Alice thought her throat was going to close. She felt like her chest was burning, like she couldn't breathe.

The pocket watch in her hand meant to trap Xavier's soul was doing nothing at all, and it was all her own fault. She forgot the one key thing about Xaiver— he'd traded his soul for the form and power he possessed now. He never had a soul for it to trap.

Maybe she was stupid after all.

"What's the problem?" Ellie asked, half focusing on the vines, though Xaiver was firmly held in place by now. Instead, she moved her hands from door to door, window to window, creating plants that sealed the group of panicked courtiers inside the room.

It was for their own good, in the end, but they certainly didn't see it that way at the moment. The clamor only grew louder as they tried in vain to leave, as a few of the people who chose to listen to Willow tried to calm the rest of them.

However, Alice had her own problems to deal with.

"He doesn't have a soul anymore! The trap won't work—" Alice shouted, backing away.

"It'll work, just give it a minute! Hold it steady!" Ellie nodded, and that was enough encouragement for Alice to still her shaking hands.

It would work. It had to work. It would, it just needed another minute. It just needed enough time to find him, to lock on. Alice's focus narrowed entirely to the watch and Xavier, to the distance between them, to the warmth of the metal as it heated in her hands.

She would never be able to forget the sight of what happened next.

There was no way that anyone could have prepared her for what it looked like to watch a spirit as it was forced to leave a body. She wondered if this was something that Ellie had ever seen, but it couldn't have been. Black smoke poured from the mouth of Xavier's stolen body, and it almost looked like tar began to leak out of every opening of the body. Eyes, ears, mouth, nose— all of it poured a horrible, dark substance that seemed to move towards the watch in her hand as if drawn in by a magnet.

Alice forced herself to keep hold of the soul trap, no matter how badly she wanted to drop it. She forced herself not to look at the myriad of screaming faces that the dark sludge twisted itself into as it flowed towards her. She tried not to listen to the terrible sounds of scratching screaming and sickening squelching as the murky tar-fog entered the face of the watch, impossibly sucked inside until it was no more.

The face of the watch closed on its own as the last vestiges of the smoke and sludge slithered inside.

Xavier's screams of anger turned, slowly, into groans of pain.

Except that it was no longer Xavier.

"Let him go!" Willow cried, though the vines were already retreating into the patches of bare earth showing through the cracked tile flooring. "Let him go now!"

"Don't worry, I'm doin' it, just gimmie a second, will ya?" Ellie sighed.

As the vines pulled away, it was clear that the burns from the holy water were still in place. Though the spirit inhabiting the body had caused the reaction, the physical damage was still there. That was something Alice hadn't anticipated, and Florian was clearly still in pain. If she knew how to heal him, she would, but Alice wasn't a healer, even with the supposed well of magic inside her.

Willow was, though, and thanks to Xavier's fall earlier, they had exactly what they needed for her to work her healing magic.

It took a moment to find it, because she wasn't entirely sure where it had fallen, but it wasn't hard to locate the piece of crystal on the ground, shining in the moonlight. Alice snatched the stray piece of broken antler from the ground, then ran to the table and grabbed the knife she'd used to prick her thumb.

She ran back to where Willow knelt beside her cousin, pressing the knife and the antler chunk into her hands.

"Can you heal him?" Alice asked.

Willow's eyes went wide for a moment, but then she nodded, setting her jaw. "I've got him. Do what you need to do."

Now that Xavier was trapped, there was only one piece of her plan left. It was time to undo the memory magic... and also to let the people out of the ballroom, as the Shadow Court members looked understandably terrified. They had moved as far away as possible from the commotion, gathering at the back of the room, and they were dead silent.

"Sorry, y'all. Desperate times," Alice called, waving awkwardly with one hand while she scratched the back of her neck with the other.

Ellie snorted, walking up to stand beside where Willow was shaving off pieces of antler like salt from a block.

"How did you know the watch would still work?" Alice asked, looking up at her silver-haired friend. "I never told you I was gonna use it."

"Soul traps and spirit traps ain't all that different," Ellie said with a shrug. "It takes it a minute to home in on the target without a soul, yeah, but it'll get there eventually."

Made sense. Alice sighed, letting out a manic giggle that could only come from surviving a near-death situation.

