God Save the Queen (9 page)

             
Kevin was asleep in a chair in the corner of my room. It looked as though he hadn’t left it in days. There was a rather large cut on the side of his face and his arm was bandaged. I felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that he had been hurt while protecting me.

             
A sudden shout came from the living room. I quickly got out of bed, realizing about a second later what a mistake that had been. My legs ached and I almost fell. I looked over and Kevin was up too, running to my side in case I happened to stumble.

             
We made our way to the living room, where Antonio and Barnes were getting a severe dressing-down from LaGard.

             
“But what if something
had
happened?” bellowed LaGard, turning red-faced in anger.

             
Antonio and Barnes just stood there, taking every blow that LaGard threw at them.

             
“Well, then, you two are fired!” he said ever so bluntly, and turned for the door.

             
I heard a gasp behind me. I didn’t even need to turn around to know that Mari and Avery were there, probably already on the verge of tears. I decided to step in at this point. I didn’t want any new bodyguards. I took a very painful step down and approached the situation.

             
“What’s going on here?” I asked--or rather, croaked. I must have lost my voice while yelling over the bombing.

             
“Ce qui?”
LaGard said, turning around. “Princess, I didn’t see you there. I was just--”

             
“Firing my bodyguards?” I finished.

             
LaGard seemed a little taken aback, but he recovered and stammered out, “My dear, you see, they didn’t protect you like they are supposed to.” He threw a glare at the two in front of him. “They let you go back towards the bombing.”

             
“You’re mistaken,” I said. “Antonio and Barnes tried to stop me, but I ordered them to save themselves. I had to go back.”

             
I kept my eyes on LaGard, but I glimpsed Antonio looking at me in confusion. No doubt he was wondering why I would lie to save his job.

             
LaGard, too, was surprised by my response. “And why exactly did you run back into the danger, may I ask?”

             
I was stumped for the answer. I didn’t want to tell him that I was running back to save Kevin. “I…I was going back because…I felt as though it was my duty as a princess to make sure all of my subjects were safe.”

             
LaGard looked at me for what seemed like forever and an awkward silence took over the room. Finally he gave up. “Fine! You two can stay, but you’d better not screw up again.” He turned and stormed out of the room. Terrence followed looking a little more relieved than before.

             
Barnes and Antonio looked at me with a sigh of relief, while Mari and Avery ran past me and gave them huge hugs, tears streaming down their faces. I looked over at Kevin to say something, but he had gone. Then I found him making his way out the door, so I silently slipped past the love reunion in front of me and made my way out into the hallway. I knew there would be no way for me to catch up to him when my body hurt this much, so I decided to sacrifice my voice.

             
“Kevin!” I tried to yell. It worked. He turned around and threw me a little look before walking towards me.

             
I decided it would be nicer if I met him halfway, so I began to stumble my way over. I had taken about twenty steps before I tripped and fell right into Kevin’s arms.

             
I looked up at his face and he flashed me a smile. At first I was mortified that he might think I had deliberately fallen into his arms. But that idea alone struck me as so preposterous and funny--that I’d chase after him and stagger down the hallway just to fall into his arms, like some lovesick damsel in distress. I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. All along the poor guy had been trying to do his job and I sure didn’t make it any easier for him. But it was all behind us now. I knew things were going to be easier being his friend than his enemy.

Chapter 14

La Salle en Verre

              Over the next couple of days I was very grateful of the new friendship that Kevin and I had created out of chaos. No longer were we fighting over the smallest of things, but laughing at them instead. Another benefit was that Kevin, being my personal advisor, could get me out of almost anything.

             
One day I was in the middle of a meeting with LaGard, who hadn’t been pleasant towards me since I had stuck up for Barnes and Antonio. Kevin came into the room and said that he needed me immediately. I had no idea what I had done, but after a few minutes of arguing, I was out of the room.

