Noble felt panic creep up inside her. They had been the ones to make Flint return to the palace, where she couldn't detect him. If her emotional detection was suppressed by the palace walls, likely her Kingdom Keeper attribute was as well.
Not that the attribute would guarantee people's safety. She had seen firsthand that wasn't the case. But at least she would have had some clue that he was in danger.
Drusus was missing too. That wasn't a good sign. The young soldier was quite kind and harmless normally, but he had come through the mirror very disoriented.
If he hadn't been able to gain his composure, or if he did and somehow associated Flint with the death of his beloved, then trouble might have erupted.
'Flint could handle himself. Drusus is only an Awakened,' Noble reminded herself.
"Do we have the wrong room?" Aether tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
"I would love to believe that is true, but Flint's belt and the cape that was draped over Drusus are here," Noble observed as calmly as she could.
"No sign of blood or a struggle. It seems they left here peacefully," Roan's words calmed Noble's nerves.
Flint wouldn't have left peacefully if he thought he was in danger. Unless Drusus somehow gained inhuman strength to overpower Flint and surprise him, the surly Master has chosen to leave…probably.
Helie rolled her eyes.
"Just great. How far could they have gone? It's not like this place is impossibly large or anything. And that is assuming they stayed inside."
"They did," Aether confirmed. Unless they went out a window or found another exit, the door hasn't moved since we last saw it, and there were no new footprints in the wet ground outside."
"The wet ground?" Roan raised an eyebrow at him.
Aether coughed. "Ah, well. While it might have been rude to fully seal Flint inside, I saw no harm in spilling some of my water on the ground and seeing if he left again."
The other three looked at the young man for a moment in surprise. They sometimes took his politeness for naïvety, which was unfair.
Aether had acted in the group's best interest. Rather than call Flint out falsely, he had devised a simple plan to see if the surly Master would keep his word.
Insofar as the front door was concerned, Flint had.
"Well then, I suppose we should go searching for him." Roan turned toward the door. "One of us could stay here and wait while the others split up to search, but I personally would advise against it."
"Because of the Saint and her minions who are out to get us and who could attack without notice?" Helie raised an eyebrow.
"That is a contributing factor," Roan chuckled, "But I was thinking more along the lines of those movies Telle makes me go see when we are in the waking world. There are always some youths who split up inside old abandoned buildings and, well, bad things always happen."
It was a little silly of the leader to rely on horror films to guide his actions, but the premise of safety in numbers was an undeniable fact. It might take them longer to find Flint, but they would be much stronger together if they ran into any trouble.
Therefore, no one argued with his logic. They simply nodded and followed their leader into the hall.
After yelling Flint's name a few times and receiving no response, the group settled down to search room by room.
The halls had seemed eerie before in the broad daylight and spooky at night, but just now in the late afternoon sun, the stone passageways seemed completely unfriendly. Noble couldn't put her finger on what had changed, so she assumed it was her mentality.
Last time she had been in the building, no one had been actively plotting to kill her. Or at least she wasn't aware if they were. Most likely, Maelys had set the plan in motion after they had parted at the stable, so Noble was simply blissfully ignorant.
Now cognizant of the threat, every doorway seemed dangerous, and each corner felt like it might hold the promise of death.
'You are being dramatic,' Noble chided herself. 'Maelys would be silly to try again so soon, wouldn't she? Now that she knows I cannot be ambushed by just anyone, she will have to be more creative if she tries again.'
Somehow, that thought that should have comforted her had the opposite effect. In her previous Nightmare, Noble had nearly died of creatively poisoned wine.
'I would prefer not to try that again.'
As they searched the rooms of the hall, dozens of horrible ways to die flashed across Noble's mind. She devised ways to avoid each one of them, provided she saw them coming.
It seemed her companions had fallen into a similar state of melancholy, for none of them spoke. Or perhaps they were just listening for any sign of the two missing men.
A half hour passed without any luck. What Noble would have given for Orrin's tracking ability just now. Of course, if he were here, he would have been with Flint, and the skill would have been no use to her.
She hadn't even had the forethought to activate her [Bread Crumbs], so after the eighth corner and second staircase, Noble had no idea how to get back to the palace door except for flying out one of the windows.
'Maybe I will naturally be able to find my way as a Saint. Wouldn't that be something?' Noble tried to cheer herself.
But no sooner had she had the hopeful thought than the group turned down a darkened hall.
"Surely he wouldn't have gone this way," Noble mused. "He must be back the way we came."
"I am not so sure," Helie frowned. "The stone here; it feels different. I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like someone has walked here recently."
Noble had noticed that the other female had taken over the lead not long before, and now she knew why. Like a spider who senses her prey has been caught in a web, Helie had found her element, earth and stone, had been recently disturbed.
The rest of the group fell in line behind her, careful not to disturb her focus. With each couple of steps, she bent down and touched the cold floor. Her movement became more confident.
When they finally exited the dark passage and returned to one lit by the beautiful system of mirrors overhead, the group let out the breath they had been holding.
Noble began to feel a faint tug on her soul. The Kingdom Keeper attribute had found one of her lost subjects and was trying to establish itself once again.
Noble had never felt her attribute behave so strangely, but she assumed it was reacting to her ardent desire to find her lost friend. She followed the sensation to the door two ahead of them and on the left.
'Here,' she mouthed.
Putting her hand on the door, Child of Promise prepared herself to surprise the man who had been hiding so capably from their view.
But just then, someone screamed.