Yrene hurled for the handle, gripping it with all her strength to keep from sliding past as she shoved against it.
The door opened, and she whirled in, legs slipping beneath her as she slammed her entire body into the door and fumbled for the lock. There were two.
She finished the first when the person on the other side barreled into the door.
The entire thing shuddered.
Her fingers shook, her breath escaping in sharp sobs as she fought for the second, heavier lock.
She flipped it closed just as the door buckled again.
“What in hell—”
“Get inside your room,” she breathed to Chaol, not daring to take her eyes off the door as it shuddered. As the handle rattled. “Get in—now.”
Yrene looked then to find him in the threshold of his bedroom, sword in his hand. Eyes on the door.
“Who the hell is that.”
“Get inside,” she said, her voice breaking. “Please.”
He read the terror in her face. Read and understood.
He shoved back into the room, holding the door for her and then sealing it behind her.
The front door cracked. Chaol locked his bedroom door with a click. Only one lock.
“The chest,” he said, his voice unfaltering. “Can you move it?”
Yrene whirled to the chest of drawers beside the door. She didn’t reply as she threw herself against it, shoes again slipping on the polished marble—
She kicked off her shoes, bare skin finding better grip on the stone as she heaved and grunted and shoved—
The chest slid in front of the bedroom door.
“The garden doors,” Chaol ordered, finishing locking them.
They were solid glass.
Dread and panic curled in her gut, ripping the breath from her throat.
“Yrene,” Chaol said evenly. Calmly. He held her gaze. Steadying her. “How far is the nearest entrance to the garden from the outer hall?”
“A two-minute walk,” she replied automatically. It was only accessible from the interior rooms, and as most of these were occupied … They’d have to take the hall to the very end. Or risk running through the bedrooms next door, which … “Or one.”
“Make it count.”
She scanned the bedroom for anything. There was an armoire beside the glass doors, towering high above. Too high, too enormously heavy—
But the movable screen to the bathroom …
Yrene hurtled across the room, Chaol lunging for a set of daggers on his nightstand.
She grabbed the heavy wooden screen and hauled and shoved it, cursing as it snagged on the rug. But it moved—it got there. She flung open the armoire doors and wedged the screen between it and the wall, shaking it a few times for good measure. It held.
She rushed to the desk, throwing books and vases off it. They shattered across the floor.
Stay calm; stay focused.
Yrene hauled the desk to the wood screen and flipped it onto its side with a clattering crash. She shoved it against the barricade she’d made.
But the window—
There was one across the room. High and small, but—
“Leave it,” Chaol ordered, sliding into place in front of the glass doors. Sword angled and dagger in his other hand. “If they try that route, the small size will force them to be slow.”
Long enough for him to kill it—whoever it was.
“Get over here,” he said quietly.
She did so, eyes darting between the bedroom door and the garden doors.
“Deep breaths,” he told her. “Center yourself. Fear will get you killed as easily as a weapon.”
Yrene obeyed.
“Take the dagger on the bed.”
Yrene balked at the weapon.
“Do it.”
She grabbed the dagger, the metal cool and heavy in her hand. Unwieldy.
His breathing was steady. His focus unrelenting as he monitored both doors. The window.
“The bathroom,” she whispered.
“The windows are too high and narrow.”
“What if it’s not in a human body?”
The words ripped from her in a hoarse whisper. The illustrations she’d seen in that book—
“Then I’ll keep it occupied while you run.”
With the furniture in front of the exits—
His words sank in.
“You will do no such—”
The bedroom door shuddered beneath a blow. Then another.
The handle shook and shook.
Oh, gods.
They hadn’t bothered with the garden. They’d simply gotten in the front doors.
Another bang that had her flinching away. Another.
“Steady,” Chaol murmured.