A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas

the tower. She knew better. It seemed too much like real imprisonment if she was confined to one room, and her father always had been a gentle sort of soul.
    The lock clicked, and Aurora gave the door an experimental push. It slid open a few inches, and she peered out. The corridor was deserted. She hurried along it, and the next, slipping through the shadows by instinct until she reached the door to her tower. It was an imposing thing, with ornate swirls carved into the wood and several heavy locks and bars. The handle was cold in her hand, and she pulled hard, half expecting the door to resist.
    It swung open with a creak, and Aurora darted inside. When she closed the door behind her, the darkness became so thick that she could not tell where the walls ended and the air began. She bent down and groped in front of her until her hands brushed stone, then began to trace up and down, left and right with her fingertips. Somewhere, she had scratched a tiny star into the wall, marking the exact block she needed.
    There. She pried her fingernails into the gap between the stones and tugged. The scraping set her teeth on edge, but the stone came loose, then the one next to it, and the one after that, until a small crawl space appeared.
    It had been her escape route. She had spent years exploring every inch of her tower, hunting down secrets, but this one had been the hardest won, and by far the best. Every time the castle walls pressed too close around her, she would wrench the bricks free and crawl out into the forest, enchanted by the risk, the thrill of endless space. The tunnel had been built on purpose, she had told herself every time a voice insisted she should tell herfather about its existence. He had included it in the tower himself, so that if anything terrible happened, she could slip out into the forest and escape. No one could see it from the outside. No one else could move the bricks. It was safe. So she told herself.
    Now she paused at the edge of the space. Was this how Celestine had entered her tower, all those years ago? Through the tunnel that Aurora had kept secret, convinced that the freedom it offered was worth the risk? She swayed for a moment, staring in the blackness, and then shoved the thought aside. It was too late for those kinds of questions and regrets.
    She wriggled inside. Dust clung to her clothes and her knees, but before she had crawled a few feet, the floor sloped downward, creating a narrow corridor she could stand in if she crouched. The tunnel was pitch black, apart from the occasional glint of light peeking in through the cracks in the stone. Cobwebs snatched at her hair, and there was a scuttling noise she did not want to think about, but her groping hands knew the way well, and soon fresh air fluttered at her face.
    The exit was still open, covered with little more than ivy and grass and a few loose stones. She scraped at them with her nails, fighting her way through, and then she was outside, crouched on a slope that led onto the street.
    She stepped onto the cobbled road, and her feet curled around the uneven stones. The streets wove in and out with no apparent logic, and Aurora followed them blindly, chasing the sound of activity and the distant movement of others. A century ago, shehad always been too scared to visit the nearby town, certain that someone would recognize her. The same fear prickled the inside of her stomach now, the dreadful, thrilling feeling that she was doing something dangerous and forbidden, but she walked on, not entirely sure what she was looking for.
    The larger roads near the castle were lit by lanterns, hanging from the walls like eyes gleaming in the dark. Not magic, she knew, but something like it, some strange power that let the fire burn bright and bold. The same power, perhaps, that held together this cramped, sprawling, impossible city. The buildings climbed on top of one another, chasing up into the darkness, and ropes hung from window to window, clothes