And then something began to clatter.

It was a jittering, metal sound, and it only took a moment to realize that it was coming from where Alice had placed the soul trap watch on the crystal table. It was vibrating, shaking, and a strange, black smoke had started to leak out of the object in eerie, dark tendrils.

"Shit," Alice whispered, staring at the jittering watch.

Ellie surged forward as if by instinct, grabbing the watch in both her hands. A bright, blue-tinted light grew around where she held it closed, pushing back the dark smoke as it tried to seep from the cracks between the lid and the face of the watch.

"What's happening?" Alice asked, still pulling at the last of the vines around a dizzy and disoriented Florian.

"It's not enough," Willow breathed. "He's fighting back— the bargain isn't done!"

"Well, how do we finish it?" Alice cried, eyes wide as she instinctively started to move towards Ellie.

"Stay back!" Ellie warned, speaking through gritted teeth. "I can hold him in here for a lil' bit, but y'all better think fast. He's a strong sucker, even as a spirit! Willow, get Florian up now!"

"Doing my best," Willow grunted, still working with the knife.

Pieces of antler dust floated down onto Florian's face and into his open mouth, but for a moment, there was no change. His breathing was raspy and labored, and Alice couldn't help but blame herself. She didn't know what else she could have done in the moment, but she also didn't know what she would do if Florian died.

Losing him would be disastrous. She didn't do all this to save him only to come up short, and certainly not now, certainly not from a little holy water that shouldn't have even hurt him in his typical state.

"Will he...?" Alice began, looking at Willow.

"He'll be okay. In theory, as soon as the spirit transferred, the holy water stopped being a bane to him and started to work in reverse. We just need to treat the burns," she muttered, still gently patting the ground antler against his skin.

"Alice, I need you to try to break that magic," Ellie said, clearly struggling to keep her tone even.

"I don't know how!" she insisted, biting her lip, looking for any way she might be able to access her supposed well of magic, or maybe any way she could drain the magic off things a little faster... but there obviously was no answer in front of her. There was no sign in the stars, no perfect moment

"I know, but we're outta options. I need you to try," Ellie urged.

Try?

It had never been enough when she'd tried in the past. It had never worked out, it had never gone well, and it certainly wasn't something she wanted to do now, without any guidance or instruction. Ellie was right, though. They were out of options.

She forced herself to take a breath, to close her eyes, to try and sense the flow of magic in the room. She could feel the hum of it in her bones if she tried— every witch could. There was a certain nuance to sensing a spell or the effects of a spell, and there was certainly one at work here.

Alice took a moment to concentrate, and within her whirling thoughts, within the chaos of the room, strung between almost everyone there, she found a sticky web. It wasn't pleasant to touch when she reached out with her senses, but it felt numb and foggy around it, and that was the only major working in the room. It had to be the memory magic. There was no other option.

So Alice reached out with her own magic, and she pulled.

It wasn't exactly a comfortable sensation. It felt like trying to swallow a gulp of water that was a little too big, like something was stuck in her throat that made it difficult to breathe. There was a lot of magic in the room, and it was hard to pull only on the foggy threads of power blocking the memories of the Shadow Fae, but she kept at it until her head was pounding, until her hands shook and her heart raced far too quickly in her chest.

And then it all snapped back.

Alice gulped in gasping breaths of air as she shook her head.

"I can't— I can't do it!" she said, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

She wasn't strong enough. She wasn't powerful enough, didn't know enough, didn't actually understand anything about magic at all. It didn't matter if she could sense the web if she couldn't do anything with it.

"Alice?"

It was only one word, but it was enough to snap her out of her spiral. It was soft and kind, gentle and soothing, such a sharp contrast to every word Xavier had ever spoken.

"... Florian?" she croaked, ready to cry.

"It's me," he rasped, pushing himself into a sitting position.

He leaned on a tired-looking Willow, and for the first time, she could really see the similarities in their features. They were certainly related, and their family bond made Alice's heart swell in the best way.

Alice threw her arms around both Florian and Willow as a sob broke free from her throat. Her entire body was shaking, and for a moment, everything else around her seemed to fade away.

He was so, so warm.

There was no time for celebrating, though.

