Time had ceased to have meaning for Netta, trapped in the cell.

She was told of when the sun had risen that day, however, in the form of her Sister Caspia leaning into the room to announce it to her as she slammed the breakfast tray down on the ground.

The wraiths of her dead Sisters had a nasty habit of whispering to Netta as she tried to focus her mind, tried, desperately, to decide what it was that she needed to do next. It made it hard to concentrate for any length of time. The only relief came in the thought that Ash must have, somehow, been well, or else she would have suffered through more "withdrawal" symptoms.

Netta commenced her last day in containment by continuing to try to think of what she could possibly say to one of her Sisters to secure her safety.

She had come to the conclusion that the wards of this many Witches on one place would be difficult to raise. Netta considered the idea of that way out to be a lost cause.

That left only two other ways out - sneaking out, or talking sense to all of them when they had gathered to see her killed.

Trying to gird herself for choosing between knocking one of her Sisters out and hoping like hell that she could find Ash and leave - or attempting to reason with her blood-hungry siblings - Netta decided that knowing what she did of the compassion and reasoning skills of her siblings, that she was better off knocking one of them out, cold.

As she daydreamed about how to go about it, Netta was surprised when she heard a voice in the room speaking to her.

"H-hi."

Netta almost leaped out of the bed.

Sitting up quickly, Netta saw that it was Erwinnia standing in front of the door.

She looked surprisingly pretty then. Her youthful body looked fitting in the ruffly blouse that she wore, her chestnut hair tied up behind her head so that her springy, curling hair could bounce around prettily in a loose ponytail. It was only her face and her drawn, tired-looking features that seemed ill-fitting, gave away her true age.

"Winnie," Netta said, standing up out of her bed. "it isn't time already, is it?"

The sense of dread in Netta's stomach felt as though it were growing and becoming more yawning, hungry.

"No - no."

Erwinnia cleared her throat, and busied herself pulling something out of her pocket. With something in her hand, she hurried to Netta's side and held a clenched fist out for Netta.

She was hesitating, seeming to think at the last second of not doing it, then winced and cried out as though in pain.

She dropped what she was holding into Netta's outstretched hand and cupped her hands.

"Ohh, that burned -"

Netta looked down at the object that felt as though it were mildly warm, not much more than that, and felt her heart rise in her chest.

It was Tristan's one thing that he had passed down to his only daughter, a broken chain that happened to be the item of holding of a Monster.

And they say that his heart grew two sizes too large -

Netta clutched it to her, felt tears that she had not allowed herself to feel rise up in her and threaten to burst her. A mix of fear, anxiety, love and, yes, hope, filled her until she thought that she was going crazy from it.

She looked up at Erwinnia through eyes filled with the amorphous veil of her tears.

"Why?"

Erwinnia looked down at her shoes, mumbling, "Not even going to ask "how" first? I just-"

The Witch winced and rubbed at the back of her head, nervously. "I know we never knew each other all that much, but for the record - what happened when we were kids - I never agreed to it. I don't see what's so wrong with just... being weak - I'm weak, but they left me alone. Because they had to. If you hadn't had been as strong as you were, they would have broken you and moved onto me, I'm sure of it."

Erwinnia paused, looking, wordlessly, down at the ground. Netta stared at her and watched as the muscles in her tightly constricted throat spasmed as she swallowed compulsively. Finally, the Witch continued. "It - the one in the necklace - that's the the one that you grew up with, your old friend?" Not waiting for an answer, she continued. "If... he hadn't had been there for you, maybe - you would have been in trouble. I don't know. I just -" she sighed and looked up at the ceiling, at an obvious loss for words.

Finally, she said, "I rehearsed this whole speech after everyone went to bed, and I wanted to say something about how you were always strong, brave, heroic, and I always wanted to be - anyway, that doesn't matter. I can't even give you anything more than It - him back. I wouldn't have even been able to give that to you, if you hadn't of sealed him in there with a forbidden level to the bond you two share, so that none of the others could extricate him without destroying him. They want his power, too." She sighed, raised one of her fists up to gently smack at the side of her head, a sad, ineffectual movement.

When she spoke again, her voice sounded deep, thick. "I suck as a Witch, Netta. I think that this is the closest thing to doing anything brave I'll ever do. It's not even a big deal."

Netta stared at her Sister and felt more words than she could ever recall hearing from Erwinnia at once ever came pouring out of her.

Netta's mouth hung open, her fist clenched onto her chain as though she were afraid that it would disappear if she let go of the digging grip that she had on it, feeling it leaving a painful indentation on her closed palm and fingers.

Netta heard herself speaking. "What can I do?"

