Drae felt her nerves lift, giving way to an absolute rightness. She crept to her door, opened it a crack and peeked out to the massive, empty halls. She knew, by now, her father had most likely retreated to his study to drink himself to sleep on his finest stash of Chef Loriel's elven wine. She knew her brothers will have been bathed by their live-in nanny, and tucked up in our beds. She knew Minnie would be alone, isolated, in her separate bedroom in the north wing. Alone until morning. Drae felt in that moment it was now or never.
Drae made it to the north wing without being seen or heard. She was so often dismissed in that house, she sometimes felt as invisible as a ghost. This fact ususally incurred feelings of sadness and insecurity, but not in that moment. In that moment, she praised her stealth and used it to sneak her way through the back of the Minnie's bedchamber. It was a second entrance, a false door behind a large family portrait her father had made at Minnie's insistance. No one, but Minnie knew where the backdoor was located or how to gain axcess, except for Minnie. And that's just what Drae wanted her to think.
The key to the lock was in Drae's eyes. The symbolism of it was not lost on her at all. She pocked two fingers into the spaces where her painted eyes were and they sunk in. The painting popped open and...