Alice let Xavier guide her into the ballroom several hours later, dressed in a delicately embroidered silver dress. She was glad she'd managed to pack a couple of items in the pockets before the encounter with him earlier, because Xaiver watched like a hawk as she dressed to make sure nothing strange happened.

"Couldn't you just do what you needed to do before and not make a spectacle of it?" she snapped, pulling against his arm, but the tugging was mostly to annoy him.

"We need to take advantage of the peak of the full moon for this. Not to mention, the Shadow Fae need to swear their fealty to their new king," he said. "Preferably with blood."

With... blood...?

Blood vows.

"It's not just mine. You're planning to take their magic too, aren't you?" she hissed. "How's that going to work? Are you lacing their wine with your blood or something?"

Xavier scoffed. "Smarter than you look, apparently. Don't worry, treasure. We'll take care of you first. They're just a convenient second course."

"Then why go to all the trouble of the memory magic?"

"I wanted a court of willing comrades, but this is truly just too much work," he said with a sigh. "Better to start fresh, and better to use the power of the moon to help me do it."

Start fresh? As in... kill the entire Shadow Court to build his own group of followers from scratch? The more Alice heard, the worse things seemed.

He pulled her through the doors of the ballroom to thunderous applause. Xavier smiled and waved, but Alice didn't bother hiding her anger. She stepped up to the dais, the same platform they'd stood on for their marriage vows, and wondered how everything had become so tangled in such a short period of time.

Then again, it was really all tangled from the start. She simply hadn't seen it.

"I wouldn't cause a scene if I were you. Could get dangerous for the former prince," Xavier murmured in her ear, putting his arm around her waist to pull her close.

"He ain't here." Alice just glared.

He might be able to convince her to be quiet, but he couldn't do anything about a grumpy face.

"I know he's here," Xavier insisted. "He's here because you're here."

"You don't know a damn thing," she hissed.

In reality, Alice was fairly certain that Florian was here somewhere. She'd missed their meeting time before the ball. More likely than not, he'd be snooping around for information

"I know he wouldn't let you go to something like this without watching from nearby, meaning it's only a matter of time until he comes out of hiding... but it doesn't actually matter if he's hiding or not, so long as he's nearby."

Unfortunately correct on Xavier's part. Alice wasn't entirely sure what he'd seen or how he'd come to this conclusion, but it was accurate enough that it made her wonder exactly when he'd caught them together.

"Did you know that shadow forms can be killed?" Xavier whispered. "All you have to do is put them in a place where there are no shadows."

She absolutely refused to give him the satisfaction of asking what that meant.

There were very few places on earth that had no shadows. The darkest caves technically had no shadows by virtue of being shrouded in shadow. Some places, if very carefully lit, could also have no shadows, but that would be difficult to reproduce.

Alice refused to let him see the tiny prickle of anxiety in the back of her throat.

"Now, normally that would just force a Shadow Fae back to their body, but... hmm. I wonder what happens when there is no body to return to? Could be an interesting experiment."

"He does have a body," Alice said through gritted teeth.

"But not the will to force me away from it," Xavier countered. "Now, you have choices. If you move to alert him, if you scream, if you take one wrong step— I will douse this room in a darkness so thick that not a single ray of moonlight will permeate it," he hissed.

That... sounded more logical than she wanted to admit. In fact, it sounded incredibly logical, and if he'd been digging in the library, it wasn't impossible that he'd come across that little tidbit of information in one of the books. It wasn't impossible that his threat was very, very real.

"What do you want me to do?" Alice spoke slowly, carefully, fighting not to snarl.

If there was one thing that most people understood about mountain folk, it was that messing with one of their own was trouble waiting to happen. Florian was one of her own, as far as she was concerned. No one got to threaten people she cared about and get away with it.

For now, though, she'd need to play along.

"Finish the blood vows," Xavier said firmly.

"How?" she spat, trying not to raise her voice.

"We are about to host a ceremonial toast to begin the ball. You will put a drop of blood into your goblet, I will put a drop in mine, and then we will exchange glasses before drinking."

He gestured towards a small, round table that she hadn't noticed before. It sat at the corner of the dais, covered by a floor-length black cloth. A pewter pitcher sat by two empty cups, a sharp knife between them.

"That can't be enough—" Alice began, and she hated the way her voice shook.

"It's enough for my purposes," Xavier snapped. "I only need the bond to last for a few minutes before I suck the life from your chest."

So it was a temporary blood vow, then? Was that even possible? Was that strong enough? Was there even enough time to worry about that?

No, probably not.

"Go to the table. Pour the wine. Prick your finger," he said curtly. "You know what happens if you don't."

The threat was enough to make her move, at least. On shaking legs, Alice approached the table. As she walked, Xavier said something to the crowd gathered for the ball, but he may as well have been speaking underwater. She wasn't paying attention.

