Force of Nature ▸ House of Anubis [3]

chapter fifty-three. house of enemies

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            God, I love rainbows. I mean, I didn't care about them before now, when the rainbow and the hereditary synsthete thing got us our next clue out of the capsule, but now—next time I see a rainbow, I'm gonna follow it to the freakin' end and take that pot of gold from the leprechaun and thank him for rainbows.

            "What did I tell you?" Fabian says to Eddie.

            "All right, so what's in it?" I question.

            KT manages to slide a scroll inside the capsule out, handing it to Fabian. Fabian unrolls it on his bed and we hover around him to get a look at it. It's blueprints, and I recognize this layout. That's Anubis House. Huh.

            "It's a plan of the house," Fabian remarks.

            "Guys, there's something else," KT informs us, taking another small paper out of the capsule. She reads the message written on it aloud to us. "'When your friends are not your friends, the secret room is what you seek. When you reach a dead end, the time has come to dig deep.'"

            "Secret room?" I repeat. Bit of an odd riddle. "We've got plenty of those. Which one haven't we found?"

            Fabian nods, flattening the blueprints. "Okay, look for a secret room."

            Eddie finds it first. "There," he points to it. X marks the spot.

            "Dig deep," KT repeats to herself.  "Must be under the cellar."

            "Yeah," Patricia says, "but what's under the cellar?"

            "Well," Fabian says, "it stands to reason that Frobisher put an insurance policy in place in case he was woken up evil. I bet it's in that room. He thought of everything."

            "Well, he could've put a door on it."

            "Yeah, why not just use the antechamber?" KT adds.

            Fabian dismisses it. "Nah, still too much of a risk. People know that place exists."

            "Which means whatever's in there must be huge," Eddie comments.

            I sigh, looking at them. So now apparently we have to go digging for a secret room underneath the cellar. Easier said than done. "Well... Frobisher's never made it easy for us."

            Alfie was the only Sibuna not in here with us, but that changes quickly as he runs in, quietly closing the door behind him. He looks at us, seemingly realizing we were all in here only after he sees us, and greets, "Oh, hey, guys. What'd I miss?"

            "We got a new clue from the capsule," I inform him. "Blueprint."

            Fabian holds it up as Patricia points to the spot on the blueprint. "Which points to a secret room under the cellar, which we think was Frobisher's back-up plan in case he woke up bad."