to the right appeared to be made of loosely stacked stone, the kind of thing a child might build with rocks from the garden . . . if the child were playing with rocks the size of wagons. Sunlight peeked through the cracks, adding to Snow’s magical illumination.
    “These stairs are over a century old,” Snow said. “This was the old seagate path. Beatrice hired dwarves from Fairytown to dig this passage after a rockslide buried the path twelve years ago.” She kicked the stones and grinned. “I know it looks like a loud sneeze will collapse the rocks, but the mortar the dwarves used to reinforce the rock is stronger than steel.”
    “It’s filthy,” Danielle said.
    “It was supposed to be an escape route,” Snow went on. “But the rockslide also opened up a few caves down at sea level. So when Lannadae asked for sanctuary—”
    “Beatrice brought her here,” Danielle finished. Despite what she had said to Talia, a part of her was stung that Beatrice hadn’t told her. “Lannadae must have been terrified, to turn to humans for help.”
    “She was frantic,” said Snow. “Beatrice tried to get her to talk, but that only upset her more. Undine have actually been known to die of terror. Whatever Lannadae saw, it frightened her near to death.”
    Danielle stopped to peer through a gap in the rocks. The ocean was closer than she had expected. They were already more than halfway down the cliff.
    “Beatrice thought Lannadae would be safe here,” said Snow.
    “ Lannadae was safe,” Talia snapped.
    Normally, Snow would have either responded to Talia’s jabs in kind, or else she’d have stuck out her tongue and ended the whole thing. Not this time. Snow bowed her head, ostensibly watching the steps.
    Danielle searched for words. A part of her simply wanted to shove Talia down the steps, hoping the fall would knock some sense into her. This wasn’t Snow’s fault any more than it was Talia’s. But Talia was the kind of person who liked to seize a problem by the throat and throttle it into submission, preferably in such a way that left her other troubles too frightened to bother her. With Lirea out of reach, that left only Snow and Danielle as targets for her anger.
    Nobody spoke again until Snow’s footsteps began to splash in the water. Snow stopped to remove her boots, setting them against the inner wall on a higher step. “We’re close now. The tide is rising, so you’ll want to leave your things high enough to avoid the water.”
    Danielle removed her cloak and bundled her shoes inside. She retreated up the stairs, setting her things where they would be safe from the sea. The damp air raised goose bumps on her arms.
    The stairs descended into cool seawater. A bed of algae and seaweed covered the bottom steps. Danielle held the outer wall for