Changeling (Completed)

Day Twenty-Eight

Day Twenty-Eight - Two Days Left

Locked in the suite, my ass.

"Innie, I can hear you whispering that to yourself," Tyler whispers, sounding exasperated.

"Sorry," I mouth to him. He just rolls his eyes and grabs my hand, tugging me further down the corridor as Hannah, he, and I sneak around, trying to find this super-secret meeting Ronson, Benji, and Goon went to. Tyler is virtually silent next to me. If the looks he and Hannah keep throwing my way are any indication, I am... ahem... far less quiet.

"That's so pretty!" I whisper, tugging on Hannah's shirt so she can pause to admire the pearl-engraved mirror on the opposite wall.

"Stop it right now."

I ignore Hannah in favor of the gilt glass across the hall. What is the worst that can happen? We get caught and sent back to the suite? I can't even die today. Of course, I'm not completely callous. I don't want anything bad to happen to Hannah or Tyler and the shadow of Death warning me about Shana and Elder Hancock lingers in my mind.

I think we are safer away from the suite. Would that flimsy lock hold back a determined Shana from getting through? Not to mention, as an Elder in charge of this gilded cage, Hancock most likely has keys to all the rooms.

So we are looking for the big boys. They must be around here, somewhere. In the meantime, I'm going to admire myself in the mirror.

"Innie. Don't touch that!" Tyler hisses as I poke a cherub in its belly. I shriek when it moves just a little. Tyler gasps and reaches over my shoulder to grab the cherub by its wings.

"Hey! What are you doing? You know, pulling the wings off of a cherub is the first sign of a future serial killer. Benji told me that-"

The cherub nearly bends in half and at first, I think he's broken it. Then, a light grinding noise, and the mirror swings forward, just a fraction.

"Oh my goodness, what did you do?" I ask Tyler, backing away from the giant mirror in case it falls and shatters into a million jagged pieces.

"It's a false wall," he breathes. He runs his hand behind the new crack between the mirror and the wall. It's small, only wide enough for Tyler to squeeze his fingers behind all the way to the second knuckle. He moves his arm up and down, pressing his cheek to the wall to examine the crack. With a smile, he moves his arm and we all hear the tell-tale click of a latch being unstruck.

The mirror swings away from the wall, revealing a hidden passage.

"Best day ever," Tyler squeals.

"That's amazing!" Hannah gasps.

I'm less impressed. It figures that a mansion like this would have secret passages. Sometimes, the passages were used simply to allow servants to scurry around while keeping entirely hidden from the view of the elite. Other times they were escape tunnels for people who lived on the razor-thin edge of turmoil.

Tunnels are always fun, though. "Let's go!" I whisper. I figure, at least in the secret passage Shana can't find us.

We walk inside and start to look for a way to close the mirror back up. Tyler carefully examines the latching mechanism before declaring it safe for us to close again. "We should be able to open it from the inside if we have to."

"Why are you worried?" Hannah asks as we ease the door shut with the handles conveniently located on this side. The door is heavy, utterly impossible to move on its own, but there are spring-loaded hinges to help us in our mission to lock ourselves in the previously unknown, uncharted secret passage.