My heart pounded at the voice coming from up the stairs. I turned around quickly, holding my hands over it.
Helen stood near the top of the steps, her foot extended down to the next one with a candlestick clutched in her hands. The flame fluttered wildly, casting an ominous glow around the dark stairwell.
I swallowed. “H-Helen…”
Her eyes flitted between Erik and I. “I thought you weren’t feeling well since you refused dinner, so I came back around to check on you and saw you quickly running down here. What are you doing with Lord Erik?”
Guiltily, I glanced back at Erik. His eyes were wide probably guessing that he was going to be punished because we’d been caught and I would need to uphold my villainess status.
“We… we were…” he stuttered. “The Lady was just…”
There wasn’t any kind of convincing lie that we were going to be able to spin. Not when we were caught red handed.
Helen stepped further down the stairs, her eyes catching the basket next to the cell.
