Nina

Falling asleep had been a lot easier when there wasn't the chance I'd die when I closed my eyes. Of course I probably wasn't in any current danger of dying, but after weeks of being burned to death, drowned and boiled alive, it was taking a while to readjust to the idea of sleep without danger. Not that our current sleeping arrangements weren't dangerous, but at least they weren't life threatening in any obvious way. As a result, it took me half an hour to fall asleep that night and I was the last one in the room, Eddie, Alfie and Joy having already arrived.∞

∞"What took you so long?" demanded Joy. "We've been waiting for ages."

I waved a hand dismissively. "Couldn't fall asleep," I said, before changing the subject. "Have you got anything done?"

"Well, we argued over whether or not to start without you," said Eddie lazily from his place on the floor. "Although seeing as you're here now the argument is sort of moot."

I sighed and pursed my lips, scanning the room. There was a table up against one side with a circular indent in the middle of it, a bookshelf on the middle that started at about my waist height and continued on up to the ceiling with equally spaced wooden beams beneath it going to the floor, each with a different animal carved onto it. The other two walls were blank aside from their torches that lit the room up, but we could faintly hear the others through the one across from the table if we all shut up and concentrated. It hadn't changed at all from last night. I frowned, ignoring Joy's unnecessarily loud voice as she talked to Alfie about how she knew they should've started earlier.

"Take the books down."

The others turned to me. "What?" asked Alfie, looking relieved to be away from Joy's monologue.

"The books. All of them. Take them down." They still had looks of confusion on their faces, ranging from slight befuddlement to 'what the hell is she going on about' and so I marched over to the bookshelf and started pulling them down one at a time, talking over my shoulder. "We're checking to see if they trigger secret passageways, if there's a secret marking behind them, anything. Come on."

Eddie reluctantly migrated over and began tugging books down, and Alfie and Joy quickly joined us. There had to be around two hundred of them (it was a gigantic bookshelf) and after a few minutes of tugging Alfie made a noise of surprise. "What's up?" I asked without turning to look at him.

"This book is like, suspiciously light," he said, weighing the book before opening it and going "aha!"

At this we paused in our assault of the bookshelf and turned to look as Alfie pulled out a small box. "The book's been hollowed out!" Alfie said, grinning. I immediately hopped over – and I had to hop, because the ground was littered with books I didn't want to step on – and asked him if I could see it.

He scowled at me. "I found it!"

I rolled my eyes, stuck my hand out expectantly and he handed it over with a fair bit of grumbling. It was made out of a rough, reddish-gold material, patterned to look as though it were made from sand, and there was a four-digit combination lock built into the front. I ran my hands around it for a few seconds, thinking things over. "Ok," I said, mostly to myself, and then once more to get my bearings, "ok. Eddie, you look through the books we've already pulled out, I need you to double check that we haven't missed any more hollow ones. Alfie, you try and guess the combination on the box. Joy, you and I will keep working on the shelf, but this time see if the book is hollow before you chuck it."

Eddie and Alfie nodded and started on their tasks, while Joy rolled her eyes and muttered that she was going to do that anyway. I breathed through the flare of irritation in my chest and ignored her.

The work went considerably slower, now that there were only two of us and we had to check the books every time we pulled one down. Joy found one containing a small key fairly quickly, and we celebrated before realizing we had no idea where it went. We stuck the book and key on the table with Alfie's book and kept going. A few minutes after that, Eddie made a sound of triumph and held up a giant, rusted half of a key. This generated happiness and a fair amount of confusion, as there was still no keyhole in the room that either of the keys could appear to fit in. We only had two shelves left when I found the fourth item, a golden magnifying glass. It went on the table with the others and we kept pulling books off until there was simply a gigantic wall lined with shelves, and we had a tiny key, half a giant key, a combination box we didn't know how to open, and a magnifying glass. None of which we could figure out the use for. Not to mention we also had a floor we could hardly walk on owing to the fact that we were practically ankle deep in books.

"What now Chosen One?" asked Joy, and I scowled inwardly at the openly mocking tone of her voice. I didn't mind the nickname coming from Eddie, he meant it only to tease me. Joy threw the title at me as though it were a knife, seeking to wound any way she could. She didn't even need Fabian around to be cruel to me, apparently it just came naturally. It had gotten even worse lately, but now it seemed less as though she was frustrated with me, and more like she was frustrated with other things in her life, and because she hated me I was now the object she focused her anger on. At least that's what I thought it must be, since I certainly wasn't going out of my way to annoy her. Rather than comfort me however, this only served to make me more irritated with her as I felt her usual insults and snide remarks were entirely undeserved. Well, mostly undeserved.

"I don't know Joy. What do you think we should do?" I shot back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alfie and Eddie look at each other and carefully step away and I inwardly rolled my eyes. Honestly, what did they think we were going to do? Spit fire at each other?

