Traitor and the Tunnel by Y. S. Lee

lifted it careful y from the shelf, noting its precise angle and placement. One had to assume that everything was a snare. The shelf was unpainted wood, somewhat dusty – another potential trap, Mary realized, since it would render visible even the slightest touch. Yet Honoria had already disturbed the shelf. It was worth the risk.
    She felt about delicately, unsure of what she was seeking. But the instant her fingertips met something sharp and metal ic – colder than bare wood – she smiled. It was a latch, invisibly mounted at the very edge of the shelf. In her experience, that meant a simple sort of door – nothing that would fool a team of professionals out for blood, but a concealed entrance al the same.
    She pressed gently against the shelf. Nothing.
    But when she pul ed it towards her, instead, she immediately felt it give. It was only a smal shift – a fraction of an inch – but it moved, al the same.
    Mary’s pulse, already rapid, leapt so strongly she felt it throb in each fingertip, in her throat. A secret door in Buckingham Palace! And Honoria Dalrymple had just walked through it. She control ed a ferocious impulse to dash after her in pursuit. Not now, when she hadn’t a clue, or even a candle. Mary replaced the blue-and-white jug with care, turned and left the kitchens.

    Eleven
    Five minutes later, she was properly equipped: coatless and wearing soft-soled shoes, carrying a candle, a box of lucifers and her hairpin lock-pick.
    As she came back down the service stairs, with more than usual care, a distant clock struck midnight. It was early yet, she told herself, trying to contain her sudden simmering anticipation at the prospect of adventure. It was quite likely that Honoria would remain behind the secret door for some time.
    She couldn’t just blunder in. She would have to improvise. Yet that was one of the things that made her happiest, and so it was with a very real lightening of spirit, if not physical discomfort, that Mary settled in to wait, at the other end of the kitchens near the larder.
    It was a deeply familiar situation – sitting on her haunches, in the dark. She’d spent countless hours on “watch training” at the Agency, learning to maintain her sense of time’s passing without even the skies for reference; remaining alert but not overfocused; keeping her limbs from fal ing asleep, without the privilege of movement. It was, on the surface, a simple matter but one she had struggled with. Her propensity was either to remain so furiously alert and stil that she found her joints stiff and seized just when she most needed them, or to ponder the possibilities of each case so intently that she lost track of time. As Anne and Felicity noted, she was a creature of extremes.
    Neither of these occurred tonight. Instead, she committed a new and astonishing error: fal ing into a daydream. It was something she’d never done before,
    and
    something
    she’d
    never
    quite
    understood. It had always seemed impossible to become so distracted in uncomfortable, high-tension situations where nearly al questions remained unresolved. But this evening, Mary was a few miles and many years away, sifting through fragmented memories of Limehouse and her father, when she became aware of the scraping sound of the hidden door. She started and, compounding her error, gasped slightly.
    There was a second gasp, like a magnified echo of her own. Then, Honoria’s voice: “Who’s there?”
    Mary was instantly awake and furious with herself.
    However, there was nothing to do but remain perfectly stil and silent.
    “I know you’re there,” said Honoria, after another pause. Bold words, but her voice was higher and thinner than usual.
    Mary’s tension eased a fraction. Fear was good –
    for her, at least. The next few seconds must have stretched endlessly for Honoria, but Mary’s internal clock was working once again. She heard an uncertain shuffle, and then another. Impossible to know in which