The weeks went by. Lee visited the Northwest Manor grounds almost every day, even in the freezing wind and snow. Percy bought a large supply of kitchen ingredients for him, too; Order members would often stop by the kitchen to find out where all the wonderful smells were coming from. Soon, Lee was interacting with more Order members than he ever had before. He talked to the Northwest servants when he could, too. They were a bit more reluctant, particularly if he interrupted them in the middle of their duties, but they still talked to him.

In all this interaction, Lee found himself to be unfortunately awkward in conversation. For six months, after all, he'd only had Percy to talk to — and Gaston at times, but he rarely said anything, so he didn't much count. (Even now, when Lee visited the Northwest Manor, he only caught occasional glimpses of the boy.) These stumbling attempts at conversation, however, only made Lee more determined to practice. He found he loved talking with people, even if he was awkward.

At first, Lee was so thrilled to have more space in his bounds that he hardly noticed that there were still bounds. He reached his limits on occasion: Some places in the Northwest Manor were excluded from the area of the hex, which he discovered by his wrist flaring green as his body tingled with the dense magic of the barriers. No matter. Boundaries notwithstanding, the Northwest Manor was huge, and its grounds more so. Lee actually felt free.

For a little while.

Time went on; with it, Lee's exuberance waned. It melted like the snow on the Northwest grounds. Places that had seemed new and exciting became routine — even boring — and the boundaries of the hex once again felt too small for him. When he first realized this change, he panicked. He tried to talk himself out of it. He had plenty of room! He shouldn't feel so claustrophobic! He should just be grateful for the space he had.

It didn't work.

The desire to escape resurfaced — and after being hidden for weeks, it felt stronger than ever. Lee found himself standing near the surrounding walls of the Northwest grounds, staring longingly at the sky just beyond the stone.

Stop it, he told himself. Don't do this to yourself. But he couldn't seem to stay away.

He told Bill about his problem. The triangle listened and reminded Lee about his deal to change his mind. But Lee didn't want to hear about that; despite the shame he felt for wanting to escape, he didn't want to sit back and act like a good little prisoner.

It seemed all Bill wanted to talk about was the deal, so conversations with him only increased Lee's guilt. Percy, too, would mention Lee's greater freedom with this new hex, and that also made it worse. What would Percy say if he knew that Lee felt trapped again? Surely he would be disappointed.

Though Lee didn't want to disappoint Percy, he was simultaneously desperate to escape. The emotional disparity tore him apart.

"You're driving yourself insane, Blind Eye," Bill would say. "I can help."

To which Lee would respond, "I don't want to make a deal, okay?"

Bill simply replied, "When your next escape attempt fails, will you make a deal with me then?"

Lee only glared at him. As the days passed, he would try not to think about Bill's deal; but it was always there, lingering in the back of his mind.

One day, he saw the first robin of spring. He was out on the Northwest grounds, once again staring at the wall, when a beautiful brown robin flew into view. It perched on the top of the wall and sang a cheerful song. Then it flew away and disappeared behind the stone. It flew away and left Lee standing on the ground, trapped on his side.

That day, the robin stole Lee's last resolve.

No. He couldn't do this. He couldn't stay here. He had to get out. It had been at least a month since Percy redid the hex; maybe the magic was weakening. Surely it was weaker to begin with, since it had more area to cover. Maybe, if he just pushed hard enough, he could get through.

He waited until the night to make his escape. He didn't want Percy to know: Not only would he come and stop him, but he'd be so disappointed when he did. It hurt Lee enough to leave Percy like this, and seeing that disappointment would be even worse. So he hoped that Percy would sleep through the green light appearing on his wrist, and he crept from his bed in the middle of the night with nothing but his pocket flashlight to guide him.

The white light cut through the darkness with its tiny beam. Lee carefully made his way to the passage that led to the Northwest Manor, emerging from the tapestry to a dark and empty hallway. He had no idea if anyone was still awake, but he walked quietly just in case. In the darkness, with only the pocket light to guide his way, the Manor felt ominous. It seemed anything could jump out at him from behind a shadowy tapestry.

