With a careful eye keeping track of all that happened around her, Luna timidly opened a door. It was the sixteenth door she had tried and from the looks of the porcelain wash basin and toilet and sterling sink- it would not be the last. She groaned and closed the door as quietly as possible. Though they were on the fourth floor and carefully removed from Nikolai Delphi, Luna didn't want to be caught snooping around by one of the many wait staff or worse, one of the Delphi followers. Her sister, Twyla, was less careful, as she slammed the door directly horizontal to Luna with a loud clatter.

"Shh!" Luna covered her lips with her pointer finger. "Are you trying to get us caught."

"Caught for what? Looking around our friend's house- I hardly think anyone would give us a hard time for that," said Twyla, donning her usual expression- complete and utter disinterest for everything. Luna could hardly see what the hilariously charming, vampire- Xavier- saw in Twyla. They were like night and day, sun and the moon, winter and summer... in the midst of her analogies Luna had to hold back a laugh as she realized that Xavier was the one with sunny personality, even though he was nocturnal. Weird.

"Maybe if this were a normal family with normal friends, staying at a normal house. But it isn't- these people are crazy."

"I can't argue with that," grunted Twyla as they continued down the hall. Her stare lingered on a large oil painting mounted on the wall, a pair of familiar silver eyes stared back at her. Turning back to Luna with her lips thinned into a tight line, Twyla averted her strange, diamond-like eyes and said, "Maybe crazy wasn't the right word, insane seems more appropriate."

They tried three more doors, one that led into a sitting room, one that led to conservatory and one that led to another bathroom. So far, Luna had seen eight toilets and zero magical spell books. It wasn't until they were about to try another set of doors, did Twyla's phone vibrate and message appeared. Twyla glanced at the screen swiftly and rolled her eyes before safely tucking the cell back into her pocket.

"Was that Alix?" Luna's eyes wildly flickered as she tried to spot the nearest exit- there wasn't one.

"No. It was Kaitlyn, apparently Grand-Daddy dearest has a whole secret part of the house we haven't seen yet."

"I do not like the sound of that," Luna swallowed nervously.

"Well if you don't like that, then I really don't think you going to like the sound of this: We have to go through there, to get to it," Twyla pointed to a painting of an old white haired man with thick beard- he would have looked like Santa Claus if he wasn't so thin. Luna felt the blood rush from her face as she recognized the man. How couldn't she? After all, he was the man who took her life, the original Mr. Delphi.

Tiptoeing over to the portrait, Twyla looked at the painting up and down before pressing on the hinges. Luna held back a cringe, afraid that the painting would rip but the picture remained intact. Though it didn't rip, it did turn vertically, like a door, and revealed a hidden passageway. The passageway was dark and cold, and there was a faint smell of mildew that caused Luna's nose to wrinkle.

"Cool," said Twyla as she stepped into the passageway.

She said that at the same time that Luna said, "Creepy."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Luna huffed at her sister and climbed into the passageway. It was large enough for both of them to walk side by side, but once Twyla fixed the painting to look like nothing had happened, they were blanketed in total darkness. Luna's throat knotted as she felt herself becoming increasingly aware of every little sound in the passageway. Every creak of the floorboards and puff of exhale from her sister seemed to create a sinister little symphony which begged for her to run away.

"Quit hyperventilating," Twyla's pockets ruffled as she pulled her hands.

"Accendo," Twyla's hands began to glow as if somehow she had flashlights embedded into her palms.

"Well that's convenient... and weird." Twyla responded with a grunt and slowly made her way down the passageway. One hand was extended in front of her, and the other grazed the stone wall. Following behind, Luna tried to replicate her sister's steps, in fear of accidentally stepping on an unforeseen rodent.

