The Dark City by Imogen Rossi Read Free Book Online Page A

green shadows between the dark stones, and the roof glitters an oily blue-green-black colour. The banners carry an eight-pointed silver star on a background of deep purple.
    I gape at the castle, stunned by the strange beauty of it. And there’s something else  …  it seems so familiar. As if I’ve been here, or dreamed this before. I have to get inside!
I can
almost see the twisting corridors and spiral staircases, curved alcoves, carved black wood doors.
    But before I can take a step towards the bridge over the canal, two heavy hands land on my shoulders. Twisting, I try to get away, but it’s no good.
    â€˜Got you, you little thief!’ The peddler from the fruit stall yanks me around to face him, grinning smugly. The two guards are behind him, their silver armour glinting and their faces stern.
    â€˜This is the girl?’ one says, grabbing my arm so tightly that I wince, but I can’t pull it away without twisting it right out of my shoulder.
    â€˜Yeah, that’s the one!’
    I flush with shame. I want to explain that I’ve never done anything like that before – I don’t know why I did it now – but I get the feeling that trying to explain won’t end well.
    â€˜Off to the dungeons with you,’ says the other guard, and pushes me forward so I stumble over my own feet. But I don’t feel cross, or even very scared, despite the ache in my arm and the wicked-looking obsidian blades on the end of the guards’ spears. Oddly, I just feel pleased – after all, I wanted to see the inside of the castle, and now I’m going to!
    I put up no resistance as the guards drag me over the bridge, across the main courtyard and through a small, dark archway into a dim passage that seems to curve down in a long, smooth spiral.
    The passage suddenly opens up on one side and I can see into a large courtyard. A flash of deep blue catches my eye as we pass, and I gasp.
    The Baron da Russo. He’s standing there, wearing his black cloak with the blue trim showing as it folds over his shoulder. He doesn’t see me – he’s bowing low to a lady in a purple dress embroidered with twisting veins of black and silver.
    The guards steer me on. Wrenching myself out of the guards’ grip, I spin to run back to the courtyard. The Baron is still there. This time I notice the woman’s crown, a delicate silver tiara studded with tiny diamonds that glimmer like stars when she moves. And her face  …  there’s something familiar about it. Her dark brown hair is smooth and glossy and caught up in an elaborate twist over one shoulder, but if it was loose and messy, and she was about twenty-five years younger  … 
    I frown. The woman looks a lot like
me
.
    I start to yell a warning, but the guard clamps his hand over my mouth and drags me away. I flail my arms, trying to grab on to a plinth in a stone alcove to stop the guards from dragging me along the passage, but my fingers curl around something that comes away in my hand. The guards hold me tight between them and shove me forward, but now I let them. I’m looking down at the thing I’ve picked up. It’s a bracelet, with engraved flowers twining around the surface and a clasp – but it’s tiny, as if it was made for a baby. As I look at it, my hand tingles, and then the tingling gets worse and worse – terrible pins and needles sending shooting twinges up my arm  … 
    And then Bianca woke up.
    The piercing light of sunrise was falling on her face and the sky outside the window was awash with pink and gold.
    Bianca wriggled and turned over. Her right hand was still tingling and she flexed her fingers underneath her pillow. She sighed, and it turned into a yawn. She must have been asleep for hours, but she was exhausted, as if she had really been running around a city all night. If only the Baron hadn’t appeared again, it would have been a good