I was hardly aware of my surroundings as Hercules grabbed hold of me and Lafayette, transformed us into light, and teleported us far away. All I saw was the emptiness in Thomas's eyes as he turned away from Eliza's body. He gazed straight at me, a warning. As if to say I was next. And after he had looked at me with such hatred, I had frozen. I didn't cry, I didn't pick up my dagger and hurtle it in whichever direction that cruel monster we called a king was standing, I didn't do anything at all. Instead, I stood. And I watched. And the last thing I saw was his gray gaze boring into mine without any feeling besides hatred.

And then, as if I had never left it in the first place, we were piled into the center of Washington's sitting room. It only then occurred to me that I was trembling. Hercules let go of my arm, and I pushed myself away.

"There you guys are," Aaron said, looking up from a document he was writing to greet us. "Done already?" A frown tainted his face when he saw the condition all three of us were in. "What happened to you? Where's Angelica? Where's—"

"Where's Eliza?" A soft voice murmured from behind me. I turned to see Peggy standing in the doorway, her eyes wide and desperate. She knew already, didn't she? "Where is my sister?" she pressed, her voice rising, but she already knew the answer we couldn't hope to supply.

Hercules stood, the only of us three who had the courage to stay calm. "Peggy..." Even his voice was trembling. Even he was less than sure of himself. He stuttered, searching for words, but nothing coherent came out.

Lafayette shook his head, before burying it in his hands. I heard him muttering something faintly in Aspis, and though my French was better than average, his voice was too hushed for me to make out words. But it sounded faintly like a prayer. I doubt he wanted to make another statue.

"Alexander," said James in the doorway, behind a shaking Peggy. I saw Philip standing just beside them, and my heart shattered even more than it already had. How was I going to explain this to him? "What happened?"

And that's when the tears came. "I t-tried. I really did," I whimpered, realizing just how pathetic I was. "I w-wanted to s-stop him, but he killed her. He killed her!" Saying the words out loud brought me nothing but more pain, more misery. It made the reality all the more true.

Peggy screamed, an overwhelming thing. Its pure power grabbed hold of me and shoved me backwards into the wall. Pain erupted through my body like an earthquake, seeping past my bones and into my very being. I tried to fight against it, but it was no use. There was no possible way to win against the agony she forced us all to feel.

"Peggy! Stop it!" cried General Washington, just strong enough to force out the three words.

Her scream melted away into sobs, and she fell to the floor, defeated, like a wilted flower. It was next to impossible to make out what she was saying between the crying, but I swear I heard her begging. I had never heard Peggy beg before.

Washington's face was unreadable, just as it always was. He stepped over to Peggy and fell to his knees, placing a hand on her back. She wrapped her arms around him and continued to cry into his shoulder. "What happened?" he asked slowly, turning to me. I couldn't bring myself to say anything. I looked down at the floor, hoping to hide my tears, and I wished suddenly that a hole would open up and take me far away from here.

Thankfully, Hercules stepped forward again, taking the fall for me. "He killed Eliza," he said, then swallowed hard, as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth that he couldn't wash away. He couldn't say his name. Neither could I.

"We'll make him pay," promised James, his voice dark. "The King won't get away with this."

"No," Hercules said, his voice shaking. And the words left his lips. Those damning, horrible words that made no sense. "Thomas killed Eliza."

A long moment passed before James spoke again, the words sinking in. "N-no. That's not possible. Thomas is dead. We saw him die. It couldn't have been him."

"Well, it was," Lafayette spat, finally having raised his bleary eyes from his hands. "I do not know what sick game Fredericks is playing, but I promise to the stones beneath our feet that—"

"No!" James exclaimed, insistent. "You didn't see Thomas! Thomas would never hurt Eliza! He would never hurt one of his friends!"

"James," Washington said, his voice grave. He sounded so tried. So ready to give in. "That's enough. Alexander, will you show us what you saw?"

"I c-can't," I stuttered, not taking my eyes off of the ground. "I—I won't."

"Alexander, you have to. We have to see what happened," he pressed, barely audible over Peggy. "Please."

"It's—it's all m-my fault-t." I shook my head, but I already knew I didn't have a choice. I had to show them. They had every right to know. "I...I d-don't want t-to see it again," I said, but I had already stepped forward, conjuring up the memories that were sill burning in my mind. Tears stuck to the sides of my face, warm and unwelcome. "I'm so sorry," I said, the only coherent thing I could. "I r-really, really am s-sorry."

I shut my eyes tightly and let the memories come to life. I didn't watch. I couldn't watch it again. I refused to care if that made me a coward, or weak, or whatever. I was not going to watch the one person who was there for me leave.

Why does everybody keep leaving me? Is it my fault? Am I the one to blame?

When the memory was finished, I finally opened my eyes. Silence hung heavily in the space between all of us; nobody dared to speak. The only noise was Peggy's sobbing worsening. I looked from face to face but saw none of the familiar warmth lining their eyes. There was nothing now. Nothing at all.

