Never in my life have five minutes felt so long as eternity. Darius and his group were gone by the time I woke everyone else up and made them eat cook's feast of a breakfast. Waiting until nine bells to leave for Gretel's killed me too, but that wasn't as bad as waiting in the closest alleyway to the front gates until the clock tower's longer hand points down. Henry and Alister are just as anxious, both bouncing on their toes and playing with their hands. I've had more stressful missions than this, but none of them made me this nervous.

The plan is sound, we just need to make sure that no one dies or fucks it up. Fauna ordered me to do this, to make sure that everyone was as safe as possible, but in any scenario we'd be in danger, so the mark on my skin didn't hold me back when I decided to use the riskiest yet only functional plan we had. I'm sure that if we had more time we'd be able to bargain with something or find a way to gain the upper hand, but we don't, and we've gone long enough without her.  

The hand finally falls, and I turn to Henry and Al watching as their faces reek of nervousness and anxiety. "Remember, don't think more than needed, don't show your true feelings, and whatever you do, don't do something that could get Clare or anyone else killed or harmed. We're the front line. If we fall, so does everyone else."

"No pressure then." Henry stares up at the castle walls, his lip caught between his teeth. Despite his on-edge behavior, he rolls out his shoulders and nods. He's ready.

Patting Alister on the back, I pull up my balaclava and tug down my hood, and then head for the gates. There are water wolves laying on each side of them, but they don't do more than open their silver eyes and glance at us. I remember the first time I entered these gates. Fauna and I had our normal life back then where our biggest worry at the time had been Willdred Maron and his inevitable death.

Fauna had put a brute of a guard in his place, calling him names that made his face tighten in satisfying anger. She was full of life and let everyone know it, and I loved that she was. That day I swore her smile stayed for the entire walk to the throne room and only dropped it to darken her expression to meet the royals. I always loved walking beside my sister to make an impression, and at that moment, I had never loved it more.

We pass under the archway, marking the point at which Xaxias and his dogs are most likely to feel us entering. No one has been allowed in until now, and that'll make them curious yet excited, which means I can't be Lance Arthur Rheasydia, I have to be the Sinister Fox.

None of the wolves all about the grounds stop us, but it is rather eerie when the double doors of the castle open on their own accord. They definitely know we're here.

We walk through, and still no sign of life in sight aside from the pair of wolves that seem to be wrestling in the foyer. Their being nonchalant comforts me, but it's short-lived as we approach the throne room doors, and they too slowly open on their own. A wave of something all too familiar rushes out as they open. Death. There's the stench of it, the chill and heat of it tingling on my fingers. Death may be an old friend who guides my shoulder, but even his touch disappears as we walk in.

Everyone's already here. Every follower that Xaxias currently has left lines one path to the dais where he stands, Eleanor and Charles at each end at the bottom step, Xaxias dressed in all black smiling like a mad cat watching mice run in circles, and no sign of this Visha.

Shit.

I keep my gait sure and steady, my body thrumming with the urge to fight, but my mind clear in case he can somehow read minds. We don't know what he can do, so it's better safe than sorry.

We stop five feet from the dais, Al and Henry staying a step behind me as I told them to in Gretel's. Yes, both for drama and protection on all sides.

"Will you not bow?" I didn't forget his voice, but it still runs shivers down my spine to hear the scrape of it.

"You're no king. You bear no crown nor title." He smiles wider in response and tilts his head as a bright red crown suddenly appears on his head.

"I don't normally wear crowns. They're rather a nuisance if you ask me, but...I can't deny that they do make one look rather dashing."

I can practically hear Henry's retort in my head. If that's dashing, I'd hate to see ugly.

"Where is she?"

"How did you get in?" he counters, completely ignoring me. The clock ticks and playing along with him will only make him question why we're so calm about conversing. Forcing him will show our hand and he'll catch Vlad and the others before they can even step into the tunnels. It's all a game.

"The same way we'll walk out of here with my sister," I answer with a bored shrug. It has Charles's jaw clenching.

"Your sister is gone."

"Then why are the wolves outside?"

"I said your sister was gone. Her body, however, belongs to me now."

Images of possibilities of his words fly through my mind, but I shove them away. "I still don't believe you. You are one known for deception and lies. Perhaps you are the King of something after all."

"You're just as annoying as your sister," Charles mutters. I smirk at how he likely unknowingly just gave away more information than Xaxias likely wants us to have.

I let Al respond. "And you're just as asinine and rancid as your whore."

Charles's face goes red with rage, and Xaxias chuckles. "Annoying, but entertaining," he muses, looking at the younger man with a new interest.

"Not nearly as entertaining as watching their harlot's blood spill," Eleanor claims.

"I beg to differ," Henry says, meeting her confident stare. "Watching you squirm while Clare and Darius had their hands all over each other was far more enticing. Even more so when we wouldn't let you anywhere near them, but anyone else was free to do so."

"Where is she," I repeat before Eleanor jumps off that step and ends up with her throat slashed. Now I'm regretting intervening.

"Being treated like the mutt she is," Eleanor scorns, still glaring at Henry,

"Now, now Eleanor," Xaxias croons. "There won't be any beheading just yet."

"Pity," Al retorts flatly.

"Are you certain you wish to see her? She's a little...under the weather."

"No, I don't want to see her." His brow roses in question. "I want to take her and leave you standing in the lake of their blood and corpses." I gesture to Charles and Eleanor. "I'm sure your cannibalistic dog would love that, seeing as she claimed to be hungry and all."

His face doesn't falter, but Charles and Eleanor's both slacken. Satisfaction runs chills along my skin like a blanket. "Oh...I'm guessing that you didn't know how your prized pupils visited us last night. Said some interesting things."