He scoffed silently to himself. Come on, Lee. Don't get cold feet now. Are you really going to chicken out of your chance to escape just because the Manor is a little scarier at night?

No Northwests or servants crossed his path, and he made it through the Manor with no incident. He eased open the door that stood between him and the grounds, pleased with himself that he hadn't alerted anyone to his presence. Stepping outside, he quietly closed the door behind him.

An alarm started blaring.

He cursed. Alarms! He hadn't thought about alarms. After all, he wasn't trying to break in: He was trying to get out. But the security system didn't care which direction he was going. It only cared that he was an intruder on the Northwest grounds. The alarm continued to wail.

Lee ran around to the gate, his heart pounding in his chest. It's okay, he told himself. He could get off the property before the Northwests caught him. He could still get out of here; he just had less time to do so.

The gate was closed, and Lee cursed again. Of course it would be closed. He skidded to a stop, changing directions mid-step and running for the wall instead. Lee had studied the wall before, and he figured the rough stones would offer plenty of hand- and footholds. Well, now was the time to prove that theory.

He threw himself onto the wall.

The stones were mercifully dry, but the cold seeped immediately into Lee's hands. He easily ignored it — the blaring alarm made it hard to focus on anything else, anyway. The wails chased Lee up the wall.

As he climbed, his wrist glowed a faint green. The color grew deeper with each inch, but Lee never felt any magical resistance. His hopes rose with his body: Maybe, if the magic wasn't stopping him now, it wouldn't stop him at all. Maybe the barrier was in front of the wall, and Lee had already gotten through it.

Then he reached the top.

He first felt the resistance as he put his hands on the highest stones. A tremble of magic rushed from his fingers to his toes, but he refused to let go. He kept going: left knee, then right knee, then push forward. The wall was so wide that he had plenty of room to balance himself atop the stones, but the magic didn't like that. It tried to push him away.

Lee fought against the barrier — which was not in front of, not behind, but on top of the wall — and was quickly entrapped in the enchantment. The alarm propelled him forward; the hex's magic pushed him back. He pulled himself laboriously to his feet to give himself a better angle as he shoved against the barrier, but the magic was as dense and unyielding as ever. It surrounded him, pushing back with as much force as he. His wrist flared with a deep green.

Through it all, the sound of the alarm deafened him. He had to get through the barrier — had to get away from that sound — but he couldn't. When he pushed, the pernicious hex shoved right back. It wanted to throw him off the wall entirely — into the sea of sound that filled the Northwest grounds.

But that sound, he realized with a rush of fear, wouldn't create a cushion for him. If he fell backwards from this wall, he would tumble headlong to the hard ground below.

He pushed harder against the barrier, though he could feel exhaustion overtaking him. "Let me go," he said through gritted teeth. "Come on! Let me through!"

The hex on his wrist responded by flaring brighter. Its green light blinded him.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the light, and he wished he could block out the wail of the alarm as well. His tired body couldn't do this much longer, he knew. But he couldn't give up.

His arms shook. His legs shook. His whole body shook.

He mustered all his remaining strength and gave one last shove against the barrier. "Let me go!"

The hex refused. Its magic pushed back at him. Lee's strength was spent, and he was thrown away from the barrier. He flew into the open air, borne by the force of the magic.

Then he fell.

For a moment, he could hear the shouts of the Northwest servants, roused from their beds by the alarm. They rushed towards him, but they were too far away to catch him. Nothing would catch him, he realized: nothing but the ground. A million emotions rushed through him at once. Fear, dread, anguish, despair: All of these and more warred within his chest. A thousand thoughts zipped in and out of his brain in the time it took him to fall.