Joy blinked innocent eyes at me. "You're the Chosen One Nina. I thought I'd leave it up to you."

I smiled sweetly. "I'm open to ideas." My vision was starting to turn red and I shoved my hand in my bathrobe pocket to hide the clenching of my fists.

"If I may," interjected Eddie, and we both whipped our heads towards him so fast wearing such identical expressions of dislike that he visually recoiled. "I think we should try the magnifying glass."

I blinked, confusion sweeping away some of my anger. "Try it how?"

Eddie made a sweeping motion with his hands. "On the books. I mean, there's not much else we can do, aside from keep guessing at the combination. There aren't any keyholes and the books didn't trigger any secret passageways."

I raised skeptical eyebrows. "It's a magnifying glass, not an invisible ink reader. What exactly are you looking for."

Eddie rubbed an eye and picked up the magnifying glass. "Well, I'm giving it a go. I'll tell you if I find anything."

"No," I said, suddenly. "Joy, you do it. Eddie I need to talk to you about something."

They raised their eyebrows but mercifully switched without complaint. Eddie walked over to me and I led him to the corner near the bookshelf. "Eddie what's the point of this?" I didn't whisper exactly, but I spoke in a low voice, not wanting to distract Alfie or give Joy any more ammunition.

He folded his arms. "The point of what?"

"You know, this. All of it. What we're doing here. Nepthys and Sally and everything. We don't know what the endgame here is, it's like trying to use a treasure map with no x marks the spot and not even knowing what the treasure is or why we want it."

Eddie rubbed at his chin thoughtfully and I noticed with some amusement that he needed to shave. "I wish I could give you the answers Nina, I really do." I held back a sigh of disappointment and he kept talking. "I just know that we got the book, and Sally was ready to resort to some pretty drastic methods to take it from us, and Nepthys is obviously against her. So if Nepthys needs some help from us I'm happy to give it." I raised my eyebrows and he grinned ruefully. "Ok, so maybe 'happy' to be doing this is too strong a word, but you have to admit, we're never bored."

A short laugh was surprised out of me and Eddie placed a reassuring hand over my shoulder. "I know I haven't been doing this nearly as long as the rest of you have, but from what I've gathered you guys've always tended to figure this stuff out as you go along. We'll be fine Nina. It's my job to look out for you, remember?"

I was unwilling to be consoled that easily. "Still, what are we even trying to do here? Are we trying to get back to that weird library to return the book? We don't even know how these dreams work Eddie. We are tripping our way through this and I feel like sooner or later it's going to come back to bite us in the ass."

Eddie smirked. "Bite us in the arse, you mean. You are British aren't you?"

"Oh my god," I mumbled. "It was a one time thing I swear!"

He laughed good-naturedly. "Look I understand you're stressed, but that's just the room getting to you. We'll get out of this one and the next, you're just stressed about it now because of how ridiculous this place is. You seemed plenty relaxed during dinner, given your and Fabian's, shall we call them, under the table activities."

Heat flooded my cheeks and Eddie laughed. "How did you — "

"Dropped my fork and had to duck down and get it," he smirked. "And if you ask me, one of you was sending your foot rather high — "

"Alfie how's it going?" I interrupted loudly, for Joy had worked her way over to the books nearby where Eddie and I were talking and was sitting very rigidly.

"I'm trying to guess a four-digit number code with no clues whatsoever," said Alfie waspishly. "How do you think it's going?"

Joy suddenly jumped up so quickly it was like she'd been electrocuted. "Maybe if I," she murmured, hurrying over to the table. Looking at each other, Eddie's eyes still filled with mirth, Eddie and I followed to watch Joy examining the cover of one of the four hollowed out books with her magnifying glass. "Each of the books has a number on the cover, see?" she said excitedly. "It's probably a clue for the lock!" The rest of us waited with bated breath as she continued to look through the glass, studying the cover, the spine and the back, before setting it down, disheartened. "Nothing," she said.

She'd given me an idea though. "Check the inside," I suggested.

Joy glared at me suspiciously. "What?"

I sighed, half anger half resigned, and took the magnifying glass. Joy surrendered it more than a little reluctantly and stepped back as I flipped open the book and raised the magnifying glass to my eyes. I was immediately greeted with a golden glittering 2 in the hollowed out square; I was so startled I nearly dropped the book. Excitement started to build up in the base of my skull and I immediately set the book down and grabbed the next, flipping it open. Sure enough, it was empty by itself but I raised the magnifying glass, and this time the number 3 appeared, as sparkly as the other. A quick examination revealed a one and a four in the other books and I arranged them in order before flipping them shut to read the numbers on the cover. "Alfie, try eight, nine, three, six. In that order."