James finally spoke. He was shaking his head furiously, eyes shut tight, as though he was faced with a nightmare that would go away if he just ignored it. "No," he said. "That was not Thomas. That was not him!" But he already knew just as well as I did that that thing was the real Thomas. His mannerisms were exactly the same, his voice was perfect. And his eyes. His eyes would have been otherwise impossible to capture, and I truly doubt King George was that skilled a liar.

"There has to be some other explanation," he continued, raving as though he had gone made. But all it took was Aaron setting his hand on the Avion's shoulder, and James dissolved into tears. He disappeared immediately, whether preferring to be alone or preferring that nobody saw him in this state. Regardless, Aaron was gone as well.

"Where's Philip?" Washington asked.

"He's not here?"

Washington shook his head.

"I'll go find him," I volunteered, happy to have some time to myself. Before they could attempt to argue with me, I had already started forward and left the room. Behind me, I faintly heard Washington confide in the others, saying that my locking myself away was not beneficial to anybody. I wanted to scream until my voice went hoarse.

I wandered the hallways, looking but not really searching. My feet brought me to the portrait with the blue bird, though my mind spoke out against it loud and hard. There was no way I could step into that room and let the feelings that always accompanied it wash over me. Not right now. Perhaps not ever. But still, when I pressed my ear up against the wall and heard nothing, I sighed and let myself in. The door closed behind me, and I was swallowed by the oppressive darkness.

Exhaustion crept over me, taking hold with its dangerous tentacles. I barely had enough energy left to sustain the smallest of lights, so my journey through the cramped walls was guided only by a flickering light. I listened to the careful notes of the piano as it lifted through the air, growing louder the closer I got to the expansive room filled with more instruments than I knew existed. There were so many, and I couldn't name them all if I tried, but at the same time, it seemed like they weren't enough. They were the last things I had of Thomas. My Thomas.

"Who's there?" demanded the boy's voice, and only when I heard it shaking did I realize how young he actually was. He was barely more than a child, but no child should have had to go through the horrors of death more than once in less than a couple months.

"It's me," I returned simply, unable to come up with anything else to say.

"Oh."

"I can leave if you—"

"No!" he exclaimed before I had the chance to finish. "Please don't go."

I laughed a little and stepped into the room. He sat at the piano, his fingers hovering over the keys. His eyes were red and his face was blotchy, and when he noticed my staring, he looked away.

"Are you okay?" I asked him as I joined him at the piano bench. He leaned against me, and I let him rest his head on my shoulder.

"No," he said, as though he was inches away from tears.

"That's okay."

"I keep thinking that this is one giant nightmare, and I'm going to wake up, and everything's going to be normal. And Thomas and Eliza will be there and they will laugh when I tell them what happened, and reassure me that no matter what, they'll never leave. But that isn't how it's going to go, is it?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper. "I'll wake up tomorrow, and it will be even worse than today."

I crumbled. The worst part was that I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him. Did I apologize, did I promise that things would be better? Or would it be better if I just didn't say anything at all?

"I'm sorry," he said, drawing away from me. "This is nothing compared to what you're going through."

"You're allowed to be sad, Philip."

"Right," he said, but his nod didn't seem genuine. "Do you want to talk about how you feel?"

"No. Not really."

"I thought you agreed that bottling up your emotions won't help." Once again, he sounded so wise. So old. Not like the child I knew he wanted to be. And all it did was make me angry.

"You're right, okay? It won't help. All it'll do is make me feel worse and worse and worse, but it isn't like talking about it will do anything but force me to relive those painful moments. And I don't want that, okay?" I said, and I was inches away from breaking, from shattering. "I loved her, and she—" I couldn't finish the words, cut off by my own sobs as I broke. And I hated myself for doing so, especially right in front of Philip. I should have been the one who was strong for him, but there we were.

"It never gets any easier," he said softly when I pulled away from him.

I nodded. "I know. Trust me, I know."

Philip nodded, and for a while, he didn't say anything else. Until finally, the question that both of us wanted to ask more than anything else in the world rose to his lips. "What was that thing?"

"I don't know."

"Was it really Thomas?"

I swallowed. I wanted to say no more than anything else in the world, but I knew instantly that it wasn't true. That was Thomas, plain and simple. It wasn't an illusion, nor a siren, nor a trick. It was him, but it wasn't him; it couldn't have been. My Thomas would never hurt Eliza, and he would never look at me with such pure hatred. So instead of speaking, I just shrugged my shoulders.

"He must be under the King's control," Philip said, filling in the gaps I had left blank . I'm not sure if talking about it made Philip feel like there was something he could do to change it, but I saw the way he was able to put his grieving aside. "I can't think of another explanation."

I nodded in agreement, not trusting myself to speak. "How do we save him?"

"Can we save him?"

I let the question go unanswered, because I truly didn't know myself. I wanted to believe we could, but after what I had seen, what I had been put through.

I couldn't get the thought of Eliza's terrified, wide-eyed expression as Thomas plunged his scythe into her chest out of my head. I couldn't shake away the sight of her falling limp to the ground.

Even if we managed to save Thomas, could I truly forgive him for what he had done?