             
I followed Kevin down the hall, asking the whole way what was going on, but he wouldn’t respond. We kept walking until we came to my room. Kevin opened the door and I followed him in. “Kevin, why are you--”

“Sshh,” he said, and
walked right up to one of the paintings hanging in my room. He turned around and said, “You’ll never believe what I just found.”

             
“That painting you’re standing in front of? It’s huge, so could you have missed seeing it before?”

             
He laughed and said, ”Watch this. Back up a bit.”

             
He grabbed one side of the painting and pulled it forward, like it was on a hinge. And there it was behind the painting--a door set into the wall, one foot above the floor. I made a low whistling sound as Kevin opened the door to reveal what looked to be a dark tunnel. In his hand he had a flashlight and motioned for me to follow him inside. Reluctantly, I followed him.

             
The tunnel was narrow and airless, but I sucked it up. I tried not to think too much about claustrophobia or the fact that this palace was old enough to have a dungeon. Was that where we were headed?

Kevin stopped and said in a low voice, “Watch your step. We’re going down.” I nodded mutely and followed him down a narrow winding stairway, my hands brushing lightly against the cold stone walls to feel my way down into
--what, exactly? I was already beginning to regret this little adventure.

We continued down the staircase until
Kevin stopped, his flashlight beam showing that we had reached another door. With a moment’s hesitation, he took the door handle in his hand and opened it, revealing the last thing I expected to see.

             
We were in the kitchen.

             
Kevin had found a way for me to get to the kitchen undetected in less than thirty seconds. I couldn’t help but smile. The two of us sat down and had a bowl of ice cream while I marveled about the new discovery.

             
“When you were in your coma,” he said with slight exaggeration, “I was sitting looking at that painting and it occurred to me it’s exactly the size and shape of a door. And I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if…’”

“And you were right,” I said.
“It’s not just the fact that you found a shortcut for me to get a midnight snack, but I can do it without facing the wrath of Ms. Rontes.” I took a large bite of ice cream and pointed my spoon at him “Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’m convinced she has that kitchen door trip-wired. The one time I tried to sneak in here, she caught me fifteen seconds later with a chicken leg in my hand.” Now that I thought about it, I knew it was probably the truth.

             
Then a not-illogical idea hit me.

             
“Kevin, what if this isn’t the only secret passage in the palace? What if there are more? There could be hallways and rooms we don’t even know about.”

             
He pondered that for a moment before responding, “Sure, why not?” he said, and it was over that huge bowl of ice cream that we vowed to find every passage within the palace.

             
So we kept our promise and whenever we had an idle moment, went looking in the likeliest places. We found another secret passage that led from the hallway to the Scarlet Room to the hallway outside of Cherub Hall. Another was one from the dining room to the landscape painting outside of Lynette’s bedroom. Not that I was planning to use that passageway anytime soon.

             
I found yet another one a few days later in the library, when I noticed that the hands on the mantelpiece clock were perpetually at twelve o’clock. With a little experimenting, I found that if you turned the second hand to quarter past the hour, the bookcase in the back left corner of the room made a loud click, then jut inward and slightly slide over. Kevin and I both looked down the descending staircase within and neither of us felt like investigating. It smelled damp down there, and you could hear a dripping sound in the abyss that made us think of abandoned sewers or something equally unhealthy.

             
A few days after finding the dungeon (which is what Kevin and I were finally convinced the room below was), I was struggling through French irregular verbs while Beamount cursed under his breath. We both snapped our heads up when we heard a knock on the door.

             
“Come in!” Beaumont said in the most desperate voice I’d heard him use, obviously hoping this interruption would end his misery.

             
The door opened and Kevin popped his head in the room. “Pardon the interruption, Monsieur Beaumont, but Anya needs to be prepped for her meeting with the Japanese ambassador in the morning.”