You could almost feel the tension in the air as Alfie fiddled with the dials, and he gave a sudden shout of excitement as the lock clicked and the box snapped open. We all immediately swarmed him to see what was inside as he pulled out –

"A ball?" Joy sounded incredulous and I didn't blame her. What were we supposed to do with – "In the table!" she exclaimed suddenly, grabbing it from Alfie (ignoring his cry of protest) and sweeping all the books and things off. She placed the ball in the dent in the table and we held our breaths –∞

∞My eyes snapped open and my mind tried to wrap itself first around the fact that I was awake, and next around what had caused my sudden, and highly rude awakening, before fixating on the alarm clock on my bedside table, which I promptly turned off. I sighed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and turned my head to see Amber yawning, her fingers twitching.

"Well we're still stuck, what about you?" It took me a minute to understand the question, as Amber was still yawning when she asked it.

"Making progress, I think," I grunted, still not wishing to get out of bed. I was struggling to grasp the fact that the task had taken – I checked my alarm – over seven hours. It had seemed maybe forty minutes at the most. But was it really so surprising that time worked differently wherever it was we went? Eddie's and my 'deaths' had never seemed to take that long either, but we'd only gone through a single one of those every night. I suddenly realized Amber had started talking and dragged my mind back to the conversation at hand as I sat up. "What's that?"

"I said, ours is basically a time-consuming waste of effort that's exceedingly ridiculous and essentially very mean," she pouted. "It's just translations and none of us even know the languages, we're just fumbling our way through and there's multiple translations and none of us even speak Swedish and the whole thing's absurd."

It certainly sounded that way, although Amber seemed particularly grumpy this morning so I decided not to voice that particular opinion. Instead, as we dressed, I filled Amber in on our room, leaving out my conversation with Eddie and spats with Joy, watching as her expression grew progressively more envious. "Lucky," she moaned. "Your room takes actual brain power and creativity, ours is just boring. Patricia's about ready to explode, I don't know how Fabian's enjoying himself."

I was currently attempting to pull my socks on while standing up, but at the sound of Fabian's name I fell backwards onto the bed. "What about Fabian?"

Amber rolled her eyes impatiently. "He's actually enjoying it, though how he manages I'll never know. But he just sits there, poring over books and convincing Patricia not to smash her head into the wall."

Sensing Amber's irritation I held back a smile, resolving to get more details later. We finished getting ready, with only the minor hiccup of Amber realizing she was nearly out of one of her favorite lip-glosses. Having made this discovery she promptly produced a sound so high-pitched I was surprised humans could still hear it. I headed downstairs without her as Amber now had to change a good deal of her outfit and redo all of her makeup.

The table was almost full when I got down, only Amber, Eddie and myself were missing. Fabian had saved me a seat next to him, but remembering the conversation with Eddie last night I ducked my head and sat in between Mara and Patricia instead, striking up a conversation with the former about French class.

"Really I just think he underestimates how much our class has covered the past few years," concluded Mara. "Although," she continued, "he is rather horrible at grading. You remember how wrong he was about Joy's first test? He did it again with the quiz on subjunctive tense, but that quiz we took last week? He gave her a hundred percent. But," and here she lowered her voice so I was forced to lean in. "I checked her quiz over just to make sure, and she missed six questions, including the extra credit!" Mara shook her head in disbelief. "What is he playing at? I've asked around the classes and it only seems to be Joy's tests he's screwing up. I'm thinking I might do an article about it, leaving Joy anonymous of course. What do you think?"

I shrugged. "My honest opinion? I don't love having quizzes every other week, but aside from that, if it's related to Joy then I don't really care for it."

Mara suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Right. You've got that… that thing."

I snorted. "Yeah. We've got, 'that thing'."

Mara glanced at Joy, who was currently on the other end of the table and moodily stabbing at her eggs, before turning back to me and dropping her voice to practically a whisper. "Nina do you think you could maybe, be nicer to her?"

My brain took a few seconds to comprehend this request, and another few to ascertain that Mara was being serious. "Me? Be nicer to Joy? It's not like I'm the one picking fights every two seconds!" I hissed. "Besides, what do you even care? She's your roommate, not your girlfriend."

Mara sighed, and her voice dropped even lower. "I know, but she's going through a hard time lately. I don't know what it is, she won't tell me, but I hear her crying herself to sleep sometimes. I'm not saying you have to be best friends, just maybe try not to rub salt in any wounds?"

"It's not my job to babysit her," I said flatly. I was still bitter over the numerous stunts Joy had pulled last year.

Mara opened her mouth but Jerome who interrupted her to say, "Well you two look very secretive," saved me from answering.

Mara turned to her right to assure her boyfriend that we were simply plotting his immediate downfall and I subtly glanced to the left to see Fabian involved in a heated argument with Alfie. "There's nothing wrong with liking homework," he said stubbornly.

