Unhonored by Tracy Hickman Page A

mean.”
    Jonas gave Ellis a questioning glance.
    â€œWell, your costume isn’t much better,” Ellis observed. “Exploring ruins in servant’s livery. At least your shoes are more sensible. You might as well carry her across.”
    Jonas nodded, stepping back to rescue the still-shivering woman standing in the rain just short of entering the room.
    â€œIt’s odd that all the glass is broken. All of it is inside the room,” Ellis muttered more to herself than to anyone else as she crossed to one of the oak doors. “Jonas, come take a look at this!”
    Jonas stepped back into the room with Alicia draped across his arms. “What is it?”
    â€œThis door … and all along the wall,” Ellis said as she leaned closer for a better look. “There’s glass here, too. How would the glass from those outside doors get embedded all the way over here?”
    â€œWind, perhaps,” Jonas offered.
    â€œWith this much force?” Ellis shook her head. “Some of these shards are embedded nearly the length of my thumb and almost to the ceiling. What kind of wind would do that?”
    It was then that Ellis noticed several dark stains against the wall, beginning at about her shoulder height and widening toward the floor.
    â€œPerhaps we had better move on,” Jonas said quietly.
    Ellis only nodded. She stepped through the broken doorframe into a long hall. The oak doors that should have been in the frame lay against the opposite side of the hall, their finish dusty and weathered. The hall had sets of double marble columns on both sides rising up to support arches that extended down the hall nearly a hundred feet. The patterns of French blue and white tiles could barely be seen beneath the layer of dust under her feet. Dull light from the morning gave scarce illumination through the dirty, round windows set on the far side. The bottom of a wide, marble staircase rose up from the hallway to Ellis’s left while the hall ended in a closed door at the far end and a crossing hall behind her.
    Jonas stepped through the door, lowering Alicia’s feet so that she might stand on her own. He spoke with some assurance. “I remember this hall.”
    â€œWhich way, then?” Ellis asked.
    â€œThe stairs, I think,” Jonas answered.
    â€œYou think ?” Ellis looked sharply at the man with the paisley-shaped blemish across his right eye and face. “Aren’t you sure ?”
    â€œIt’s the Tween, Ellis,” Jonas replied, hurt coloring his tone. “It’s always changing and being changed. One can never be sure about anything, but I do know how to find Jenny.”
    â€œAnd we’ll never get out without her,” Ellis repeated as though the refrain had become wearily familiar. She absently took her hat off her head and started down the hall with Alicia at her heels following a pace behind Jonas.
    They were nearly halfway up the stairs before Ellis noticed them. Two young men in clean dark suits, their collars stiff and starched, tripping down the stairs and engaged in quiet, intense conversation. Their slicked hair gleamed in the light from a broken section of the ceiling overhead. One of them turned his dark eyes to Ellis, half raising his hand in acknowledgment as he smiled.
    â€œGood morning, Ellis!” the young man said in a clear voice.
    â€œGood morning, Murray,” Ellis answered easily, and then stopped on the stairs.
    Murray turned again to continue his conversation with his companion as they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to the left, vanishing from view.
    â€œWho was that?” Alicia asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before.”
    â€œMurray Abramowitz,” Ellis said. “He was a fellow student of mine at Boston Medical College.”
    â€œDo you think he can help us?” Alicia started down the stairs.
    Ellis gripped her shoulder and held her back. “I