Then he hit the ground, and all thought left him as his mind turned off.

~~~~~

He had a concussion. And a broken leg. Lee woke up in his bed back at the Order headquarters to find Percy Pleasure standing over him, his face drawn with worry. A doctor was there, too; she was nice enough, but she asked Lee too many loud questions. All he wanted to do was sleep. His brain was too fuzzy to focus on anything.

The minutes blurred into hours, which blurred into days. Lee slept, but that annoying doctor kept waking him up. He wasn't sure why, even though she patiently explained it to him every time he asked. Her words slid from his mind like rain on a window pane. He lost track of when she was there and when she was gone. Percy was in and out, too, but Lee couldn't remember when.

Slowly, he regained his awareness. He learned that the doctor's name was Eleanor Pleasure, and that she was Percy's wife. She repeated this fact to Lee every time he asked — which was often — until he finally remembered. He also learned that on the night of his fall, Percy was visited by Bill Cipher, who sent him and Eleanor to help Lee. With the help of the Northwest servants, who had witnessed the fall, Lee was brought safely back to the Order headquarters.

Safely back to captivity.

Lee wondered if Bill would visit him, too, and push for Lee to take his deal — the one Lee had refused. But he didn't appear. In fact, Lee couldn't remember his dreams at all.

Regardless, his concussion healed fairly quickly. Eleanor watched over him constantly for the first few days, then visited him a few times a day, then only visited once a day. It took a few weeks, but then Lee felt lucid again. The fog in his brain was gone.

He couldn't get out of bed, though. His leg was still broken.

The boredom set in.

Eleanor brought him crutches; but he couldn't get through the Northwest passage with them, and it was hard to cook on them. It was hard to do anything with them. So he mostly stayed in his bedroom, lying still as the boredom and loneliness tore through him.

With that boredom came a lot of thinking time — more thinking time than Lee would ever wish for. Without anything to focus on, Lee's brain replayed the night of his failed escape on repeat, until he wanted to tear the memory out of his head forever. He saw it whenever he closed his eyes: the moonlit forest just outside the Northwest walls, waiting for him, before he fell off and hit the ground again and again and again.

He was restless, too. Abundantly restless. His days of running through the Northwest grounds were behind him, and sometimes it felt as if they would never return. He had to move. But he couldn't. In his impatience, he couldn't even bounce his leg — unless he wanted unnecessary pain.

Percy visited multiple times a day, which helped with the loneliness; but he always brought with him a look of disappointment and sadness. "I thought you were past this," he said heavily. "I thought you were done hurting yourself."

"I was," Lee said. Frustrated anger tore through him. "I would be, if you'd let me go!"

Percy looked at him sadly. "No, you wouldn't," he said. "But," he added, "you could be. If you took Cipher's deal."

Cipher's deal. Percy kept bringing it up. He seemed to hold it up as the ideal next step. It wouldn't heal Lee's broken leg — only time and proper care could do that — but it would, according to Percy, heal his restlessness and boredom. It would stop the constant flashbacks to the night of the escape attempt.

With every day that Lee was stuck in bed, stuck in loops of endless time, he found himself believing this. Hoping for it, even. Percy seemed to have Lee's best interests at heart: If he advocated for this, then wasn't it the best option?

Slowly, Lee's desperation to escape underwent a transformation. Now, instead of an all-consuming desire to escape, the feeling simmered in Lee's mind as a longing to take Bill's deal. He just wanted relief from this awful captivity in his own mind. If he took the deal, it meant he couldn't escape from the Order. . . but wasn't that already the reality? His escape attempts had all cost him: first, the exhaustion from fighting the barrier; then, a self-inflicted gash in his arm; and now, a concussion and a broken leg. Maybe it was better to take the deal — and stop trying to escape — than to continue this destructive pattern.

This new desperation to take Bill's deal blistered in Lee's mind; soon, giving into his captivity in the Order felt a million times more desirable than living one more moment with this terrible frustration. He waited in mental anguish for his dreams to return — and with them, Bill Cipher.

Then, one month after that fateful night on the Northwest wall, he once again found himself in the dreamscape.

