<on hiatus> 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 - 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭

𝟖 [𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐬/𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐲]

*𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘴.

[later]

"Anything, Liv?"

"No," sighed Olivia rather sadly.

We had been walking down every hallway of the palace, looking for any unusual sightings for the past hour.

"This is bad," sighed Olivia as we stopped walking. "At this rate, we'll never be able to wrap this mission up," she slid down the wall behind her and hugged her knees.

"Hey," I got down on one knee in front of her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Everything's going to be alright. We'll find him eventually."

"What if we never find him?" Olivia looked up at me. "We don't have his exact location. All we know is that he's somewhere in the palace. We've been down every hallway and entered almost every room, but there's no sight of him. Just imagine what he could do to them..."

I knew that she was talking about the entire family, and believe me, I don't want him to do anything to them. I can't imagine my life without my family...

I squinted my eyes. "Liv, are you seeing this?"

"What?" She looked at me. "What? Looking at what?" She looked around to see what I was seeing. "Oh, wait... Nick, why does this wall seem out of place?"

"My thoughts exactly," I said. "Could it be...?"

The both of us looked at each other and stood up properly to carefully inspect the mysterious wall.

"Could it be what I think it is?" Olivia said.

"A secret passageway. Of course," I smiled. Why didn't we think of that in the first place?

Olivia knocked on the wall. "Yes, this wall is definitely some cover up."

I ran my hand across the surface of the wall and felt something slightly sticking out of it. I pushed my hand against it and almost immediately, the wall vanished into thin air, leaving traces of sparkly dust behind.

"I think," I looked at Olivia, "we've found it."

"Should we...?" Olivia said, looking at me.

"Shall we go?" I stuck a hand out for her to take.

"Psh," she shyly smiled as she took my hand as we walked down the secret passageway together. For some unknown reason, the strange wall reappeared and hid our tracks.

"You know what I heard?" She said.

"Hmm?"

"The men who Princess Macy danced with tonight," she began, still holding hands with me, "are her potential future husband candidates."

"Hah," I snorted, "no, Liv, she wouldn't choose me."

"Then how could she fall for your seduction attempt?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "Maybe, just maybe, some girls are just vulnerable to that sort of act."

"You sound just like him," Olivia scoffed.