Erwinnia looked at her finally, her wide, luminous eyes reflecting fear.

"I don't know. I don't even know what's going to happen tonight. Maybe they knew I was flaky, they didn't tell me what the plan was." She chuckled for a moment, then stopped abruptly. Erwinnia looked at Netta, her hands rubbing together nervously.

"I gotta go now - I don't want to be caught like this; they'll kill me if they knew what I've done."

And in spite of Netta's protestations, Erwinnia fled the room without saying anything more.

As the door closed behind her, Netta looked down at her hands, at the metal links that she had worn around her neck for so long. She had worn them for so long that she had felt naked without them, as though they were a second skin.

She brushed against the smooth metal and could feel heat coming from the metal that could not be simply residual. She wondered if that, too, was how she had grown to feel for Ashwood.

In spite of the danger that she had been facing for over a week now, she felt a different sort of fear pierce through her as she thought of Him.

She shook off her hesitation and clenched her hands around the chains, thinking thoughts of Ashwood as deeply as she could.

She dove, deep into where she kept phobias, dreams, fear, hopes and wishes of him.

She thought for a moment that she had been lied to, that Ash had been torn from the chains when nothing manifested.

Her hands trembled as she clutched the chains, her grip strengthening so that the metal felt as though it were about to fuse to skin.

The only reason that Netta was walking along with the three of her adopted Sisters encircling her was because the alternative was to be dragged.

Netta had not thought that she was a prideful woman. However, she found that as she had lived and breathed once more in the skin of a Witch, she was, indeed, possessing of something akin to pride.

She held her head up high, even as despair threatened to choke the life from her with each step.

As she was taken out of the room that she had been imprisoned in, Netta found that her family had found what looked like a cathedral to conduct this ceremony in.

She was tramped up the stairs in utter silence by her adopted Sisters, Caspia, Erzebet and Millicent. All wore robes so that with the exception of the sound of their voices, she could not tell one apart from the other.

Upstairs, Netta found that her assumption that this was indeed an old house of the Christian God was a correct one. In the great chamber she saw the ramshackle pews, broken holy statues and all of the damned Gregorian Catholicism.

Briefly, she wondered if she would have ever thought that she would be killed, like so many of her kind before her had, in such a place.

"Any particular reason you all want this to happen in this sort of place?" She asked it as she looked up, saw a headless statue of a priest in the middle of a prayer.

"Shut up, bitch!" Caspia hissed it, jabbing Netta in the back with her elbow.

Netta winced, gasped. "Ah, I almost forgot - children of Hera would be so vain to want this to be as melodramatic as possible."

"Don't let her bother you," Erzebet said. "She won't be saying much when she's a headless corpse."

Netta turned her head back again up to the headless statue. I suppose I have to keep my head for the both of us.

Netta was quiet after that, rounding the corner with the hateful scrutiny of her Sisters surrounding her. As she came up the steps, she looked up and saw her remaining siblings - the few living ones - on the raised platform in the back of the cathedral.

Looking at them, Netta saw the black robes that they also wore.

They marched her up to the dais, where one of her Sisters approached them. As soon as she spoke, Netta recognized it as Sia.

"Why looking so glum, little sister? Death comes to the just - and unjust - alike. Didn't Mother always stress how the only way to live forever is by trusting in your Sisters? Why," Sia rose her hands aloft, as though in the throes of some ecstasy. "some might even say that the physical realm is our Heaven, realized by the worthiest of all human women - those who can become Witches."

Sia leaned forward, her arms reaching out as though to embrace Netta. "If you think of our world in this manner, then we - your Sisters - are your only hope at salvation. That is, if we could find it in our hearts to forgive you for the murders of our Sisters..."

Sia stood up tall and rose her hands up, as though she were beseeching a great crowd. "Shall we forgive this traitor of her trespasses against us?"

The "NO!" That roared all around her was like an indictment from Heaven, surrounding Netta, a kind of horrible magic.

Sia chuckled. "Oh, come now, would Mother have wanted us to kill our weakest, given obvious and profound... character flaws? Nettles was simply born bad and encouraged by a human man to disobey and rebel against her Sisters. Everything that's happened, every tragedy, has happened because of her father's interference with her morality."

Sia bent down and, taking Netta by surprise, she grasped a hold of her hands and pulled her close.

From where she looked down at her Sister from underneath her hood, Netta could see her face clearly in the magical firelight, the zealous twin brightness in Sia's eyes.

"Can we put aside how she took away three of our own and teach her how to live like us - or shall we put her into the abyss that she banished those that we love most dearly?"

When the others shouted a resounding, "No!", Netta saw the grinning sneer form on her eldest sister's lips.