*Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Stay Silent, apparently.*

The castle was silent, everyone asleep, save for the guards standing watch at the gates. But two men were awake. Once again, as the kingdom slept peacefully, Mark and Jack were putting another one of their boss's plans into action, this time, much bigger.

Skip was asleep on the cushion beside the bed again, while Stephanie had one again fallen asleep at the desk, asleep over her books, dreaming about her never-before seen doppelgänger. Exausted by the events of the day, she hadn't even changed into her nightgown before falling asleep.

But Skip was awoken by a strange squeaking. He looked up from his cushion, to see a brown mouse running across the floor. He licked his lips. "I may be royal, but I'm still a feline!" He said to himself. He thought back to his barking problem. "Maybe." He shook it off and hopped off the cushion, chasing it out of the room and down the stairs. Eventually, Skip hit one of the lower exits to the castle, catching it.

It was too late when Skip finally realized that the mouse was actually a toy with a string attached. Before Skip could do anything, a wooden crate was slammed over his head, trapping him inside the box.

Mark and Jack ran forward, prematurely congratulating themselves. Mostly Mark. "Alright, we got him! Let's go!"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Come here." Mark leaned in, thinking Jack was going to whisper something to him, but was instead met with a slap in the face. "Listen, Markie. We are kidnapping the princess. Not. Her. Cat."

"Oh, got it. Right. I knew that." Mark paused. "Then why did we get the cat?"

Jack sighed, annoyed. "Allow me to demonstrate, bonehead." Jack bent down and shook the crate around, with Skip inside. Skip started to meow loudly, the meowing eventually waking up Stephanie. She arose from her desk, confused. Skip wasn't on the cushion, and she heard him meowing, distressed.

"Skip!" She called. Curious, she followed the sound of the meowing out of her room, and down the same set of stairs. "Skip? Where are you? Come here, kitty!" She called out, being careful not to be too loud.

Hearing her voice draw near, Mark and Jack left Skip and hid behind a nearby pillar, waiting for her to come down. As soon as they disappeared out of sight, Stephanie came down the stairs, seeing the randomly placed crate in the middle of the path. Hearing that the meowing was even louder now, she ran towards it, picking up her dress as she ran, as to not get it dirty. If she did, she couldn't think of who she would get a scolding from first, her mother, Preminger, or Matthew.

She knelt down and lifted up the crate, seeing Skip. "Skip?" But before she could think of anything else, a brown sack was shoved over her head, and everything went black.