What Lies Beneath ▸ House of Anubis [1]

chapter seven. house of eyes

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Amber grabs hold of Nina and my arm and drags us into her bedroom, exclaiming, "You see, my plan totally worked after all!" There's a message written in letter sweets on her bed, an invitation to a laundry room (what?) date after curfew. There's no name. "Mick wants me to meet him in the laundry room tonight. I obviously made him wild with jealousy, and now he wants to apologize for his bad behavior with Mara and kiss and make up!"

She runs to her wardrobe. I look at the message again, tilting my head. What, did Mick run out of M's?

"I'm sure that's true," Nina comments slowly, "if he's the one who sent the message."

"Of course he is!" Amber insists. "Nina, sometimes I think you miss so much because you're American."

I snort loudly at the remark. "Sorry, sorry."

—

Victor does his usual nightly chant at ten o'clock on the dot. It's still another hour before there's a light knock on the door. Nina and I share a glance from across the room before we get up. She opens the door and steps out, but I hear another door open and she quickly closes it back, quietly, before I can go out. I hear whispers on the other side—good, Victor didn't catch them. But why exactly have I just gotten my own door slammed in my face?

Nina opens the door a few seconds later. As I step out, she whispers, "It was just Amber." I close the door, waving at Fabian. Doing this with him is gonna be weird. We're friends, but not friend-friends. Investigating the panel in the attic with him and Nina is gonna be... interesting. "Let's go."

She takes the spare attic key—she said Fabian was digging in the bushes for it when I passed them looking for Alfie and a shoeless Clarke—and unlocks the attic door. She goes up first, beckoning the two of us to follow. Once we're up in the attic, we talk normally again.

"Are you ready?" Nina asks as I look around the place. Yep, exactly the same as it was last year.

"Born ready," I reply.

Fabian adds, "As ready as I'll ever be. Do you need the torch?"

"I don't think," Nina responds, "setting fire to the place will help." I laugh loudly as Fabian takes out his torch—what those Americans call a flashlight. Still don't understand why. She sighs as she realizes, then says, "Ashley, it's over here."

She leads me to the wall where I remembered the two imprints being. One a pointed oval-shape, the other a rounded cross. I take my necklace off, saying warily, "At the same time. One, two, three."

With each shape on the corresponding imprint, the panel opens up and the gems glow red. I fall through the panel into the room behind it, a sound of surprise falling out of my mouth as I spot the portrait on the wall—a young woman, her eyes briefly red. Fabian drops the torch with a scream.