"No of course not. It becomes wrong when a teacher asks for an eight-page essay and you're complaining about not having enough room. Then it's very, very wrong."

"I like keeping busy," Fabian retorted. "Besides, schoolwork relaxes me."

Alfie suddenly clapped a hand to his chest and made very loud, obnoxious noises of strangulation, pantomiming for air, before falling out of his chair. The rest of the table, whose attention he had successfully captivated, waited impatiently as he slapped a hand onto the table and heaved himself up into a standing position. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said dramatically, "I have an important announcement!" He paused for effect, waiting for someone to ask what it was and Jerome happily obliged.

"Well don't keep us in suspense Alfred, what's the dealio?" he asked cheerily. In my opinion, much more cheerily than anyone had a right to be this early in the morning.

Alfie spread his hands out in front of him. "My fellow housemates, it is with great sadness that I announce, Mr. Fabian Rutter has achieved… Prime Geekiness!"

At this, Fabian's already pale cheeks flushed quite red, and he turned back to his breakfast with sudden interest, examining his potatoes as though they held all the answers to the universe. Jerome laughed, still playing along as most of the table watched in amusement. "What ever could have happened to preclude this tragedy of an occasion?" asked Jerome with utmost curiosity and innocence.

"I'm glad you asked old boy," said Alfie sagely. "Apparently his symptoms have gotten so bad that it's progressed to the point where schoolwork relaxes him. I don't think he's got long before his status heightens to Lord of the Geeks, or, indeed, even Geek Supreme Ruler."

Fabian made an exasperated noise and stood from his chair as Patricia and Eddie cackled in harmony. "Run off to school why don't you Fabian? Don't want to be less than half an hour early for class do you?" called Jerome after him. Mara turned and started to berate him as I stood and grabbed my bag from the back of my chair, following Fabian. He was walking slightly faster than he normally did, and was already outside.

"Hey wait up!" I called, jogging over to him.

His pace slowed down to a casual power walk, and I fell into step beside him. "You know you can't let them get to you," I admonished. "Alfie's stressed about the rooms and everything and Jerome and him just like to egg each other on. You normally manage to ignore it pretty well."

"Yeah I'm aware, thanks Nina," he snapped.

I blinked, and then cleared my throat. "Ok, my bad. I'll just walk here quietly then."

We proceeded in silence for a few minutes before he sighed. "I'm not mad at you Nina. Just some days they get to me more than others." I nodded, accepting this, but still feeling slightly stung. He turned to look at me. "Nina, I'm sorry for snapping at you."

"It's fine," I said stiffly.

"It doesn't sound fine."

I shrugged. "You know I don't like when you're cross with me."

His eyes turned towards the ground and an awkwardness filled the air, becoming so thick you could cut it with a knife. Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore. "You know, Lord of the Geeks would probably make an interesting role playing title. Very sexy in the right circumstances."

Fabian promptly tripped over nothing, barely managing to right himself, and came up sputtering, cheeks a bright, flaming red. I laughed, and just like that the tension disappeared. There was no more talk of role-playing, but we did get into a deeper-than-intended discussion over dementors that continued all the way to our lockers.

"Ok but if you're stricken with terror I don't think it would be the easiest thing in the world to concentrate on a happy memory," Fabian insisted.

"First off, they're not terror-inducing, they're sadness and hopelessness inducing and stuff like that, JK Rowling based them off her depression. Second, patronuses are freakishly difficult to cast, it's mentioned by Lupin right off the bat that tons of adult wizards struggle with them."

"Still, the point remains, if you're getting dragged through your worst memories and drowning in negative emotions, how are you logically supposed to summon up a happy memory if they're all being sucked out of you?"

"But the memories themselves aren't being sucked out of you, just the positive emotions that you associate with them."

"So what you just think of happy things without the happiness and the patronus works anyway?"

"No, you have to get the happiness back and the happiness fuels your patronus, you have to remember what it felt like."

"It seems like dementors have a rather unfair advantage," complained Fabian. "They just have to float over and inhale, Harry and the others have to go through emotional gymnastics."

"Yeah, that's why the charm is so difficult."

The bell rang and we headed over to Mr. Sweet's classroom, and I had been right in the middle of a rant about the drastic lowering of dementor quality from the third movie to the fifth, which amused Fabian to no end, when Mr. Sweet came in. "The third movie they were completely perfect, with the creepy flowing robe, all cut up into ribbons, and the hands and everything, they were all slow moving and creepy and it was perfect. Then in the fifth movie, we transition to what are practically Styrofoam skeletons with fabric draped over the heads and ribbons taped to their backs, I mean come on. It's ridiculous! They can't give me the dementors of my dreams and then expect me to accept knock-off Halloween decorations! I have standards!"

"You're really worked up about this aren't you?" laughed Fabian.

