Magnus tried to blend in with the crowd. It was not hard when he was the shortest person there. He slowly slid away and entered another room. He had remembered the way to the exhibition.

He did this by remembering the path when he was there on the trip and now he compared it with where he's been to today. Now, he had a partial map of the palace in his head. He had also thought of a plan if he was to get caught. ​​

He slowly traversed to the East side of the palace from the Westside. It was a long way and he needed to be smart. Thankfully, most of the serving staff was in the hall. All he needed to do was be careful of the guards.

~Hmm, this area is heavily guarded. It connects the east and west side. Hmm...~ He waited there to find a way. He knew he was not in some spy story, just throwing something and hoping it would distract the guards was foolish. They'd rather try to find out where the thing fell from.

So, he looked around for other options. Then, finally, he gave up and decided to go from some other place. It was still 1969 and CCTVs were yet to be installed here, which was why Magnus neither knew about them nor had to worry about them.

Seeing no other way, Magnus jumped out from the side window to the small garden. There, he was at the risk of being spotted by someone he didn't even know was there.

He moved while crouching and luckily no one spotted him as he was shorter than the bushes there. He crossed the location where many guards were and entered the Westside.

Because this was the area most of the tourists were allowed to visit, the security was not high as it was closed today. [Note: This novel is set up in a fictional world. In the real-world, Buckingham Palace opened for the public in 1993.]

Magnus crouch walked all the way to the gallery where all the historic portraits were. It was dark but he could see enough to find his way. He went all the way to the empty wall where the invisible portrait was.

Magnus had no idea who the person in the portrait was and at the moment, the person seemed to be sleeping.

"Hey, wake up." He whispered loudly.

"Ummm... go away, Merlin. Don't bother this king." The portrait muttered.

Magnus didn't wait any longer and went to take it down. It was surely heavy but he managed. Then, he held it in front of himself, so that both his hands would be holding the portrait from the same area where his arm length ended. This way, he would simply look as if he was standing or walking in the attention stance.

The annoying thing for him was that the portrait was covering his whole body, all except his eyes. He felt awkward but he had a firm will.

He looked back one last time. He felt like he was doing bad by stealing and it was the truth. But this talking portrait was unknown to all anyway. ~I will pay back for this, sorry for stealing.~ he told himself.

He turned around to go back.

"Renly, I think I heard something." A voice came that made Magnus's heart beat faster and his body temperature rise up.

"You're hearing stuff." Another voice came.

"Come on, let's check it. Better be safe than sorry." the earlier voice said and soon the footsteps started coming.

"Ah, there must be some kid playing hide and seek. It always happens during these big events." The other guard spoke.

Magnus looked left and right. The two guards were coming from his return route. He also had not enough time to find another way. So, he did what he had planned.

He quickly ran to a large portrait on the wall and started staring at it with keen interest. He kept the charade going until he was found by one of the guards.

The guard actually nearly had a heart attack. He was not expecting to see anything but when he saw a small kid, standing in little to no light, he thought it was a ghost. But then he noticed that he had seen the child.

"Hey, Renly, isn't it the kid who won the award today? How did he get here?" He called his partner.

The two walked to Magnus and shook his shoulder lightly. "Boy, how did you get here?"

Magnus looked at them with the most innocent face he could and spoke in the warmest voice possible, "Uncle, mummy said that George Cross award was named after King George VI? I wanted to see what King George looked like."

"Ah, so it was curiosity? But you shouldn't be here, you could have asked the event organiser. I'm sure they wouldn't have denied you. Anyway, follow us, we will get you back to the hall." They offered him help.

Magnus smiled and nodded. He kept his hold on the portrait and followed the two guards. This time, entering the Eastside was very easy and he was easily led into. Poor Bobby was probably waiting for Magnus' instruction just outside the hall, not knowing he had to take another route.

Soon, he entered the Hall again. But he had already given Bobby a gesture to stay silent. So, when they were both inside and alone, he just showed a thumbs up to Bobby.

The extra-chubby boy was very happy, even though he could not see it. But Magnus made him touch it.

"Check for yourself." Bobby went ahead. As he was told, instead of his hand touching Magnus' chest, he touched something solid.

"Oh my god," he whispered.

"See, I told you. But I don't know why you can't see it yet. Though we will experiment with it later. Now we just need to get home." Magnus said nervously.

"Don't worry about that. Getting it was the tough part, now it should be easy from here." Bobby was equally excited.

"YAWN..." Suddenly a voice from the portrait.

Magnus looked down at it and found the man in the portrait was getting up. The man looked left and right and noticed Magnus' face close to his face because of the way he had to hold it.

"*Cough* Son, I respect your personal preferences but I don't like kissing men."

Magnus looked down, "Shhh..."

"Oh, well, I guess I will have to silently go through with all this, I'm a painting, after all, can't really say no to it if you want to do it."

"Stay silent, I am taking you with me. Do you want to be left here again? Invisible and alone?" Magnus threatened.

"Oh no, no. I'll be quiet as a dead pig, sir."

After that, Magnus took a seat at the table his parents sat at. He kept the portrait close to him, just beside his seat. He was always on edge because he really felt weird as he was able to see the giant painting beside him while everyone else was oblivious to it.

He stayed there till lunch. After 2 hours, it was finally time to go home as the event had ended and the queen had left after eating.

"Let's go home, Magnus. You must be tired after all this. I must say, it was kind of boring." Adam spoke.

His grandpa also nodded, "Indeed, even I never liked all these official events. They are always too stiff and not many interesting things happen."

"Yes, I got bored." Magnus nodded. He was rather excited to go home and talk to the portrait.

Soon, Magnus' grandma and mother came and dragged their husbands, "Stop gossiping like women, you two. Show some manners. Let's go,"

[Discord - https://discord.gg/DgHkrAn]

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You can read 20 advance chapters on -patreon.com/misterimmortal.

Special thanks to *Douglas Flower* *Umar Latif* *Julian Rocamora* *Darrien Steely*

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