They continued down the passageway in complete silence, only stopping at the occasional sound of a creak in the floor boards. The passageway led to a large wooden door with a dark, iron rusted knob. Luna expected the door to be locked or charmed by some spell but when Twyla twisted the knob, the door swung open- with no resistance. Perhaps, that should have warned Luna that something was amiss but she was much too busy staring at the strangely familiar chamber that awaited her. The floor was cobbled with large, grey stones, and thick columns jutted from the ground. Candelabras were attached to each columns, creating a gentle orange glow throughout the chamber. It was hard to tell if it was one room or if there were others, as the shadows that lingered behind the columns offered no insight.

The light within Twyla's hand faded until her normal alabaster shade of skin returned. Turning away from her sister, Luna found her attention otherwise captured by a stone pedestal in the middle of the chamber. A large leather bound book sat on top with old, withered pages. Brushing her fingers across pages, Luna wiped away some of the dust and residue that had gathered of the years of neglect.

"Uh- Twyla?" She pinted at the long list of names written on the page.

"Edith and Clara Beaumont, born in 1898. Disappeared...1926." The sapphire gem hanging from Luna's neck throbbed dully as she remembered her former self.

"Elizabeth Moyer and Annalise Dahl, born in 1798. Died in 1822," Twyla read, her voice breaking at the word, died.

"Look at all of these names: Veronica and Tabitha McIntyre, Grinalda and Whilmena Morrison, Regina and Whitney Crawford, Theodora and Evanore and Nessa and Toryn. Are we all of these people?" Luna's knuckles whitened as gripped the pages of the book, tempted to rip them out.

"Once upon a time, maybe," Twyla abruptly spun around from the book and stumbled away- as if she could no longer stand to look at the names.

"And these dates," A crease formed between Luna's eyes as she furrowed her brows, "Some record when we died but others just say that we disappeared. Did we really disappear or did something else killed us before the Delphi?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes." The orange glow from the candles was reflected in Twyla's eyes, making them look more like fire than ice. "And whoever that person or thing is, I'd be willing to bet they are the ones who have our family and want the book."

Flipping over the cover, Luna bit back a frown when she saw it did not have the intricate moon engravings of the Book of Moons. "Well it's not here," she blew a copper curl away from her face.

Twyla gestured to the dark shadows that lingered beyond the columns. "I have a feeling we might find it in there."

A frown tugged at the edge of Luna's lips. Exploring a secret evil lair was not exactly how she had planned her Saturday to go. For a brief second she wondered what Jane was doing, was she worried about what happened to Luna? Or would she be buying her homecoming dress, blissfully unaware of all of the chaos that existed in the world. Luna envied her- so so desperately desired she could pinch her arm, wake up and realize everything that had happened in the last few days was just a horrible dream. But that would not be happening and the longer she continued to resist her new life, the longer her mother would be trapped by some psycho.

"Lead the way-" Luna began to say but Twyla cut her off.

"Actually, no, you are going to lead the way. Hold out your hands." Raising a brow, Luna complied but couldn't help but wonder what Twyla was up to.

"I want you to focus on your hands, continue to stare at them and feel the energy running through your veins."

Luna followed her sister's instructions, she stared at her palms until her eyes began to twitch and hands began to ache, and then, a strange heat, like liquid lava began to spread throughout her veins. She looked up at Twyla briefly only for her sister to reprimand her and force her to look back at her palms. A second later Twyla whispered that same word, she had said in passageway- accendo. Following Twyla's lead, Luna whispered accendo and watched in disbelief as a soft pale light erupted from her palms.

"Twyla!" Luna looked up at her sister unable to fight the smile pulling at her lips. She was actually doing magic, not just reading minds or seeing the future but practicing spells!

Twyla smirked, "Now- lead the way."

**You know what stinks about the beginning of a new school year? Getting sick 😷. Anyway, I love creepy lairs and any excuse to write about one makes me extremely happy, even if it scares the characters. We still do not know who this mysterious kidnapper is but at least we now know they definitely have a history with the girls. Please tell me what you guys thought of this chapter and also what do you think about all of the identities they have lived through.

XOXO,
Ro.**