He stood in the Northwest grounds, staring up at the wall. The stones shifted around, and Lee couldn't see any ledges with which to climb over; but he felt he had to try. He approached the wall, determination in his step.

The stones kept shifting, until they began to form a shape: A large triangle appeared in the wall. A few scattered patches of stone lit up in yellow, and Bill Cipher floated towards him.

"You failed," he said.

"No," said Lee; he wasn't lucid yet. "No, I can get through. Just let me—"

He started for the wall, but Bill's arm grew and wrapped around Lee's chest, pulling him back. "Blind Eye. You're dreaming. I can finally visit you again. Remember? You're lying back at the Order with a broken leg."

Lucidity rushed to Lee's mind. "Oh." His face fell. "Right," he said morosely.

Bill moved to face Lee. "Don't be sad," he said. "You've been waiting for this, remember? I'm here now."

With his newfound lucidity, Lee's desperate decision — the desire to take Bill's deal — floated to the surface of his mind. Yet. . . it brought with it an uncertainty. Now that the opportunity was finally here. . . was he really going to do this?

"I. . . I have been waiting," he said. He couldn't bring himself to say anything else.

Bill seemed to understand everything he didn't say. "Do you want to take my deal?" he prompted.

Yes, Lee's thoughts replied. Yes, I want to take the deal — I want to be free! Never mind that the freedom would be an illusion; anything would be better than his present situation.

But still he hesitated. "I. . . I don't know," he said.

Bill shook his head. "Don't lie to me, Blind Eye. You do know. You do want to take this deal. You know that it's the only way you can possibly survive this."

Lee was silent, but his thoughts screamed at him that Bill was right. This deal would make life bearable. That's all Lee wanted, at this point — because right now, his life was killing him.

Bill put out his hand. It lit up with blue fire. He waited, silent and expectant, for Lee to take it.

Instead, Lee eyed the blue fire with a mixture of apprehension and longing. "If I do this," he said, "I won't want to escape anymore?" At this point, he didn't know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

Bill nodded. "If you agree that you will stay within your bounds," he said, "I will alter your mind to be able to bear your situation. You will no longer desire your memory back. You'll be satisfied with the boundaries given to you. Your frustrations with this will be gone."

Satisfied. How long had it been since Lee had felt satisfied? He had when he'd first gone to the Northwest grounds, but that seemed so long ago; he now had difficulty believing he had ever felt satisfied. While the deal sounded so final — even defeating — Lee's soul yearned for it all the same. He needed Bill's promises of satisfaction and ease.

The blue fire, still licking Bill's hand, reflected off his stony body. "I think you've already decided," Bill said. "Now it's time to act."

Time to act. A month ago, that would've meant it was time to escape. But now. . . now that his escape attempts had all failed. . .

Lee looked down at his left wrist. Here in the dreamscape, the hex design was fuzzy and undefined — but it was still there. The black ink glistened in the blue glow of Bill's fire.

He clenched his hand into a fist and wrenched his eyes away. Bill was right. He'd already decided: and he'd chosen relief. Before he could doubt himself, he held out his other hand. "Okay," he said. "Deal."

He took Bill's hand.

The fire spread across both hands, but Lee didn't feel any heat — in fact, the blue flame was almost cold. It grew until the fire licked around Bill's entire body. Flakes of grey fell from the triangular form, revealing more patches of glowing yellow underneath.

"Oh, that feels wonderful," Bill said. "Thank you, Blind Eye."

"What — what just happened?" Lee had expected an instant relief, but he felt only a nagging trepidation.

"I just solved your problem," Bill said. "When you wake up, you'll feel only contentment."

Now, a small bit of relief appeared. "It worked?"

"Indeed," Bill said. "You'll see for yourself in the morning."

And so he did.

Hours later, Lee's eyes opened to darkness. Without any light, it took him a moment (as it always did) to decide whether or not he was truly awake. But, as usual, he quickly figured it out: Being awake meant feeling the dull pain in his broken leg.

Typically, once he realized that he was awake, it would fill him with dread. Another day: another fourteen hours doing nothing. Another day, wondering if anyone would visit him — yet simultaneously hoping that no one did. Lee waited for that awful feeling to kick in.

It never appeared.

His eyes widened. Wait — the deal. He had taken the deal. And Bill. . . Bill had said he would wake up contented.

