The path ahead had disappeared into overgrowth. The abundance of snow made walking all the harder to do.

It was becoming especially difficult for Netta. St had become a constant battle to pretend that she wanted to do anything but double over and cry until her tear ducts had dried out. It almost felt as though the two Witches walking with her were pulling her along after them, like a misbehaving dog.

It had been near enough to a month that everything felt as though it were splintering in her mind, broken.

The memory of Ash was far away from her always. Gone were memories of his beautifully rough face, his husked, always intimate voice. All that seemed to remain for her the smell, cloying, like smoke mixed with wildflowers.

"These woods of your Familiar's," Wu said, the sound of her crisp voice reverberating from off of the silent, abandoned wood. "they never seem to end, or to lead anywhere."

Netta said nothing, staring blankly forward as she allowed her hand to reach up once more to grasp at the feel of the too-warm metal of the chain against her skin.

In her daze, it was perhaps only the weight of the hand that had fallen on her shoulder that shook her out of her reverie.

"Are you feeling alright?" Glancing at the young Witch's almost impassive face, Netta was struck once more by the impression that Ophelia was simply asking something that was expected out of her for the sake of politeness. Another one of Miss Kienna's rules, stipulations and conditions that governed their Coven

- now Netta's own Coven.

Netta murmured that she was alright and focused on keeping the buzzing in her brain at bay. She struggled, also, with her guilt in her assurance that she was certain, finally, that she had found the woods that she knew from her journeys with Ashwood.

This was surely the end of the road, one way or the other. She would soon have to break the chain around her neck, let Ash loose before her mind went. She would have to do it, or the the others would do it for her.

Wu had called out ahead of them. She spoke in a tone of voice that suggested that there was nothing remiss about what she said. It was as if she had asked Netta what her favorite color was.

"Have the suicidal urges begun for you, yet?"

They were supposed to begin? "No."

From the moment that Netta had woken up, she felt a sense of loss. Maybe because she knew how impossible it now was to speak to Ash if she wanted to. It was, she knew, the first time in her adult life that he wasn't there for her if only she would call out for him. It had been almost a month since she had woken up and truly, for the first time since she was very young, felt alone.

Wu continued, saying, "Oh, good. We might be able to pass right over that side effect before we finish up here. Less work for us to deal with, stopping you from going all "stones in my pockets, jump into the river", on us."

Netta shivered from a cold that seemed to resonate deep in her soul. "Is there any way that I would know when we reached his Origin spot?"

"You'll know," Wu answered simply.

Netta bit the inside of her cheek. She had to stop from bringing up that this was the fourth place that they had decided to look in this part of Europe, alone. None of those other ancient holy sites spoke to her in the least.

She wondered if any of this would ever possibly work. Could this be a joke at her expense, with Ashwood already dead and the end of this adventure being her murder by these Witches?

She pushed the thoughts of despair free of her mind, focusing on the satisfying crunch of the snow as it packed together underneath her boots.

Her focus was abruptly cut off by Wu's voice. "I think I can see something in the distance up ahead -"

Netta raised her head, then felt the rush of wind that seemed to whip from behind her. It seemed almost seemed to be trying to propel her forward.

She saw the two shapes in opposite sides of the periphery of her eyes. They rushed forward so quickly that she almost missed that they were, unmistakably, children.

Surprised, Netta blinked. As soon as her lids lifted, the sight of the children, running madly so that they were on either side of the two Witches up ahead of her, had gone.

Netta immediatally tried to discount what she had seen. and yet, something seemed to rise in her, a bright emotion that she had thought she had forgotten, would not feel again.

She was high on that hope, the tugging of it irresistible as it lifted her feet, propelling her movement as she ran down the pathway.

Netta felt as though she were soaring on the wind. She ran down a path that, if she closed her eyes, she could recall it imprinted in her dreams. There, it was perennially in the early stages of Fall.