She had to think. Florian always said she was smarter than she knew, but she didn't feel that way at the moment. All prior planning went up in smoke in thirty seconds when he'd trapped her in that bedroom, and there was very little she could do with the supplies on hand.

The soul trap was tucked down her bodice, but there was no guarantee it would work fast enough to stop Xavier casting a darkness spell. She couldn't risk Florian's life.

If she could compromise him just for a few seconds, it would probably be long enough to get the trap to work.

"Pour the wine," he growled, beckoning towards her.

Alice poured his cup first. If she could get just a moment of distraction, then it might be enough time to do something, but she needed a moment when no one was looking at her, and that would be difficult from the stage.

Xavier took his goblet from her and turned back towards the audience, raising it high.

As slowly as she could manage, Alice picked up the second goblet. Her hands were shaking, and if she wasn't careful she thought she might drop it, potentially spilling the wine everywhere...

And that gave her an idea.

Alice exaggerated the shaking, letting her hand go a little limp as she tried to hold the second goblet so she could fill it from the pitcher. She was a little afraid of what might happen if she spilled the whole pitcher of wine, but she let the empty cup clatter to the floor with a jarring clank of metal on stone.

Thankfully, it went right where she'd hoped it would, and rolled under the cloth-covered table where the wine sat. Alice turned over her shoulder and waved awkwardly at the crowd, trying to make light of it.

Mortified, Xavier swiped his hand across his eyes and made some sort of joke to brush the moment off. Uneasy laughter floated through the room, but Alice didn't hear what he'd said. She was concentrating, and he'd taken the bait.

With her back turned to Xavier, she bent to the ground to retrieve the cup from under the table. As quickly as possible, Alice shoved her hand into her skirts, removing the corked glass bottle tucked into her side pocket. She shoved the cork off with her thumb, letting it roll under the cloth covered table, and emptied the clear contents into the pewter goblet.

Before he had a chance to turn back, she stood and poured her wine into the goblet, using the sharp tip of the knife on the table to prick her thumb. Purposefully standing so Xavier could see, she let a small trickle of blood drip into the goblet, and then walked back towards him.

Standing close together, Xavier glanced at the cup, nodded his approval, and bit his own thumb with his sharp canines. A trickle of blood poured into his own goblet.

Alice wasn't entirely sure what the group of onlookers thought of this display, or perhaps strange rituals were common at full moon, but she had higher priorities. Her entire focus was on the man in front of her, and she couldn't afford to waiver.

"I give myself to the bind," Xavier said.

He made a motion that clearly meant Alice should repeat him, but she stayed silent. In reality, she hoped he might drink before

"Say it," he grunted, eyes locked on hers.

"I give myself to the stupid fucking bind," she muttered, shoving her goblet towards him.

Xavier glared as he took the cup, putting his goblet into her free hand, but apparently it was good enough.

"Now, we drink," he said, raising his goblet briefly.

The rest of the room seemed to take that as their cue to drink as well. The court members lifted their glasses to drink. Alice could see them out of the corner of her eye, but that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

Alice kept her lips closed as she raised the goblet of wine and blood to her mouth, taking a swallow that was nothing more than air. She wouldn't complete the bargain unless this didn't work, but she would certainly make a show of it for now.

Xavier seemed satisfied for the moment, raising his own cup to his lips. He downed it in one swoop, swallowing a mixture of wine, blood... and holy water.

And then he started to scream.

One thing that was for certain was that, regardless of his origins, Xavier had become something unholy. He had turned himself into something against the natural order, into someone that actively worked against the natural order. On that basis alone, Alice had hoped for a reaction to the water, but wasn't expecting one quite this severe.

It looked like Xavier had swallowed acid instead of wine. White smoke poured from his open mouth, face twisted in agony as burns and blisters appeared on his lips and tongue. Alice scrambled away, letting her goblet of wine spill over the floor.

Xavier tried to reach towards her as his screams turned from pain to rage, but it almost looked like his limbs wouldn't obey his command. As his legs gave way and he fell prone, one of his crystalline antlers hit the hard stone floor and snapped, breaking off a large chunk that skidded across the floor towards Alice. Even as he tried to crawl forward with his arms, the strength drained from him.

Xavier was still in the body, though. He hadn't left.

"Allergic to holy water, ain't ya?" Alice snapped as she fished in her pocket.

Xavier just screamed, the smoke still billowing out from his mouth.

"Get her! She tried to kill the king!" someone from the crowd shouted.

That... was bad.

Alice couldn't identify the voice that cried out, but she knew it wasn't a good idea to have a mob after you. A few people tried to run for the exits, a few started to rush the stage, but Alice did the only thing she could think of as a few of the noble guests began to mount the steps to the stage.

"This man isn't your king!" she shouted as loud as she could. "Would a real Shadow Fae have that reaction to holy water?!"

Apparently, that was enough to give them pause. It was, at the least, enough that they didn't try to attack her.