"It's not like I don't have good reasons," I said. "Don't even get me started on the so-called 'dementor's kiss' in the third movie, I can go for hours."

"I'm sure you can, Miss Martin, however I must ask that you reserve your debates to non-class prescribed time in the future." I immediately turned around to face Mr. Sweet who was staring at me expectantly.

I cleared my throat. "Of course sir," I said, feeling more than a bit embarrassed.

We attempted to pick the discussion back up once the bell rang with an expectant, "so tell me about your views on boggarts" from Fabian but Mr. Sweet called our attention back.

"Students if I may have a word before you go?" Most of the class halted in the middle of shoving notebooks into bags and pencils into cases, but there was still the occasional rustling. "Yesterday, my office was broken into, presumably by a student, and something was taken. As such, starting third period classes are cancelled, while we conduct a full-scale investigation. Thank you."

The class finished packing and began to file out, but I was suddenly incapable of movement. I felt a tapping on my shoulder and ignored it. "Erm, Nina? Class is over."

I turned to Fabian, fighting to keep the panic off my face. "How much do you want to bet," I breathed, "That nothing was stolen and this is just another BS excuse of Victor's to search our things? The book is in my bag, Fabian, where the hell am I supposed to put it? They'll be searching the lockers, and it's not like I can run back to the house and stick it in my mattress."

"Mr. Rutter. Miss Martin. You don't want to be late for your next class do you?" Mr. Sweet held the door open for us and I quickly shoved my things into my bag and darted out the door, Fabian on my heels. I felt a sudden resentment for the headmaster and his constant bowing to Victor's desires.

We headed over to second period calculus as I desperately tried to think of where I could hide the book so Victor wouldn't find it. With twenty minutes to go we were finishing a worksheet and I was quickly growing frantic, when Fabian suddenly grabbed my arm. "Nina. The library. We can hide the book in the library." I stared at him in shock, hardly daring to believe it, and Fabian mistook my silence. "Or I could think of something else — "

"Fabian if we weren't in class right now I would kiss you," I whispered.

His cheeks became tinged with pink and he gave a sheepish grin before taking my worksheet and checking the work. I planned out what I would do as he looked the problems over before handing it back to me with problems six and thirteen marked off.

I redid the two and Fabian headed up to the front of the class to turn the worksheets in while I slowly packed away my things and kept my eyes glued to the clock. The second the bell rang I tore out of the classroom as quickly as I could without looking suspicious. It wasn't all that hard, considering everyone was in a hurry to find out more about the mysterious (and probably non-existent) office break in. I reached the library and worked my way over to the very back shelf, where the fictional historical dramas were. No one ever went back there. I pushed a few books about Henry VIII aside and shoved my book in the middle, taking a step back to inspect it. Mine was a good deal thicker and taller than the rest, but assuming no one came to check on it they wouldn't see anything suspicious, and if no one opened it Victor would never be the wiser. Just in case though, I grabbed a couple other tall books from a few shelves over and shoved them in to stagger the effect, before dashing back out into the gym, trying to control my breathing as the last few students trickled in. I looked around for my friends, and upon finding them over near the wall, proceeded to work my way over, popping up next to Amber as Mr. Sweet stepped up on stage and cleared his throat.

"As you have all undoubtedly been made aware, something of value has been taken from my office," he announced. I rolled my eyes as he continued, "Right now, teachers are going through the halls and checking your lockers. After this, they will search the bags, and if it is still not found, your rooms."

"This is an invasion of privacy," muttered Eddie, and I nodded in agreement.

Patricia however, snorted in derision. "I'm sorry, you've been at this school for how long again?"

"I must ask that you all remain in this room, until further notice. Thank you."

I immediately turned to Amber. "I bet you twenty dollars nothing's actually been taken and that this whole thing was Victor's idea."

Amber sighed. "If it is then that's really unfair. I normally have free period next, I was going to order that new lip-gloss. Halloween is in two weeks and I need it for my costume."

Everyone was either stressed to breaking point about the teachers searching their lockers, burning with curiosity, or some combination thereof, and so it was impossible to carry on a conversation. I settled for sitting against the wall next to Fabian with my head on his shoulder as he held my hand, understanding that talking wouldn't help right now.

After two hours the teachers finished searching the lockers and our bags were passed forward. Another two hours after that and a couple students started grumbling about how hungry they were as we were sent back to our houses so our rooms could be searched. We picked up our bags as we left and at this point I was having difficulty breathing. What if Mr. Sweet grabbed the book while we were back in our houses? What if the librarian saw it, recognized it as out of place and donated it? What if the school exploded?

Fabian, who I knew was also stressed, was being extremely helpful. His hand in mine felt like it was quite possibly the only thing anchoring me to the earth.

