Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist by Liz Kessler

A brass knob turned slowly, creaking like an ancient floorboard as I twisted it. Despite the creaking, it turned easily enough, and I opened the door.

    I inched my way up a spiral staircase, gripping a rope handrail for support. Around and around, the stairs climbed steeply and tightly. I felt as though I were climbing into the clouds, floating upward. By the time I reached the top, I was dizzy and disoriented. Another door. This time I held my breath and turned the knob as slowly and gently as I could.
    I was in a corridor, wide and long, with pictures all along the walls. Battle scenes, shipwrecks, storms at sea; the kind of thing you always see in castles like this.
    I almost laughed at myself. Castles like this? How could I even think for a moment that this was like anywhere I’d ever been?
    I mean, yes, from the inside it looked a little likethe kind of place you might see in a book or on a documentary or something. But there was something different about it too. Aside from the fact that it seemed to float on a mist in the middle of the ocean, something about it felt unreal — like a film set or a cartoon. I couldn’t put my finger on it, exactly, but it was just a tiny step removed from reality. As I moved along the corridor, I felt a little like an actor in a film where everything else is computer-generated animation. Unreal.
    I kept glancing at the pictures to see if anything had changed while I wasn’t looking — whether the boats had moved or the storms had raged. They hadn’t. Of course they hadn’t. I was imagining it. I must be.
    I crept on down the corridor. Ahead of me, another door lay open. I went in.
    It was a smallish, box-shaped room, jam-packed from floor to ceiling with dusty books in fancy bindings, all bronze and gold. The titles were full of words I could hardly read. Most were foreign; a few were English. All looked hundreds of years old. Not exactly your light bedtime reading.
    Then I noticed the window. A large rectangle that covered half of one side of the room, it was set into a recess with a small bench. I sat on the bench and looked out. The sea stretched for miles and miles, all the way to the horizon, just as it did from Fortuna. But down below, waves lapped on rocksthat were gradually surfacing like bared teeth as the tide edged out. It was as though the castle stood on a podium above the rest of the world, separate from the world, floating above it as though in a dream. What was this place?
    Another door took me out of the library into a smaller room. One side of the room was filled with weapons. Opposite, the wall was covered in silk banners painted with flags from all over the world. I recognized some of the shapes and colors from geography lessons back in Brightport. Others were completely unfamiliar. There was even a skull and crossbones on one flag.
    I moved on quickly. The room led out to another corridor. More paintings on the walls, this time portraits. Men in naval uniforms, beautiful women smiling up at them, young men standing proud on the decks of warships, girls perched on rocks. I moved closer to examine the pictures in more detail. Hold on. Were they girls, or were they —
    What was that?
    A bell clanged loudly, echoing down the corridor.
    I glanced furtively around. Was it me? Had I tripped an alarm? Was someone going to come out and catch me? No! Please don’t let me be captured again! Memories of being caught and imprisoned in an underwater cell after I’d awoken the krakenrushed through me with a horrible shudder. I couldn’t get caught here!
    There was a recess behind me, a heavy wooden door at the back of it. I jammed myself into it, my heart almost bursting out of my mouth. Pinning my body to the door, I held my breath, shut my eyes tight, and prayed for the alarm to stop.
    And then it did. Stopped dead. Silence all along the long corridor. Nothing moved.
    My body sagged in relief as I leaned against the door, letting out a long breath and trying to decide