"I know y'all haven't known me long, but please!" Alice begged. "You've gotta try to remember! And— an' if you just can't remember Florian, remember everything Xavier did to you!"

"What?!" Xavier bellowed, barely able to enunciate.

"You told me yourselves: anyone who stood up to him got booted outta here like an old shoe," she continued. "You have power over this! Don't give him your trust— he doesn't belong here, and you know it!"

Unfortunately, while the Shadow Court members did, in fact, seem to agree that Xaiver couldn't be trusted, they also didn't seem to think that Alice could be trusted. She couldn't blame them— for all they knew, she'd willingly married the man and had been living blissfully with him since.

That still wasn't a good reaction, though, because the court members started to make a beeline for the gigantic double doors at the back of the ballroom.

Running away was, in theory, the worst possible thing that they could do at the moment. Yes, it would probably help their own sense of self-preservation, but the problem was that Alice needed them to be present if she was going to do anything about the memory magic. Her power wasn't enough to sweep the world for Shadow Court members. They were right here, right now, and she couldn't risk them leaving... but she also didn't know how to stop it.

As the doors swung open, her heart sank, but only for a moment.

The doors very quickly slammed shut again, and Alice realized that it wasn't the Shadow Courtiers that had opened them at all. The crowd hadn't even made it to the exit. Instead, the doors had been opened from the outside, and two familiar silhouettes stood at the back of the room.

"No one leaves!"

Willow's voice echoed through the ballroom.

"You stay down, you son of a bitch," Ellie said, hand extended towards Xavier.

Vines grew from the stone, lashing him to the floor. While Xavier was already on his knees, the plants pulled him fully prone. He broke a few of the smaller vines, but it wasn't enough to stop the plants from fully covering him, taking advantage of the weakness induced by the holy water to grapple him.

"Never been happier to see you!" Alice said, fighting not to drop to her knees in sheer relief.

"Sorry we cut it kinda close! We came as fast as we could," Ellie said, moving towards the dais as she called more vines to wrap around Xavier. "Holy water helped, huh?"

"Yeah, it did!" Alice cheered, unable to keep the absolutely relieved smile off her face.

The courtiers, on the other hand, seemed absolutely panicked.

Understandable, but not what she wanted, and Alice didn't have the skills she needed to calm them. Instead, Willow kept her position in front of the doors, arms spread wide, speaking directly to the people she'd known from birth.

"If you won't hear Alice, then hear me!" she called. "You know something is wrong here. We need you to fix it, and we need you to stay. You've known me since I was a child! Please!"

Alice couldn't understand all the shouting responses.

A few people did step back from the doors, hesitantly looking towards Ellie, Xavier, and Alice. Those must have been the few who truly were willing to put their trust in Willow.

The majority of them, though, only paused for a moment before beginning the scramble towards the back door with new vigor. Dodging and weaving, Willow barely managed to squeeze her way through the crowd without being crushed. She managed to make her way to the front of the room, gathering a small crowd of onlookers in the process.

"Ellie, we need an intervention— preferably soon!" Willow said, eyes wide. "Harper can't hold it by herself, and a possum and a dog aren't going to be enough help."

Harper?

Of course— her vampire strength was likely enough to hold the doors closed from outside! She must have followed along. Alice had never been more relieved to know another ally was outside, but even vampire strength couldn't hold the doors closed forever against a whole horde of Shadow Fae courtiers.

"I can only do so much at a time, ya know," Ellie muttered, but she moved one hand towards the back door.

A wall of sturdy, woody brambles grew in front of the doors, supernaturally large and covered in thorns longer than Alice's forearm. It wasn't the only exit, but it was the main exit, and the others could be secured quickly... after dealing with Xavier.

There was no guarantee that the crowd wouldn't turn on them all and attack them, but at the very least, Shadow Fae weren't known for their offensive magic. This would likely be enough to keep them in place, which was good, because Alice wasn't sure she could finish what she needed to do without the Court.

"Hurry it up, Alice!" Willow cried. "Whatever you're doing, do it now."

Right.

Alice fished the pocket watch out of her bodice, pulling it out by the chain, and held it up in front of her. She was careful to turn the face towards where Xavier lay covered in vines. He visibly twitched when he saw it, increasing his futile efforts of struggling against the plants.

"Xavier Havelock," Alice said pointedly. "You will have a place in this court— sittin' on a pedestal in the dungeon, lookin' out from this watch."

And she pushed the button to open the watch face.

... And nothing happened.

It wasn't working. Xavier still writhed on the ground under the pile of Ellie's vines, and it didn't seem like he'd been deterred even slightly by the watch opening. Granted, Alice wasn't sure what was supposed to happen. She only knew what Willow had told her, but she was fairly certain this wasn't what was meant to occur.

Was he so strong that even a soul trap couldn't pull him in? Was it something about the disconnect between Xavier's soul and body?

Or...

Oh, shit.

Xavier didn't have a soul. Not really, not anymore. He'd traded it away.