Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and following this story! Thank you especially to max2013, Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, and Evergreen Dreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter! I appreciate really appreciate your support!

I have a very busy weekend ahead of me, so I won't be updating until Sunday or Monday. It's not super late, but I thought I'd give you a heads up anyway.

Chapter XIII

Robin fitted an arrow to the string of his bow as he and Nancy entered the old castle. It was fitted out with electric lights, which were turned on. Nancy looked around the grand entry hall, which was huge but utterly devoid of any decoration or furniture whatsoever. No one was in sight.

"Okay," Nancy said finally. "They're obviously expecting us, even if they didn't plan to meet us at the front door. What do we do? Just go and find George and see what happens?"

"I guess that's all we can do," Robin agreed. "Come on. I'll show you the way."

He led her to one of the doorways that led out of the hall and plunged right through it. Nancy, however, stopped short in front of it, noticing that something had been engraved into the stone above it.

"What are you waiting for?" Robin turned around when he noticed that she wasn't following him.

"We need to be careful," Nancy told him. "Someone's engraved the words 'The Puce Knight' over the doorway."

"So?" Robin asked. "What does that mean?"

"This whole thing is based off the story of Sir Gareth," Nancy explained. "When he was on his quest to rescue the kidnapped Lyonesse, he had to fight four knights – the Black Knight, the Green Knight, the Red Knight or the Puce Knight, as he is sometimes called, and the Indigo Knight. Then finally he had to fight the Red Knight of the Red Lawns."

"Oh," Robin said. "I get it. That old suit of armor was the Black Knight, I'm the Green Knight, and now the Puce Knight. It doesn't necessarily mean anything bad, though, right? I mean, it's not like you had to actually fight that hunk of iron or me, for that matter."

"True," Nancy agreed, although not without reservation in her voice. "They could just be using the colored knights as signposts, of sorts. Even so, I'm not going to take anything for granted here."

"Good idea," Robin replied. "Let's go, but carefully."

Nancy followed him as they crept through the hallways. Apart from the front hall, none of the lights seemed to be on, and so Nancy turned on her phone's flashlight to show the way. There were several twists and turns, as if the castle had been intentionally designed to be a maze. Although Robin said nothing about being unsure of the way, there were several times when he stopped and seemed to be trying to remember it.

As this continued on, Nancy couldn't help but think of how ridiculous the situation was. Here she was, in the middle of the night, creeping around a dark maze of a castle with a man whose name she didn't know and whose face she had never seen and who was dressed in a full Robin Hood costume, carrying around a bow and arrow that he seemed to intend to use as an actual weapon and not just a prop, half-expecting to be ambushed at any second by a knight in armor, and both of them knowing perfectly well that they had walked right into a trap. Nancy had had some strange adventures, but surely this was one of the strangest.

Nancy glanced at her phone's screen, wondering if Ned had replied to her text yet. He hadn't but that didn't necessarily mean that he hadn't seen it, as Nancy now noticed that she had no cell reception here.

"Nancy," Robin said finally. "I'm sorry, but this place is a maze. I'm lost."

"I thought you knew the way," Nancy replied. "You said you talked to George here."

"I did," Robin insisted. "It was just last night, too. I thought I could find my way, but there are just too many turns."

Nancy sighed. "Okay. It's all right. We can figure this out." She looked around her, trying to think of a way to keep the directions straight. There didn't seem to be one.

NDNDNDNDND

"What happened?" Carson demanded, looking from Ned to Bess to the other boys. "Didn't Nancy say anything about where she was going?"

Bess shook her head. "I didn't even notice until Ned started knocking on the door and asked if she was in our room. I woke up and her bed was empty."

"How did you know she was gone, Ned?" Carson asked.

"I got a text from her," Ned explained. "She said she's doing some investigating and it might be dangerous and to be ready to come help her if she asked for it. I've tried to call her and text her several times, but she won't answer."

"She left a note on the table in our room," Bess added. "It just said she'd be back in half an hour."

"This is just great," Dave said. "First, George, and now Nancy's gone. What could have happened to her?"

Carson was trying hard to stay calm, recalling all the other times Nancy had gone off to investigate without telling anyone exactly where. She had always come back before. "Maybe nothing. I'm sure she's fine. And I'm sure she didn't go too far. She doesn't even have her car here, and I have the keys to mine."

"But she does have the set of spare keys to mine," Ned told him. "There's been so many times that she's had to borrow my car, that I just gave her a set."