"Hate to break this up, but could ya hurry it up over there?!" Ellie called. Her hands were firmly clasped around the watch, but sweat ran down her forehead as she struggled to keep up with Xavier's attempts to break free.

Ellie was strong, but they were running on borrowed time. She only had one idea left.

"I need you," Alice said frantically, grabbing Florian's hands in hers. "I need you to finish the blood vows with me."

"What?" Florian cried, trying to pull away, but Alice wouldn't let him.

"I need you to help me drain off the memory magic," Alice explained. "I can't do it myself— I don't know how."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"They don't trust Xavier, we know that. They don't remember you yet, though. If they do, I think we can complete the bargain, but it's gotta be fast, and it's gotta be now!" she insisted. "You know how this magic works better'n I do, so help me use it!"

Florian opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

It was the only way. They needed to do this— she trusted him to do this. Everything would be okay if it was Florian on the other end of the blood vows. They'd make it work. They'd find a way.

"... No," he finally said.

"What?"

"You can do this yourself. I know you can do this yourself."

"I just tried," she insisted. "I'm not strong enough. I can't do it."

"Yes, you can," Florian whispered, moving to take her hand in his, "but let me try to help."

"Okay," Alice agreed. She sniffled loudly, wiping her runny nose, and was surprised when her sleeve came away bloody. Whatever she'd done, her body didn't like it. She was pushing her limits... and she didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.

Luckily, Florian didn't see. He kept her hand in his, but he was already urging her towards the edge of the dais, pulling her to stand beside him as he spoke to his people.

Something in them felt the change. Alice could see it— the crowd moved from panic to curiosity, still with an edge of fear, but there was something there that made them want to listen to them. The memory magic couldn't be forever, and it wasn't unbreakable. She just needed to give it the last little nudge.

"I made a mistake!" Florian cried, voice echoing off the stone walls. "I left you all. I never meant to, but I did. I wanted to be a better leader, but I chose to try to shortcut that instead of working and learning as I should have."

This time, Alice reached out. However, instead of trying to pull the magic towards her when the sticky web didn't want to move, she decided to push.

If her power could work like a battering ram, then so be it. She'd batter the magic to shreds and then take it as her own. As she tried to sense the threads of power, tried to understand how to throw her own meager supply of magic at it to break it, Florian's voice kept her grounded.

"If you'll give me that chance, I want to rebuild what we've lost," he continued. "If there's anything I've learned from all this, it's that you deserve better than someone who tries to shortcut things."

She'd always been told she was small. Useless. She'd been told she didn't have much magic at all, that there wasn't any point in trying.

Alice kept pushing, though. She kept digging and draining and looking for more until her vision blurred with black spots and the world spun around her.

"Alice. You have to stop— you're reaching your limit!" Willow cautioned, but the words sounded far away.

She really was at the bottom of her well of power, but Alice wouldn't stop. There wasn't any more magic, there wasn't any left in her, it was dry and useless and terrible, and not enough to break one single bargain, much less undo a complex web of power—

"Please," Florian whispered, and it was enough to get through the whirl of thoughts and sensations speeding through Alice faster than lightning. "Help me help us all."

And then the bottom of the well cracked open.

Alice gasped as her senses flooded, eyes wide open. It felt almost like a shot of adrenaline to her entire system, but it felt like relief, too.

Like water in a desert.

She fell into the reservoir of her own power, and in that place, she found peace.

In that place, she also found a sense of herself. That raw magic could be anything that she wanted it to be, do anything that she wanted it to do. She just had to will it, to ask it, to make sure it knew its task.

At the moment, its task was to batter Xavier's memory magic to smithereens.

It took a flick of her hand, a single thought, and a rush of power came from deep in her bones, or maybe past her bones. Maybe it came from somewhere she couldn't name. It tore through the threads and the fog like a tornado through a field, throwing strands of magic everywhere in the process. It wasn't delicate or subtle, but it did the job.

A wind whipped through the room, seemingly from nowhere, but Alice understood what was happening. It was the physical part of her magic, swirling through and picking up every last bit of rogue memory magic, barreling through it just like she'd asked... and then it took all that gathered magic and turned back to her.

