A few days passed by.

Everything went back to normal. Or rather, as normal as it could get.

I wandered the halls looking for Grayson when I found the door to the music room open.

The sound of the violin poured out.

I moved closer to where Gray was. Then as I looked at the piano, an idea sparked.

The song playing was "O Fortuna" a classical German song.

I sat down at the piano and patted down my skirt [outfit 14].

My fingers glided across the piano. It had been a while since I had played and I sure as hell did miss it.

Grayson cast me a look and gave a soft smile.

I returned it and continued playing.

Just then the door to the room was pushed open.

There stood Avery and Jameson.

The two of us immediately stopped playing and looked to them.

"What's happened?" Grayson asked.

"You guys gotta come see this." Jameson said.

****************************

Top of the clock

Meet me at high

Tell the late day hello

Wish the morning good-bye

A twist and a flip

What do you see?

Take them two at a time

And come find me

Jameson and Avery had found what was apparently the last piece to the game left to them buy Tobais Hawthorne.

"Do you guys know what it means?" Avery asked.

I sat on the steps, staring at the words, then worked through the rhyme line by line, turning the piece of stained glass over in my hands. Top of the clock. I pictured a clock's face in my head. What's at the top?

"Twelve." I rolled that over in my mind. The number at the top of a clock is twelve. Like dominos, that set off a chain reaction in my mind. Meet me at high...

High what?

"Noon." That was a guess, but the next two lines seemed to confirm it. Noon happened in the middle of the day, when you said good-bye to the morning and hello to what came after.

I may not have liked the games my sister and mom liked to play. That didn't mean I wasn't good at them.

I moved on to the second half of the riddle... and I got nothing.

A twist and a flip

What do you see?

Take them two at a time

And come find me

I focused on the stained glass. Was I supposed to twist it? Flip it? Did we need to assemble all of the pieces somehow?

"You look like you swallowed a squirrel." Xander plopped down on the stairs next to me.

I definitely did not look like I'd swallowed a squirrel, but I was guessing that was Xander's way of asking if I was okay, so I let it go. 

 "The game's not over," Avery told him. He read the inscription. "I found it last night, after the Black Wood." I held up the stained glass. "What do you make of this?"

"Now, where," Xander said thoughtfully, "have I seen something that looks like that?"

I hadn't been back in the Great Room since the reading of the will. Its stained glass window was tall—eight feet high to only three feet wide—and the lowest point was even with the top of my head. The design was simple and geometric.

In the topmost corners were two octagons, the exact size, shade, colour, and cut as the in Avery's hand.

I craned my neck to get a better look. A twist and a flip...

"What do you think?" Xander asked me. I cocked my head to the side. "I think we're going to need a ladder."

Perched high on the ladder, with Xander holding it down below, I pressed my hand against one of the stained-glass octagons. At first, nothing happened, but when I pushed on the left side, the octagon rotated—seventy degrees, and then something stopped it.

Does that qualify as a twist?

I turned the second octagon. Pressing left and right didn't do anything, but pushing at the bottom did. The glass flipped a hundred and eighty degrees and then some, before locking into place.

I made my way back down to Xander, who was holding the ladder, unsure what I'd accomplished. "A twist and a flip," I recited. "What do you see?"

We stepped back, taking in the wide view. Sun shone through the window, causing diffused coloured lights to appear on the Great Room Floor. The two panels I'd turned, in contrast, cast purple beams. Eventually, those beams crossed.

What do you see?

Xander squatted at the spot where the beams of light met on the floor.

"Nothing." He tested the floorboard. "I was expecting it to pop out, or to give..."

I went back to the riddle. What do you see? I saw the light. I saw the beams crossing.... When that didn't go anywhere, I went farther back in the poem—all the way to the top.

"Noon," I remembered. "The first half of the riddle described noon." The gears in my brain turned faster. "The angle of the beams must depend at least a little on the angle of the sun. Maybe the twist and the flip only show you what you need to see at noon?"

Grayson chewed on that for a second. "We could wait," he said. "Or..." He dragged out the word. "We could cheat." Xander completed for him

We spread out, testing the surrounding floorboards. It wasn't that long until noon. The angles couldn't change that much. I tapped the heel of my hand against board after board. Secure. Secure. Secure.

"Find anything?" Xander asked me.

Secure. Secure. Loose. The board beneath my hand wasn't wiggling, but it had more give than the others. "Guys—over here!"

They joined me, placed his hands on the board, and pressed. The board popped up. Jameson removed it, revealing a small dial underneath. I turned the knob, not sure what to expect. The next thing I knew, we were sinking. The floor around us was sinking.

When it stopped, all of us weren't in the Great Room anymore. We were underneath it, and directly in front of us was a set of stairs. I was going to go out on a limb and guess that this was one of the entrances to the tunnels that Isaac didn't know about.

"Take the stairs two at a time," I told them. "That's the next line." Take them two at a time and come find me.

***********************

Everyone else left to go God knows where and Xander and I remained.

I had no idea what would have happened if we hadn't descended the stairs two at a time, but I was glad we hadn't found out.

"Have you ever been in the tunnels?" I asked Xander, once we'd made it uneventfully down.

Xander was silent long enough to make the question feel loaded. "No."

Concentrating, I took in my surroundings. The tunnels were metal, like a giant pipe or something out of a sewer system, but they were surprisingly well lit. Gaslights? I wondered. I'd lost any sense of how far down we were. Up ahead, the tunnels spread out in three directions.

"Which way?" I asked Xander.

Solemnly, he pointed straight ahead.

I frowned. "How do you know?"

"Because," Xander replied jauntily, "that's what he said." He gestured near my feet. I looked down and yelped.

It took me a moment to realize that there were gargoyles at the bottom of the stairs, a match for the ones in the Great Room, except that the gargoyle on the left had one hand—and one finger—extended, pointing the way.

Come find me.

I started walking. Xander followed. I wondered if he had any idea what we were walking toward.

Come find me.

I remembered Xander telling me that even if I'd thought that I had manipulated Tobias Hawthorne, the old man would have been the one manipulating me.

He's dead, I told myself. Isn't he? That thought hit me hard. The press certainly thought Tobias Hawthorne had died. His family seemed to believe it.

But had they actually seen his body?

What else could it mean?

 Come find me.

***********************

WC: 1282

We're reaching the end guys!

Holy shit!!!

Thanks for sticking around during this book.

Special thanks to @Skye_Skye_

Love u babes <3

And love all of ya'll as well,

Mia