"It's high time we all had breakfast, isn't it?" the Writer said, checking his watch. Claude was eyeing it with the same look Minerva had cast toward the receptionist's lipstick just the other day. Apparently no one could go even one day without ogling valuables around here. "Let us carry this conversation to the dining floor."

Sicilienne brushed briskly past Claude, whose jaw tightened. Lindsay's eyes were lingering on her sister's story, consumed by some devastating memory Ramona would never hear. Minerva hesitated before touching her arm lightly and gesturing for her to follow everyone else. Ramona watched her pry her gaze from it with considerable effort.

Ramona herself was the last to leave, taking one last sweeping glance of the library and soaking up its pulsing energy—the books almost felt alive.

But that was silly. As silly as the existence of something like a Writer.

Moments later, everyone was seated around an oval table, Sicilienne glimmering in her cloudy dress at one end of it. Ramona and the others, in mainly peasant fashion, casual gothic, and lumberjack chic, were outshined terribly by this odd, well-read teenager. She wasn't sure if Sicilienne had developed a tasteful sense of style from Claude, who had managed to piece together expensive-looking outfits on a pickpocket's budget for years, or vice versa. Regardless, her time as the Writer's sole apprentice had clearly given her access to privileges the thieves either had never known or certainly didn't anymore. Hailing from one of the dullest, poorest areas in all of Villagetown, Ramona couldn't ever think of a time when she'd worn anything other than stylized rags.

The Writer disappeared into the kitchen to prepare the tea and Sicilienne went with him before coming back to set down empty cups and a stack of plates. Ramona turned over a small gold fork and suddenly understood Claude's constant urge to palm everything in sight. She was calculating immediately what she could buy with a collection of these forks—

Sicilienne dropped a red leather-bound book on the desk rather forcefully. The gilded apple was unmistakable. "Allow me to give you a short history lesson, as some of us—" she glared at Claude, who shifted uncomfortably even though the glare of a dainty seventeen-year-old wasn't all that intimidating— "have never quite grasped the concept of destiny."

"Give me a break," Claude muttered irritatedly under his breath.

Sicilienne seemed more confident now, like she'd recited this a hundred times and knew it by heart. "Let us start with once upon a time. A maiden called Rapunzel is rescued from her tower, but she and the prince who saved her go missing in the Bloodflower Desert. The search parties don't find them until early the next year. Rapunzel and her prince Valor marry and move into the castle with their infant twin sons. Rapunzel won't become queen of Tower Kingdom until the existing king steps down voluntarily due to a desire to retire in his old age—when she's twenty-five. But before that, the prince who has just inherited the throne from his passing father in Water Kingdom is faced with potential war with the mermaids and clueless as to how to react. Luckily for him the woman who catches his eye is in fact one of the six princesses due to inherit the throne of the mermaid monarchy. He marries her that very year, bringing the beachside kingdom and its connecting ocean together once and for all, and dubbing the sea 'Royal Ocean'."

Though the basic history of the last decade was mostly common knowledge thanks to numerous royal gossip outlets and gigantic posters with the members of the Royal Alliance's faces on them, it wasn't as though any of the thieves had studied it vigorously. Politics wasn't Ramona's style, Claude had had bigger problems on his hands than celebrity news, Penny had been terribly behind on keeping up with the numerous political leaders in Rose alone when she worked in kingdom management, Lindsay preferred spite over education, Bear had been living in a forest his whole life, and Minerva hadn't quite been old enough to care. Ramona'd heard various versions of these stories over the years. For one thing, she'd assumed Prince Valor's father was dead, but maybe it was one of the other kings who had contracted the stardust plague. She also didn't know much about the geopolitical status of mermaids, and didn't ever intend to.

"Now. Prince Alexios Novikov, son of the king of Rose Kingdom (so named for the royal family of Rose which had ruled a hundred years ago, mind you) is cursed by a witch to become a hideous beast, and the castle goes into magical lockdown as everyone except for him turns completely invisible and he becomes trapped within its walls. However, just before the incident, his brother Nikolai left home in search of adventure. He ends up finding it, in the form of an abandoned castle where a sleeping princess is waiting for someone to break her curse after all these years. Meanwhile a girl from Villagetown is sent to live in the beast's castle after a hotel mix-up involving her father and a bit of property damage, and she ends up falling in love."

Minerva visibly tensed, clenching her jaw and tightening her folded arms across her chest. Ramona glanced sideways at her. Sicilienne didn't seem to notice, and continued, beginning to walk slowly in circles about the table. Claude, too, paced to help him think.

"Eventually Prince Nikolai returns, princess in tow, to find that everyone he knows has become a beast or an unseen ghost, all looking after a girl who has suddenly disappeared. Apparently the beast's love for her drove him to grant her wish of going back home. Alexios in beast form becomes ill, Nikolai sends for the girl called Beauty, who has been encouraged not to return to the castle by her sisters—" more cringing from Minerva— "and Beauty kisses Alexios back to his true form, which I imagine is significantly more appealing, securing herself as his true love and future bride."

"Oh, yeah, Alexios' a real looker," Lindsay agreed. "Not that there's anything wrong with transforming into a big beast," she added with finger guns in Bear's direction. He made a face.

"You're kidding," muttered Penny. "The older brother's way better looking."

