CHAPTER THREE
Jade followed the old servant up several flights of stairs. Her surroundings became progressively more pleasant along the way. The steps went from slippery, dark stone, to polished marble then to polished red wood. Smells changed from damp decay to the enticing aromas of exotic food. From somewhere nearby floated the melancholy sounds of a stringed musical instrument; the unseen musician plucking a strange but pleasant tune. The walls on either side of the stairs began as rough black rock, altered to gleaming wood and then to something translucently white that she suspected was nothing more than thin cloth framed in black wood.
This last change reassured her. They couldn’t possibly hold her prisoner in walls that she could put her finger through. Maybe it had been all
