the atomic number for oxygen.”
“Lucky guess,” Mackenzie said, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
“Not so lucky if she’d gotten deep-fried from the inside,” Riot said. “It was pretty ballsy of you to put your life on the line like that.”
Mackenzie grunted. “I wonder if the keypad was really even that lethal.”
“Are there different levels of lethality?” Neela asked. “I was under the impression that dead was dead.”
Mackenzie ignored her. “Maybe Riot was exaggerating.”
Riot shook his electrocuted hand as if it still stung. “Or maybe you’re an ungrateful hag.”
“That room was meant to kill me,” Neela said softly. She seemed surprisingly calm and collected.
“We don’t know that,” Persey lied.
“It’s true.” Neela’s eyes drifted around the new space. “Now who is supposed to die in here?”
There was no mistaking the theme of the new room: if the giant Union Jack pinned on the wall beside a portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II didn’t tip you off, the four round tables, each set with a hand-painted teapot and saucer set, would have. It was High Tea. An English tearoom.
Was this meant for Mackenzie, Miss Royal College of Music?
As with every other room in the competition, the tearoom had been expertly appointed. A white chair sat at each table, the cushions upholstered in a mix of toile, plaid, and Victorian striped fabrics. The flowers in the little vases, which served as centerpieces, were Tudor roses, their virginal white centers offset by bloodred tips, the symbolism of which wasn’t lost on Persey. The walls were papered with a garish pink floral pattern, dotted with framed needlepoints that ringed three sides of the room, and the fourth wall, which housed the flag and the queen, also held a door. It was wooden, old and rough as if it had been taken straight from a thatched cottage in the Cotswolds, but more striking than its style was its functionality. Or lack thereof. This door had no handle.
“Is it too much to hope for that the door will just swing open when we push on it?” Kevin said.
Persey ushered him forward with a sweep of her arm. “You’re welcome to give it a try.”
With a characteristic shrug, Kevin charged forward, lowering his shoulder at the last moment as he drove it into the wooden door.
The thud of Kevin’s impact was quickly followed by a crash as he bounced off the wall, spun backward off-balance, and grabbed hold of the queen’s portrait as he attempted to break his fall, carrying it with him onto the floor. The frame cracked on impact, but thankfully, there was no glass.
“Good news!” Kevin said, popping to his feet. “I wasn’t electrocuted.”
“Is there bad news?” Persey asked.
“Yep. It looks like this door extends down into the floor.”
Mackenzie joined him, peering down at the base of the door. “You’re right. It just disappears down there. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Kevin snorted. “No, it’s not.”
Mackenzie couldn’t stop herself from flirting, even in the face of death. “You know, I could show you…”
“Maybe later. Right now, I’m starving.” He bent over the nearest table and tried to lift the lid off the pot. “It’s stuck.” Then he tried to pick up the cup and saucer, also with no luck. Same with the vase of Tudor roses and a little tray that held a slip of paper. “I think they’ve been superglued to the table. Why would anyone do that?”
Persey wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
“Hey, there’s even a check!” Kevin bent over the little tray. “Twenty-two pound fifty. That sounds expensive.”
“Like thirty bucks,” Mackenzie said.
“For thirty bucks, the queen better pour out herself.”
Persey approached the nearest table to see the bill for herself. Unlike Kevin’s, this bill was for seventeen pound even. Weird.
“These needlepoints are all poems,” Neela said. She slowly ringed the room, examining each frame. “‘I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills / When all at once I saw a crowd / A host, of golden daffodils.’”
“Is that Coldplay?” Mackenzie asked. “Sounds like Coldplay.”
“Ew, no.” Riot reared back his head, offended.
“It’s Wordsworth,” Persey said quietly.
Riot’s face lit up with admiration. “Nice.”
It was the first time she’d admitted to anyone that she read poetry, let alone classic British poetry. Not the Elizabethan stuff that Riot specialized in, but the romantic poets. She loved the way they sounded when read by the English narrators in her audiobooks.
“Oh, yeah, and there are a bunch of volumes of Wordsworth piled up down here on the floor,” Neela