The news did little to comfort Carson, but he put the best face he could on it. "Okay. Let's go see if the car's still here. If it isn't, she wouldn't have left town. Not in the middle of the night with the roads the way they are. We can drive around in my car and probably find her in no time."

"You three should stay here, in case she comes back," Ned told Burt, Dave, and Bess.

With that, he and Carson hurried down to the parking lot of the hotel. Each felt his heart sink a little at seeing the spot where Ned's car had been parked empty. With one accord, they dashed to Carson's car and climbed in.

"Where do we look first?" Ned asked.

Carson shook his head as he turned the key in the ignition. "I don't know. Maybe that restaurant with the suit of armor. I have no idea where else she might think to look."

"Or she might have thought of something that we missed at the church where George disappeared," Ned suggested. "We should check out those two places first."

They were both too preoccupied to say much more as they went first to the restaurant and then to the church. Ned's car was nowhere in the vicinity of either, and there was no other sign of Nancy. With those two possibilities leading nowhere, Carson and Ned sat in the car, lost in desperate worry.

"Where else could have she gone?" Ned asked finally.

Carson didn't reply, as he was trying to think through what clue Nancy could have found. There was something that had stood out to her, and he felt he ought to be able to figure out just what it was.

"I guess I should be used to this," Ned said after a while. "It's not like this is the first time Nancy's done something like this. But you know that even better than I do."

Carson nodded slowly. "How much has she told you about this case?"

"Not everything," Ned admitted. "She said there was some background that she'd fill all of us in on later. She did say it had something to do with the Hardys. What's their connection to all of this?"

Leaning an elbow against the steering wheel, Carson put a hand to his forehead. He did not want to have to tell this story again so soon. There wasn't time, anyway. Ned would have to be content with the short version for now. "There was a case, years ago – shortly after I finished law school. Fenton Hardy and I both worked on it. It was a murder case, involving multiple murders based off a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories. The outcome – wasn't great for anyone involved in it. One of the men responsible for it just got out of prison a few months ago."

"And you think he's out for revenge?" Ned had no difficulty in filling in the blanks. "And he's going to get it by going after Nancy?"

"And Frank and Joe, too," Carson replied. "They had a close call back in September."

"They've been helping Nancy dig up some information," Ned told him. "Maybe – I don't know. They might somehow have some idea where she went."

Carson considered the possibility for a few moments before saying, "It's a long shot, but it's worth a try. Do you have either of their numbers?"

"Yeah." Ned dug his phone out of his pocket and opened up the contact list. For a moment, he contemplated which one to call, and then decided on Joe.

The phone only rang once before Joe answered, sounding a little uncertain at getting a call from Ned in the middle of the night.

"Hey, Joe, have you talked to Nancy recently?" Ned asked.

"A couple of days ago," Joe told him. "Why? What's up?"

"It's just that Nancy went off by herself and we don't know where," Ned replied. "We thought there might be a chance she would have talked about it with you and Frank. I guess we were wrong. Sorry to have woken you up."

"You didn't," Joe said dryly. "But if Nancy's missing, and she said something about getting a book and a weird note in the mail – Oh, man."

"What?" Ned asked. "Do you know something about what's going on?"

"This sounds like them again," Joe replied unhelpfully. "But why would they be bothering Nancy?"

"What are you talking about?" Ned gripped his phone a little tighter.

"Shanth." Joe sounded like it was an effort to say the name. "How would he even know about Nancy?"

"We already know about him," Ned said in some confusion. "In fact, since he's pretty much the main suspect, I thought Nancy had you guys track down what information you could on him."

"She had us do what?" Joe asked.

"Well, Frank called earlier and told Nancy what he knows about where the Shanths came from and all of that," Ned explained. "I guess I just assumed you were looking into it, too."

"Yeah," Joe replied, his voice almost a little sarcastic. "Because Frank and I never do anything apart from each other."

NDNDNDNDND

George shivered as she pulled her arms out of the sleeves of her coat, trying to warm them as much as possible. She was cold and tired, even after having been given several blankets and a hot supper. More than that, she was frustrated at being in the situation where she found herself.

She had seen almost nothing of her captors, except the person who had brought her the blankets and the food. That had told her almost nothing, as the person was dressed in a suit of red armor, complete with a helmet so that she couldn't even tell whether it was a man or a woman. There was only one thing she could tell about this person – he or she must have been completely crazy.