The tornado returned with full force, enough that she barely managed to stay on her feet, but she felt herself swallow that power, felt it become enveloped by her own reserves of magic until it was no longer memory magic. It was no longer a fog. It had been transformed inside of her, and she'd added it to that well of power saved for future use, ready to be molded into whatever she needed.

Alice took a slow, deep breath through her nose, and she opened her eyes. She hadn't even realized they'd been closed.

The ballroom was silent for the first time that evening. The moon shone high overhead, and Alice looked out over a group of calm courtiers. They, admittedly, looked incredibly confused, but they were calm.

"Your... highness?" a small voice asked, echoing throughout the crystal ballroom. Ah. It... was the librarian, and he stared up at Florian with a kind of awe and reverence she'd never seen on his face before.

"What happened to us?" asked another, and Alice was able to identify the voice as one of the palace maids.

"Prince Florian?" came another voice. And then another, and another, all shouting Florian's name, all wondering where he'd gone and how they'd managed to forget him for so long, all wondering where Xavier had come from in the first place.

Was it possible to feel dizzy with sheer relief?

"Thank the Lord," Ellie muttered, the blue light fading from around her hands. "Not sure how much longer I could'a held him in there."

Ellie dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged with the watch in her lap, slumped over and clearly trying to catch her breath. Whatever it took to keep Xavier in there, it drained her like nothing Alice had ever seen before. It was a good thing that Ellie was as strong as she was— there probably wasn't another spirit worker below the Mason-Dixon line that could have contained him like that.

"Thank you," Alice said, reaching over to put her hand on Ellie's arm.

"It's what we do for our own," Ellie mumbled, grabbing Alice's hand in hers. "Though... you got a little..." She squinted, gesturing vaguely to her upper lip with her free hand.

Alice turned away, letting go of Ellie's hand to feel her face, but she found herself immediately face to face with Florian, who was looking at her with concern. He pulled her into a strong hug that didn't last near as long as she wanted before he pulled away again, looking her over for injuries.

"Are you well?" Florian asked, taking her face in his hands.

"All good," Alice rasped, taking a slow, deep breath.

"Your nose is bleeding." He dabbed at her face with his sleeve. It appeared that the bleed became even worse, but that was alright.

"Nothin' an antler can't fix," she muttered, using her own sleeve to wipe away the rest of the blood.

In reality, she felt... decent. The stress of depleting her initial well of power hadn't been good for her body, and she was tired, but the rush of tapping into that hidden reservoir was more than enough to make up for most of it. She still wasn't sure what she wanted to do with all that newfound magic at her fingertips, but learning how to shape it could happen another day.

Florian snorted in that way that she adored, and he shook his head. "You'll need to be more careful. I can't take this kind of thing often, you know."

"Having your body stolen? Me either. Can't say I'd recommend it," she shot back, unable to stop a smile from spreading across her face. Willow joined them from where she'd been trying to calm the court members, finally coming up to hug her cousin.

"You know the worst part? He did make you the leader your people deserve," she said softly, her white freckles practically glowing in the dim ballroom lighting. "Not in the way he wanted, though."

"I suppose it's true that I wouldn't be where I am without him," Florian said, groaning as he glanced at the pocket watch in Ellie's hand. "I learned what kind of leader we needed by... having my position stolen. The irony."

Ironic, indeed. Strangely, though... Alice was glad for it.

Mirror or not, she wanted to stay with Florian. She wanted to see where this would go. He was worth it, and it was a journey she didn't regret.

Well... she could have done without almost dying, but at the end of the day, she'd learned too much about herself to regret it entirely. The good outweighed the bad, and moving forward, she just hoped to keep tipping the balance in that direction.

"Y'all better teach your kids not to make bargains with dangerous spirits," Ellie grumbled, brushing stray strands of hair from her face and wiping sweat off her forehead as she finally stood. She pressed the pocket watch into Florian's hand, closing the prince's fingers over it and patting it firmly. "I ain't doin' that shit again. No way."

Alice's mouth hung open as she tried to figure out exactly what to say about the idea that she might have children with Florian one day, but she never really came up with a response.

"Really? Because that was incredibly impressive," Florian said, giving a small bow.

Ellie saluted him back, but she shook her head. "Outta my pay grade, bud. I'm gonna need a nap. A long one."

Alice thought that sounded like a good idea for everyone involved.