Lee searched his feelings to see if Bill had told the truth and — to his utter relief — found that he had. Not only did he feel content (even vaguely happy), he could hardly remember the painful, frustrated restlessness that had plagued him for a month.

He let out a disbelieving laugh. "It. . . it worked!" he whispered to himself.

Sitting up in bed, waiting for someone to bring a lantern and illuminate his room, Lee found that he didn't even feel impatient. None of his horrible, negative feelings were anywhere to be found. The pure fact that he felt good filled him with relief, making him feel even better. It worked. The deal had worked. It had been the right choice.

Soon enough, his door opened, revealing Percy with a lantern and an enthusiastic expression. "Cipher told me what happened," he said. "You did it, Lincoln — you took the deal!"

He said it with such a tone of joy that Lee couldn't help but grin at him. "I did," he said.

Percy hung the lantern above Lee's bed. "How do you feel?" he asked eagerly.

The question brought such a feeling of relief that Lee found tears in his eyes. "I feel great," he said. Was that the first time he'd said that since waking up with no memory? It must be. "I feel great," he repeated. "I. . . I didn't know I could feel this good."

A broad smile stretched across Percy's face. "Lincoln," he said, and Lee could hear the emotion in his voice, "I'm so happy for you." He bent down and, careful of Lee's leg, gave him a gentle hug.

Never had Percy's arms felt so inviting. "He did it," Lee whispered. "He really can help."

"I tried to tell you." Percy pulled back from the hug, the smile still on his face. "Cipher can help with anything."

Lee nodded.

His eyes flicked to his crutches, which were within arm's reach should he want to use them. He still wanted to walk again, of course — but he found he didn't have the same impatience for it that he did before.

Percy noticed the look. "I'd love to walk with you for a bit," he said. "First, can I see your wrist?"

For the first time since waking up, Lee felt a bit of anxiety in his stomach. "Why?" he asked, but he held out his left arm (for he knew Percy was talking about his hex).

Percy pulled a chair over to Lee's bed and sat in it. He looked intently in Lee's eyes. "Lincoln," he said, "do you want to leave the Order?"

Lee expected the usual rush of emotions that came with questions like this. They didn't come. Instead, he found himself calmly considering the concept. "Not particularly," he said. Part of him was amazed that he would say this; the larger part of him thought it was a sensible answer.

"So if I deactivated the hex, would you try to run?"

This time, a bit of anxiety splashed against Lee's chest. Would he? Suddenly, the idea of escaping became his source of unease, rather than the idea of staying here.

"No," he said. "I wouldn't run." His gaze turned hopeful. "Would. . . would you really take it off?"

Percy nodded, and the broad smile returned. "I don't think you need it anymore," he said. "Of course, I'm not sure it matters either way, since I doubt you would go near the boundaries as it is. But it would be nice to have it gone, would it not?"

Lee nodded, though he realized Percy was right: It really didn't matter either way.

Percy took Lee's arm and ran a finger over the hex. "Masterful work, if I do say so myself," he murmured. "But I look forward to not having my arm randomly light up. It makes my work day rather awkward." He glanced up at Lee. "Let's get rid of it, shall we?"

Another nod, but not an enthusiastic one. After so many months of thinking about the hex — of fighting against the hex — of hating the hex — after so many months, Lee didn't care anymore.

Or so he thought. Lee felt Percy press a gentle but deliberate finger to his wrist. The black ink bled away until there was nothing left, and a profound relief replaced it. Lee stared at his wrist — clear of any marks — and found himself fighting back tears again. "Thank you," he said to Percy.

"Of course," Percy said. He held up his own wrist: no hex. "Now, let's go for a walk."

He helped Lee up, helped him get situated on his crutches. Then they went walking. Their pace was slow: Lee's broken leg still wasn't sure it liked this whole walking thing. But Percy didn't show any impatience — and, for once, neither did Lee. Instead, they walked slowly and amiably (and haltingly, in Lee's case) through the halls of the Order headquarters.

Lee's heart lightened with every step.

Content. It was just like Bill had promised: He was finally content. Finally satisfied. Not once, during his entire walk with Percy, did he wish he could go up those stairs and into the town above. Not once did he think about the life he had lost or wonder how he could regain his memory.

He was still a prisoner. A willing one, at that. Yet. . . he didn't feel imprisoned. With Bill's deal, he had no more restlessness, no more frustration.

With Bill's deal, he finally felt free.