             
Was Beaumont disappointed to hear this news?
Au contraire,
he grinned as if he’d just been awarded the
Légion d'honneur.
“
Naturellement
! Please, take her.” He started pushing me out the door before I had a chance to grab my stuff. Once I was out of the room I swear I could hear him singing a snatch of the Hallelujah Chorus
.

             
After I pretty much had the door slammed in my face, I immediately started questioning Kevin. There was only one reason why he’d interrupt my French lesson. He had found another secret passageway. “Where are we going?” I asked over and over again, but he would only reply, “You’ll love it. Trust me.”

             
We eventually stopped right in front of an empty wall. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the triggering mechanism might be, and I could hear Kevin snickering next to me as I looked.

             
“All right” I said, finally giving up. “Where’s the magic button?”

             
Kevin shook his head. “Nope, you’re not giving up. You have to find it.”

             
I groaned in exasperation. “Well, can you at least give me a hint?”

             
Kevin sighed and replied, “Fine. It’s the stone next to your left hand. See how it’s different?”

             
I looked down and the stone was easy to spot; it had a different texture and color than the stones around it. But it was only slightly different; you really had to squint to notice. I pushed it in the stone to hear the sound of a click, like a door unlocking, only moments later. But I couldn’t see the entrance until Kevin pulled back a tapestry on the opposite wall, revealing a hidden passageway. “You first,” he said with a challenging grin.

             
I sighed and grabbed the flashlight from his hand before stepping into the dark.

             
“All right, no funny business while we’re here,” I warned Kevin, knowing quite well that he would seize the first opportunity to scare me.

             
I felt his hand on my shoulder as he passed me. Then once he was in front of me, he grabbed the flashlight, then grabbed my hand and led me down the hall. “There, now I can’t scare you,” he said with a laugh, but it didn’t sound like his normal, easy-going laugh. It sounded nervous.

             
I shook it off as we neared a small wooden door that looked more elegant than the others. Kevin looked at me to make sure I was properly attentive, and only then did he open the door. I was shocked to see a bright light come streaming through the doorway. I shielded my eyes as I walked in and gasped at the room Kevin had found.

             
It was a huge open area, bigger than the dining hall. I was standing on the upper level of the room, and to my left and right were stairs curving down to the lower level. The walls were all stone except the one facing outside. That wall was floor-to-ceiling glass windows and nothing else. I walked down the stairs as if in a trance and I looked around the room. It was an absolutely beautiful antique of a room, so simple and elegant. All it needed was a few comfortable chairs and it would make a wonderful sitting room.

             
“So what do you think?” Kevin asked as he walked up beside me.

             
“I love it!” I sighed, still taking it in.

             
“I thought you would.” he replied, sounding pleased with himself. We stood there for a moment or two in silence before Kevin piped up, “So what are we going to name it?”

             
I thought about it for a little bit before suddenly blurting out,
“La Salle en Verre.”

             
Kevin looked at me dumbfounded.

             
“It means ‘The Glass Room’ in French…” I began to explain, and then it hit me. “Oh my… How did I know that? I know French!” I started jumping up and down.
“I know French!”

             
And, of course, Kevin just stood there laughing. I swatted him like pesky fly until he quit laughing at me, then we discussed what we should do with this room. He agreed with my idea of a sitting room, and I made him promise to come here with me on the next full moon. I thought that it would look wonderful, the light of the moon shining in the windows.

Once we made our way back to the hallway, Kevin pulled me aside and quickly said, “Look, maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone about that room. I mean
, we wouldn’t want LaGard going in there and deciding to make it into a suite for Lynette.”

             
He had a valid point. I nodded and said suddenly, “What time is it?” I looked at my watch to answer my own question. “Oh no!” It was four-fifteen. “I’m going to be late for Anatomy.”

             
He just brushed it off. “Get going, then. I’ll treat you to ice cream in the kitchen late tonight.”

             
“It’s a date!” I yelled as I started to run back the way we came.
Wait a minute,
I thought,
That didn’t come out the way I… He couldn’t possibly think I meant…