It was 1:30 when we got back, and Trudy (nearly mutinous when she found out we hadn't eaten since breakfast) made us sandwiches. I was too nervous to touch mine however, my stomach felt as though it was made of snakes.

An hour later Victor was standing in the living room in front of us, looking displeased. "Just because I found nothing, does not mean any of you are innocent. If I find out, that any of you," he looked pointedly at Jerome and Alfie, "were in any way involved, I will make sure you are punished to the fullest extent of the law."

He turned and walked away, we could hear the stairs creaking under his weight and the others started talking excitedly. I stood up and walked over to Trudy. "Trudy? Do you think I could run back to the school real quick? I forgot my science book."

She waved me off. "Oh yes, of course, whatever you need love."

I thanked her and headed out, Fabian joined me, and I was practically vibrating as we walked across the grounds. I made it to the library shelf and a strangled sound escaped my mouth and my knees threatened to give out with relief when I saw that it was still there. Fabian threw an arm around my waist to keep me steady and I leaned into him, closing my eyes, before turning and burying my face in his shoulder, wrapping my arms around him. I could hear his heartbeat. I allowed myself ten seconds of comfort before letting go of him and returning the book to my bag.

The walk back was much less stressful, probably helped by how Fabian kept an arm around me as we walked, not stopping until we returned to the house.

If your body has been stressed for an extended period of time, once the stress-causing event has passed, it's like your mind suddenly unravels. You're so relieved you don't know what to do with yourself, and simply float through your day in a contented bliss. Because we had minimal homework to do, Jerome and Alfie gathered up every card deck in the house and bullied Mara into helping them build a mansion on top of the coffee table. Amber ordered her new lip-gloss; Joy, Eddie and Patricia had stolen one of the card decks and were playing Go Fish at the table. Fabian and I were on the couch, he was rereading Hamlet while I rested my head on his lap with my feet propped up on the armrest. The book was securely in my bag, Fabian's fingers were in my hair, Joy wasn't being awful, and Victor had vanished. I was finding it very hard to stress about anything.∞

∞"What the hell are we supposed to do with a dragon?"

Alfie had found a button on the ball that caused it to emit a soft blue glow, and we'd placed it back in the table. It had proceeded to somehow project a faintly blue outline of a dragon onto the wall across from the table. However, he had no idea what this meant.

Eddie raised a hand. "Obvious isn't it? Check the dragon thing beneath the bookshelf."

I was closest, so I found the wooden beam beneath the bookshelf with the dragon engraving and pried at it with my fingers, shifted it back and forth, and then my hand slipped and I shoved it inwards, causing a square of paneling between the beams of a cat and a lion to slide away revealing a keyhole. I grinned, borderline euphoric. "Alfie, toss me the key."

"The half key or the key key."

"The key key," I said impatiently.

Alfie tossed it over and I caught the key, my fingers trembling with anticipation as I fit the key into the lock and turned.

I jerked my hand back as the entire panel immediately slid to the side. The boys cheered as I stuck my head in to see what appeared to be a crawl space. I took my head out and turned to the others. "Might as well go through it."

Alfie immediately stepped back. "No way. Don't you remember the last tunnel we went through? The Tunnel of Terror?"

I choked back a laugh. "Tunnel of Terror? Really Alfie? That's what you came up with?"

Alfie looked offended. "Amber thought it was a great name."

"Did she now?" I raised my eyebrows.

"Well, no," he admitted. "But she didn't laugh at either!"

I shook my head and turned back to the tunnel. "Well I'm going through. You guys are welcome to join me." With that, I ducked my head and crawled into the tunnel.

It wasn't a particularly large tunnel. It wasn't so small that I had to army crawl my way through it, and could instead move forward on my hands and knees. Rather than going straight ahead the tunnel immediately went left and so I followed it, hearing one of them enter behind me. Shortly in it turned left again and I proceeded to follow it for a couple dozen feet before meeting a dead end.

I turned and saw Eddie behind me. "It's a dead end," I called. "Give me a second." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned the flashlight on, shining it around, finding success with a keyhole in the wall to my left.

"Hello?"

My head jerked up so hard it hit the ceiling and I yelped. "Ow!" Massaging my scalp I called back, "hello?"

"Nina? Is that you?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"Fabian."

"And Amber!" cried a new voice.

"Fabian! Amber!" I turned to grin at Eddie excitedly. "Where are we?"

"You're inside the wall, can you get out?" said Amber.

"How'd you get there?" Fabian asked.

"We opened up a crawl space in our room and it led here," I answered. "There's a keyhole in the wall, I was about to ask Eddie to go back and get the key."

"Why do I have to get it?" Eddie complained.

I rolled my eyes. "Because you're behind me. Now hurry up."

"The half key or the key key?"

"The key key!" Eddie laughed at my exasperation before turning himself around and beginning the short journey back. "And bring Joy and Alfie with you!"