She could hear the two behind her, calling for her. Netta was frightened that if she did not run, the feeling would abandon her. She chased, breaking through the silence in the woods with heavy breathing and indelicate footfalls that broke the icing-perfect layers of thick snow on the ground.

When she fell, it was as though the world had caved in, sucking Netta into the ground.

Grunting, Netta shook her head and gingerly reached around to grab at her right ankle, testing the place where she had felt it strike the ground. At the touch of her gloved hand, a shooting pain traveled up her ankle.

She groaned and writhed as a pulse of pain shot through her body. Netta looked up when she heard a voice speaking to her. Wincing in pain, she asked the voice to repeat what it was telling her.

Wu said, "You've got to be kidding me. I knew this would be baby-sitting, but I don't even know where to begin with this." She sighed and shook her head. "Are you hurt?"

"M-my ankle-"

"We can't use any magic here," Ophelia said, managing to sound at least a bit concerned. "we don't have any back-up reserved magic -"

"Ah - ah - ah, we get it, we know," Wu said. Looking down at Netta for a long moment, she put a hand on Netta's shoulder. "Are you sure that this is the place?"

Grunting in pain, Netta nodded.

Wu nodded over at Ophelia and gestured down to the fallen Witch. "Let's get her to use us as crutches."

After about ten minutes of almost painfully slow progress with the help of the two Witches, Netta was walked up to the front steps of a place that took the breath from out of her lungs.

Grey stone and roughly the size of a small home, the temple was an airy place. What shocked Netta was how little it resembled any of the other relic buildings she had ever seen.

How had some place like this lasted this long?

Untouched by everything but nature (and even that was suspect, as much of the wear was eerily missing), this temple almost seemed to exist outside of its geography.

Out of time.

It was the young Witch who said what Netta was thinking. "How could something like this be in this shape?"

There was something that Netta didn't mention. The temple was unmistakably the one from the shared dream that Ashwood had brought her to often, when she was young.

What Netta did say was something that struck her. "He was telling the truth."

"Say what?" Wu asked, pressing them forward.

Netta had to shake her head, feeling as though for a moment she had forgotten that she was not alone. "I think that I recognize this place."

The two Witches trundled her into the one-room raised platform that made up the interior of the temple. Wu pressed for Netta to rest on the slab that sat on the far side of the floor.

Aside from the slab, the interior of the temple was oddly barren. It was made all the more surreal when Netta took into consideration the pristine condition of the stone floor.

Sat on the slab, Netta felt an immense sense of relief as Wu lifted her ankle up and sat it back down. A shudder, of both pain and relief, shot up her back as she tried to find a position that was not uncomfortable on the stone.

As she was settling down, Netta reached up instinctively and touched the warm metal of the chain in an act that had quickly, some time past, become her tic.

"I think this certainly looks like the right spot, at any rate." Wu shrugged off her backpack and began to rifle through it.

She pulled out the container of incense and, sensing Netta's glance at it, turned around and defended the container, saying, "Look, the old ways, the traditions, they exist for a reason, alright?"

"I didn't say anything about those."

"You were saying plenty with your eyes. Remember who had to help you up here, let alone having to put her life on hold for two weeks of trundling through the decidedly unromantic Germanic scenery."

After two minutes, it seemed as though they were both done with setting up the trappings of the ritual.

Netta coughed awkwardly, then asked, "...How long should this take?"

Wu, who stood on the outer edge of the concentric circles, looked at her expectantly. She thrust a hand through the rim of her knit cap and, sighing, she took it off to reveal her messy black hair.

"I dunno." Wu looked away, her red-gloved right hand scratching at her hair. "Uh-um, can't be that long, I imagine." She looked back at Netta with a hopeful look in her eyes. "You feeling anything?"

Netta looked at her leg. Wincing, she reached down and began to rip her snowboot off of that foot. Taking the sock off gingerly, she winced, not in pain as much as how the sight of her bruised-looking ankle made her stomach churn.

