“On it!” Alex shouted. Nicole got up to help too, although it didn’t take him long. “Easy peasy,” he said, pointing to a side table against the wall. “Lemon squeezy.”

A replicated pirate treasure map had been carved into the top. The landmass in the center, named Lapidary, was bordered by four seas: Carnelian, Malachite, Chrysocolla, and Pyrite. A lone full-rigged ship traveled westward on the Pyrite, following along the dotted line heading straight to the heart of the mountain region of Lapidary. It had a giant X painted in the center.

Alex lowered himself into a crouch, feeling under the table until it clicked. A sound resembling a dead bolt sliding back drew their attention to a leather couch nestled in a nook on the far side of the office.

Stella moved first, reaching the couch and hopping onto it. When she pushed the wall, a panel lifted next to her hand. “Nicole, my dearest, I require your numerical assistance.”

As soon as the door opened, Stella leaped over the couch. “Harlow, come on! I don’t like being the excited one alone. It’s dangerous, and I could hurt myself. This is your job,” she teased.

“I’ve never been so unexcited in my life,” Harlow said, holding on to Stella, who helped her over and down. “My whole world is a lie.”

“Not the whole thing. Just a tiny part of it. You know what the best way to heal from this kind of disappointment is? Revenge. Cold, premeditated revenge.”

Harlow scoffed, almost laughing. “Yeah, ’cause that’s likely.”

Stella truly does have a way with people, Nicole thought as she climbed over as well.

“Next?” Stella said, arms open to help Luna over.

Yellow lights had been strung up on both sides of the walls to keep the passageway from plunging into complete darkness. The path was anything but straight. Every few feet the tunnel either made a sharp right or left and used more than a few S-curves.

“Anybody else notice what’s missing?” Nicole asked.

“Missing?” Stella asked, looking around at the group. “Did we lose someone?”

“No, but the house lost us,” Nicole said. “There aren’t any cameras in here.”

“Oh wow, you’re right!” Luna said, checking the ceiling for cameras that truly weren’t there. “That’s a pretty big security flaw. Why wouldn’t they put any in here?”

Stella said, “Excellent question, my dear Shortson.”

“No,” Luna said, and Stella cackled in response.

They reached a fork in the path breaking off into two different tunnels. One of the tunnels promised glowing teal and green lights while darkness filled the other.

Luna asked, “Where do these lead?”

Stella consulted the map expansion, wyvern plugged in. “On the left, the green light will go to the tennis court, so outside. And the right, hello darkness, goes to”—she zoomed in on the map—“Jewel’s room? Uh, it says it goes to Jewel’s room.”