He made some sort of noise that I took to mean he would indeed bring them, and I turned back to the wall. "I don't suppose there's some sort of button that would open up wherever we are?"

Fabian laughed. "Sadly, no. That would make things simpler wouldn't it?"

"Disappointingly simple actually, given the ridiculousness of the room so far."

"Yeah Amber said your guys' was a fair bit more complicated than ours."

"It's completely unfair! Nina gets all the fun things," I heard the blonde complain.

"Amber also said that you were actually enjoying yours. What's that about? Apparently Patricia thinks you're crazy."

"Patricia thinks everyone who doesn't appreciate heavy metal is crazy."

"That's not my opinion Fabian, it's scientific fact," Patricia called over. I laughed as Eddie turned the corner with Alfie and Joy on his tail.

"Hang on guys, Eddie's back."

When they got closer Joy called over, "Nina how do you know this key'll even work?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's the only key in the room and this keyhole looks about the same as the last one. Besides we searched the whole place, if there's something else to open it with we don't have it."

They reached my spot and Eddie handed me the key. I blew out a quick, shallow breath, hoping against hope Joy wouldn't be proven right and me wrong. I slid the key into the lock and twisted. The key was immediately spat back out and a square section of the wall slammed open, sending up a fair amount of dust. I put the key in my bathrobe pocket and coughed, my eyes started to water as the dust died down and I pulled myself through the space. I tried to blink the stuff away as a pair of hands wrapped around my shoulders and helped lift me to my feet, pulling me into an embrace I would've recognized anywhere. I laughed in delight, and hugged Fabian back, loving the feeling of his shoulder blades beneath my hands. I found myself inexplicably grateful his pajama shirt was made out of such thin material.

I drew back to see Eddie grinning at Patricia and Joy and Alfie hauling themselves out. Amber clapped her hands in excitement when she saw her boyfriend and threw herself at him, knocking him backwards.

"Ouch! Ambs, be careful!"

"Be quiet Alfie, you're ruining the moment!"

I laughed and suddenly noticed Joy making a face at me. "What?" I demanded.

She smirked. "Your hair."

My hands went to it automatically. "What about it?"

The smirk widened. "It's covered in dust."

I felt my cheeks reddening and was infinitely thankful that my skin didn't show blushes that easily. "I'll fix it later." Eager to change the subject I took a step back to face Fabian, Patricia and Amber. "So, what are you guys doing?"

"A task that seems to be a colossal waste of time," sniped Patricia. She pointed at the wall to the left of where we'd just popped out of. "See those? We have five different books and don't know what language they are, just that one's Swedish to English and one's Spanish to something else. We don't know what the other three are so we've been sort of fumbling — "

"It's a Japanese cipher," I interrupted, staring fixatedly at the wall.

Eddie coughed pointedly. "A what?"

"Japanese cipher," I repeated, scanning the numbers. "Or at least a cipher in Japanese. They're numbers, two numbers to a set and each set's a letter, probably," my eyes darted over to the books, "the cipher matches up to one of the books if I had to guess I'd say the one in Russian."

"What's Russian?" asked Amber.

"That book, the one with the blue cover that's not a dictionary, can you hand it to me?"

I turned to see everyone staring at me in confusion and sighed. "Never mind, I'll do that in a minute. Did they give you any paper?"

"Since when do you read Japanese?" Fabian asked, looking slightly awed.

"Since I was twelve, do you have paper or not?"

"Yeah over here," said Patricia, pulling a notepad out of her pocket.

"What about Russian?" asked Fabian.

"Also since I was twelve, thanks Patricia." I turned back to the wall and began copying down the numbers, writing quickly. Puzzles and riddles, those I had become good at out of necessity. But this, languages. This was my element.

I finished jotting down the numbers and sat down on the floor next to Anna Karenina and flipped open to page twenty-seven, talking aloud. "It's a cipher, see. The Japanese on the wall, it's sets of numbers. Each set the first number is the page, second number is the word on the page. The dictionaries are to help with the translation, this entire room is basically designed to slow us down." I found word forty-three, 'bricks', and began flipping to the next page. As I worked, the room's atmosphere devolved from tense silence into animated boredom. I was vaguely aware of Fabian sitting down next to me, watching as I translated. It took me about five minutes to get the whole thing down, and when I announced I was done Patricia looked mutinous.

"Do you mean to tell me that if you'd been in our room from the beginning we could've finished in five. Minutes?"

I gave a small laugh. "Well we're not done yet are we? This was just the first step." I looked down at the notepad and read aloud. "Bricks three, five, fifteen, twenty-three, thirty-three, forty-seven, eighty-nine, ninety-four, one hundred and six, one hundred and ten, one hundred and eighty-four, one hundred and ninety-nine. Pull." I looked up expectantly. "Any ideas what bricks they're talking about?"