Netta turned away from the sight of her ankle. "Pretty shit. Ack - how do you know if you broke something as opposed to spraining it, really, really badly?"

Wu pressed her face into her hand. "No, Netta, I'm talking about - can you feel anything special yet?"

Hissing in pain as she jostled her rapidly swelling ankle, Netta groaned and then said, "Oohhh, I'm not really feeling all that much more than the terrific pain in my ankle, really."

"Really?"

Netta looked up from where she had been examining her ankle for a compound fracture to stare at the other Witch. "Really." It was surprising - as cold and hollow as she felt, Netta didn't know if she should be cheered or not by the fact that her sarcasm refused to be beaten into submission.

Ophelia spoke up, walking away from them, balancing her backpack in her arms. "I'm just really glad that we forfeited two weeks of planning to try out a ceremony that no one has ever reported any substantial success on."

Wu pointed at the girl and said, "You watch your smart mouth with me, young lady. For your information, skepticism doesn't work well in conjunction with magic. Based on the accounts of this - unconfirmed though they are - in all likelihood, this is possible."

"Wait," Netta interrupted, stopping massaging her battered-looking ankle to look over at Wu. ""In all likelihood" - what does that mean?"

"It means exactly what I just said," the Witch replied coolly. "as in, the likelihood of it being possible is high enough that I wasted my time to come out to the boonies right now. I should remind you, Miss Kienna saw fit to listen to your sob story and wanted to help you. Be grateful."

Netta groaned and began to look through her bag.

"What are you doing?" Wu snapped at her. "There's nothing that we can do right now."

"If you don't mind, I'm looking for something to help me deal with the pain in my ankle. Some good old Human pharmaceuticals."

"Oh." Wu fidgeted as Netta pulled out a pill bottle and drank some of the pills down with a bottle of water. Finally, she said, "Do you - d'ya need anything else, for the pain and whatnot?"

Netta glanced over at the snow creeping up on the edge of the temple outside. "Actually - a cold compress would be appreciated. Greatly."

Wu hurried out to the snow and collected some of it, binding the snow into her scarf. She handed it to Netta with a, "Here."

Applying it to her ankle, Netta jerked as she felt the sharp sensation of the cold against her skin. Once she managed to get somewhat used to the feeling of the snow on her naked flesh, she leaned back a bit.

"Here's to hoping that this doesn't take long - one way or the other."

Neither of the other Witches said anything else, deathly quiet as they were in the temple.

For a time, Netta turned her head and examined the snow as it fell in the woods encircling this place that she began to remember, clearly, from her dreams.

They were silent for what felt like a good, long while before Wu spoke up.

"So -" Wu clapped her hands awkwardly, finally sitting down where she had been standing. "this is gonna take a while." Ophelia groaned. Turning to look at the young Witch, Wu snapped, "Oh, as if you have anything important to do."

Netta reclined further back on the slab. She tried to ignore the pain in her ankle and tried even harder to not adjust it more than she needed to. It was hard to tell which was worse - the shooting pain whenever she moved her foot, or the dull soreness that could never be appeased.

"Be sure that you don't fall asleep up there," Wu said suddenly. "we have no way of knowing if this will work if your consciousness is dormant."

"Oh, I think that you'll find that that's not a problem." Wincing, Netta took in a deep breath to brace herself before she attempted to move her leg into a slightly more comfortable situation.

There was something else that Netta had failed to tell any of the other women.

She had had a nightmare that had been steadily growing in the past week, one that kept her awake most nights. Just thinking about the vague terror of it that she could hardly recall - snippets of impressions, of a deep cold that refused to be relieved, the feeling of being hunted in the midst of a snowy waste without end - made her feel sick.

They were silent for a moment that, even by Netta's legendarily long moments of extended awkwardness, felt awful.

Wu broke the silence once more, turning to look at Netta. "How did the two of you meet?"

Netta blinked. "Excuse me?"