"Is that so?" He looks at the back of their heads as if daring them to deny it. Not that they could. After all, what do I have to gain from lying? "And what, may I ask, did they say?"

"They gave us a riddle. 'From the first beat mends the bond, but the bond is not yet mended. Mended lays the life, but live it won't forever. Forever is long in length, but small in size it'll be. Be what she may, her cavity will hold, so long as dies the mended bond, and bond new mended to forever.'"

I memorized every word that came out of Visha's mouth, and though I tried tearing it apart, I didn't come to many dependent answers. He, however, shifts on his feet, shoulders tensing. He knows what it means, and all within a second of hearing me recite it all.

"I see." I can't read his eyes, seeing as they're always full of anger, but the twitch in his jaw says enough. "And did you solve it?"

"Why else would we come the day after they bestowed it upon us?" I prompt.

Truths and lies to trick the mind of both the liar and the victim. Another one of my father's lessons.

"Well, I'm afraid all of it save for the last sentence was useless in your rescue quest. 'Be what she may, her cavity will hold, so long as dies the mended bond and bond new mended to forever.' Care to see who that forever is?"

I keep my face bored, but that line alone has been the most difficult to try and interpret. I have no idea what he means.

The servant's door to our right opens and I nearly choke on the urge to run forward when I see who walks through.

Will. Willdred fucking Maron, the living pure definition of a traitor. He meets my eyes as he comes up beside Xaxias, smirking like a man about to get his ass kicked. Henry and Alister each take a step forward, a clear message telling me to bite my tongue and stick to the plan.

"Don't calm down so soon, Arthur. I don't come alone." Will extends his hand back out towards the servant's door, and I follow it.

This time all three of us stumble a step forward.

Her hair is longer than when I last saw her, and her body is too thin for the black and gold dress they put on her. Her eyes are downcast, but there's no mistaking the face - haunt as it is - as hers. As Fauna's.

"Clare-" She stops suddenly and looks right at Alister.

Dear Gods. We all flinch when we see it – the red in her eyes.

No. No no no no.

"Who are they?" she asks Will. Not a lock of hatred flickers in her eyes when she looks at him. If anything, if I was delusional, I'd think she was even looking at him with fondness.

Willdred gives her a wide mock of a joyous smile that makes me want to drive a knife into his eye to wipe it away. "Visitors, my love."

My love!

She takes his offered hand and lets him pull her to him. "I thought we never got visitors."

"It's a special occasion," Xaxias explains, giving her an equally wide grin.

She curtsies to him, "Father."

Father!

"Did you sleep well, my child?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"What did you do?" Henry demands, his voice so low one could mistake it for one of the wolf's growls.

"I simply gave Clarice here the love she deserved," Xaxias explains. "Isn't that right, darling?"

Her brows knit with confusion that lights hope - dangerous, dangerous hope in my chest. "I...I don't remember much, but I do remember Willdred. He's kind to me." She sets a hand on his cheek, stroking her thumb along his scar.

"Kind!" The sarcasm leaves my lips before I can stop it. "Do you now consider it kind that he murdered your best friend?"

"Clare, please," Alister begs. He steps forward further, his face falling into crumbling heartache. It's enough to make my hands shake with more anger. "This isn't you. This is them – all of them."

"You're not some red-eyed monster who has no heart and the thirst for war and destruction," Henry adds desperately.
I stay where I am, knowing that at this point, the tightening in my chest is a warning sign that my anger is reaching its limits on restraint. A twitch and I could damn us all.

"You are kind and you love everyone who isn't a hellbent cockhead with every bone in your body."

"Either you listen to us – the people who truly care for you – or I'll have no choice but to kill everyone here and take you." I hate how I have to see the hurt in her eyes at my voice, but those aren't her eyes, and I'm not one for entire sentiment right now.

"Take me!" she yells, her voice suddenly gone and so cold that I flinch. No, that's not my sister. "I am not some kind of piece of property to be bought and sold. I will not be taken and I will not allow you to brutalize me and my husband like lame cattle!"

"Husband-"

"Unless you are here to offer your services or be fed to the dogs like the meaningless slabs of meat you are, then I suggest you go before you find yourselves buried several layers beneath the castle."

I can't do more than stare. Stare at the ruby wedding ring on her left hand, at the sharp furrow of her brow, and the furiosity on her face. No, this isn't the Fauna I remember, but it's still Fauna. She's in there somewhere - she has to be.

"If what you're looking for is a compliant slut, then take the healer." She points to where I didn't even notice Hira was standing by one of the followers. Remembering that I'm not supposed to recognize her, I let my eyes scan her, then do a brief scan behind her to see if her wolf is nearby. No such luck.

I look back to my sister, hearing my father's voice asking me to promise that I'd protect her no matter what. Neither of us could save Mom, and I couldn't save him. I'm not about to be the last Rheasydia. I never want to be.

"No."

"Then you can leave."

"Not without you." She opens her mouth but before she can talk Henry and Al let their daggers fly. Eleanor and Charles sidestep them easily, but their throws weren't meant to pierce them. Mine were.

They both fall to the ground, each with one of my own daggers in their chests. Fauna raises her hands but stops just as the clock tower rings once. Xaxias, Fey, and Will all go still, looking at nothing with distant eyes. At least I counted right, otherwise, we'd be drowned or crushed. It also helps that Darius is articulate.

"Deal with them," Xaxias orders Fauna, and then he and Will are gone, leaving us with the rest of his followers and my sister.

She looks back at us with hungry eyes but folds her hands in front of her instead of raising them again. For a second I think that she just manipulated all of us by pretending to be Will's faithful wife. "Kill them."

Gods Vlad and the others better run fast, and Darius better cover his ass.