Still looking pissed off, Patricia pointed to the wall we'd come out of and I turned to see that it was like the wall in our room, except instead of a bookshelf, they had a wall of 200 numbered bricks. Fabian was already over there. "What was the first number again Nina?" he asked.

"Three."

Fabian had to stretch to reach it, but sure enough when he gave a pull on the brick with the number three written upon it, the brick popped out. Fabian turned it over and dumped a few gold colored pieces into his hand. "Put them over here," I patted the ground beside me.

Fabian dropped them on the ground and returned to the wall. "Guys help him out," I said, returning to my list. "Bricks five, fifteen, twenty-three."

I kept reading and the others quickly migrated over to the wall and the bricks were out in a matter of seconds, and we very quickly had a nice large pile of gold pieces of whatever-the-hell-they-were.

It was Amber who spotted it. Admittedly it was accidentally, but she still gets credit.

"Maybe we're supposed to fit them together into magic jewelry," Amber suggested.

No one seemed to be much in favor of this idea. "Magic jewelry?" If Patricia had ever before this moment uttered a sentence packed with more skepticism, I'd eat my bathrobe.

Amber shrugged. "Sure, why not. Nina's got her necklace, why can't the rest of us get one? Besides, we had necklaces last year remember? Look, these two fit together." She held up two pieces of gold that she had indeed clicked together, and Fabian suddenly sat up straight.

"Amber, you're a genius," he declared, before sifting through the gold pile.

"I know," she assured him. "What did I do?"

"It's not magic jewelry," Fabian said, looking up at us with his eyes alight. "It's a puzzle. We've got to fit the pieces together."

The excitement we had at figuring this out quickly wore down, as there were around sixty pieces and we had no clue how they were supposed to fit together or what we were supposed to be making. We each took seven or eight pieces and tried to fit them together and a tense silence filled the room as we worked.

It took us longer than we would've liked, and my hands were numb when we finished but at the end we had the second half of a giant key. Alfie stood reluctantly. "I'll go get our half," he volunteered.

"Thanks Alfie," I groaned, leaning back onto the floor.

Fabian laid down next to me. "What other half?"

I started cracking my knuckles to get the feeling back and told him how we had half a giant key in our room. Fabian made a noise of understanding before grabbing my hand and braiding our fingers together, causing my heart to skip a few beats. I turned my head so that I was facing him and nosed his shoulder, closing my eyes. "I've got a headache," I muttered.

"I'd fix it if I could." I could hear both the smile and sympathy in his voice, and it warmed me to know I'd grown to be able to read him so well. I used my other hand to trace his wrist and hid a small smile when I felt goose bumps form under my touch.

"Got it," Alfie announced, and I raised my head a few millimeters and opened my eyes to see him crawling back out before dropping my head and closing them again. "Ambs, toss me the other half." There was a few seconds pause and then – "Amber, stop taking pictures of Nina and Fabian and give me the other half of the key."

I jerked upright, tugging my hand away from Fabian, opening my eyes to indeed see Amber standing above us, taking pictures. "Amber!"

"What?" she said innocently. "You guys were being so adorable I just couldn't help it. You can use them in your scrapbook!"

I sighed in exasperation. "Amber, if I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times, I don't make scrapbooks! Relationship or otherwise." I leaned forward to grab the key off the ground and reached up to hand it to Alfie.

He thanked me before carefully fitting the two halves together. What happened next wasn't quite clear.

The entire key suddenly shone with a bright, blue light, and when it faded our half was no longer rusted and this half was no longer sixty different pieces. Instead the whole thing was a sleek, glossy black. "Wicked," said Patricia, sounding impressed.

"Hang on," Alfie said. "There's a button." He pressed something in the middle of the key and a bright blue light shot out the end of it. Frowning in confusion, he swung the light around when Joy suddenly yelled at him to stop.

"Put it back over there," she instructed, pointing at the back wall. The wall in question was the only wall that was entirely blank. Even the wall without bricks or numbers had torches and a single bookshelf they must have gotten the books off of. Alfie obliged, and the light illuminated the outline of a gigantic keyhole in the middle of it.

"No friggin way," complained Patricia as Alfie walked over. He tentatively edged the key into the hole, and when it passed through the wall he entered it the rest of the way and turned.

The key was sucked into the slot and we watched in awe as the entire wall slid apart to reveal nothing but darkness.

Alfie looked at Patricia, excitement and apprehension clear on his face. "Way."

Sorry about the crappy format issue guys, and thank you to the anon reviewer who let me know. I have fixed it!

AN: Nina is totally a Harry Potter nerd, fight me. Disclaimer, I have never read Anna Karenina and have no idea if all or any of those words are inside it. See you soon lovely readers.

Favorite, follow and review please. Let me know whose POV's you'd like to see.