Wu sighed and settled further back, resting her chin on top of her raised knees. "You know - this "guy", the one that we're here for."

Netta figured that all the Witch would have had to have said was "the guy". Netta didn't have any other in her life -

As she massaged her ankle, her mind flew unerringly in what felt like a good, long while to the other one, the one that she had to abandon. For a moment her throat felt as though it was too tight to swallow.

What had she given up, without even giving any of it seemingly a second thought? Would she ever live to regret leaving it, that life that she had abandoned?

Pushing aside images of her love that would never be, Netta looked back at Wu from where she rested her own head on her left kneecap.

"I've known Ash since I was a school girl." She chuckled. "Me and Ashwood - we were friends since I was, oh, eight or so."

"Huh." Wu was quiet for a moment before she said, "It's so sweet it makes me want to gag."

Netta frowned as she looked back at the cringing Witch. "It's not exactly like that. We had a falling out the day when we planned to elope together."

My eighteenth birthday.

The surprise in the room was palpable. Finally, it was Ophelia who spoke up. "You were going to - elope with a Monster?"

Netta cringed, feeling the way that the young Witch had said it was not unlike how she would have asked someone who was eating out of a garbage can if they were serious.

"I was a teenager, once."

"How old are you," Wu asked.

"Just under a hundred, last time I checked."

Wu scoffed, rolling her eyes. "You're barely an adult to our kind."

Ophelia interjected. "How did you plan on running away with him?"

Netta jostled uneasily under her coat. "Ah - well, Ash said that he knew of a way to cut ties with them so that they couldn't find us. We had all of these - these plans to return to Europe, once we had gone through with the Consummation. We had that aspect all planned out - I even had this lingerie -" Netta stopped then, coughing as she felt her face redden as she realized what she was freely telling these women. "-Never mind about that last bit, act like I never said that out loud. Jeez."

Wu laughed. "I would insist to you that the purist attitude to sex is a Human hang up, and not a Witch." Wu jerked a thumb in Ophelia's direction. "This one got the birds and the bees when she was, what, six?"

Netta sputtered for a moment before she said, "Well, I wouldn't have any hang ups about talking about that sort of... thing, but not when it's about me." She sighed deeply. "I get the feeling that this has gone off-track, massively. I just - I think that since the both of you helped me up here, the least I can do is talk about him, if you wanted me to."

Wu waved at her impatiently. "Sorry, didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable." She sighed and paused before she craned her head back and then, with an impatient grunt, she re-positioned herself so that she was facing Netta. "So what went down? He had a problem with your first human crushes, or -"

"I learned that he was an Incubi." Now, with hindsight giving Netta all of the insight that she could ever wish for, saying that aloud, now - seemed laughably naive.

There was another extraordinarily long silence.

"I forgot you said that he was an... well." Wu coughed.

Before either could say anything, Netta added, "Nothing happened." She had to bite her cheek to not add to that, up till very, very recently.

Instead, she said, "I found out about his - status when one of my Sisters found out about us and did some research of her own."

Ophelia spoke up, saying, "Because your Sisters seem like the most reasonable people I've ever met."

Netta looked down at her swollen ankle, the blackening and blue tinge of her pale skin almost, for a moment, reminding Netta of the hue of a Monster's flesh. She shook her head to forget the discomforting image.

She said, "A lot can happen in nearing a hundred years. I don't know what's happening now, but I almost think that these people are completely different from the ones that I grew up alongside." She wanted to believe what she said, but there was something in her that could not make her forget the memories that rose too readily. Memories of hands that gripped Netta's arms too roughly, of being thrown against walls, shoved down stairs.

Wu spoke up, her voice quiet. "What was life like among your Coven?"

Netta opened her mouth, found that the first thing to come to mind was another excuse or a lie. It surprised her to realize for the first time how much she felt as though she had to do such when speaking of her Coven.

Instead, Netta closed her eyes, looked down to her feet.