"I dunno, I like the blond one," Ramona mused, entertained by the look on Sicilienne's face at their off-topic interruption. In all fairness, her opinion was only based on tabloid pictures and paintings, and after that mural with Lindsay in it she wasn't sure how strongly she trusted those. It would indeed be very funny if King Alexios turned out to be some sort of dorky, wart-nosed troll in real life.

Unfortunately, Claude's little sister continued her boring recount of recent historical events despite the clear opportunity to debate celebrity appearances. "Anyway, the spell is broken," Sicilienne went on. "Nikolai marries sleeping princess Briar Rose and Alexios marries Beauty Henderson." There was audible teeth grinding coming from Minerva's direction now, but still Sicilienne didn't notice. "The queen of Rose Kingdom contracts stardust fever and passes away, the king dying from grief shortly after. Nikolai and Alexios decide to rule together with their wives, joining the Royal Alliance. Now, the stardust plague, which last spiked from 2003 to 2006 in Fairy Kingdom, has been spreading again, proven by the death of the Rose royals.

"They aren't the only rulers that suffer from it. It finally becomes prevalent enough in Fairy Kingdom again that the Fay king dies in the same year that the Rose king does, leaving behind his teenage son to take up the throne. His advisors hastily throw together a handful of balls to snag him a wife—which seems like a silly way to make him less stressed, but I digress. He happens to fall in love with a servant girl and after the third ball still remains unable to track her down. The court proposes the brilliant idea of having ladies try on an enchanted shoe only designed for one foot, and finally it fits Ella Hartley. When she marries Charming and becomes queen, she suggests joining the Royal Alliance as well.

"Now for the most important part," Sicilienne said, finally stilling and placing her hand atop the red book. Her lavender stare landed on Claude and stayed there. "Just three years ago. Twenty-three-year-old princess Snow White of Lakeland Kingdom has gotten very pretty. Too pretty. Her stepmother is fussing over her appearance in the standing mirror in her dressing room when she suddenly hears a voice coming from it. A young girl appears in the mirror, apologizing for accidentally connecting here with her magic. Now, this year the Writer—the myth, the legend, hated by many but needed by all—took on a new apprentice. Her name is Sicilienne Verelia."

Claude drew in a sharp breath. Sicilienne's voice rose urgently as her emotions began to bleed through it.

"The Writer's apprentice is quite new to this and a little unsure of herself, but has recently acquired a probably stolen voice corrector thanks to her brother, and decides to have a little fun with it. An uneducated girl suddenly granted the ability to speak like royalty can hardly be blamed for being amused by the narcissistic host of the mirror she's formed a link with. The queen takes the arrival of a magical girl in her mirror as something like fate, although at the time it is anything but. No magic mirror was intended to be any part of Snow White's story. But here they are. So young Sicilienne has been practicing with her magic, and wants to see if she can hold a connection for longer than a few minutes. So she chats with Snow White's stepmother a bit longer. The queen is delighted to have such an artifact at her fingertips as a magic mirror, and asks it dozens of questions—luckily for her, the Writer's apprentice has access to millions of books and almost unlimited knowledge at her fingertips, so she has dozens of answers to give."

"Sicilee..." murmured Claude. Sicilienne offered a sad smile, her frustration with him forgotten at least for now.

"The queen fancies herself something of a beauty, and asks the following: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" Sicilienne leaned over the desk, her gaze glittering. "And the girl in the mirror replies, Her lips like blood, her hair like night, her skin as fair as snow—Snow White. How funny the queen's reaction is—furious, as if it is impossible for her stepdaughter to be more beautiful than she. The apprentice is only congratulating herself on thinking of such a clever rhyme, but the queen takes this seriously. Too seriously. She hires a lowly hunter named Felix Lange to kill Snow White. Her only crime? Being a name the girl in the magic mirror had heard the Writer mention recently over dinner.

"But the huntsman takes pity on her, and urges her to run into the woods and leave Central Snow Kingdom, and never to return. When the queen finds out about this, her vengeance only boils more. She puts out a warrant for Felix Lange's arrest and execution, and he has to take his family and hide. By now the girl behind the mirror realizes what she's done, after a bit of research in the Writer's tower. She's terrified for the girl she almost got killed, but the Writer assures her that he will ensure the story rights itself, that it's alright to make mistakes—and that a bit of peril never made a story less interesting."

Now the Writer, preceded by his cane, came to the table with the tea and a bowl of jam. He'd been silently listening to Sicilienne relay the tale. "That's right, my dear," he said with a reassuring smile as Sicilienne took a deep breath, her anxiety levels visibly rising just from the memories. "And Snow was saved, wasn't she?"

She shot him a grateful smile back.

"A few strokes of pen and a bit of adjusting and Snow White's fate is back on track," the Writer told the others. "A cabin of dwarves some ways west take her in, and a suffocating lace, a cursed comb, and a poisoned apple later, the ever-naive young woman lands herself in a short coma. Cue Ramiro Belmonte, a runaway prince with a thirteen-year old son and no wife to take care of him. Hailing all the way from Northwest Tower Kingdom, he had traveled far and wide to leave his old life behind and find hope for his son. He comes across our lovely lady Snow in her famously jewel-encrusted coffin. You can decide for yourselves whether this was a coincidence or took a little nudge. He's smitten immediately, and Snow is woken with a kiss. Prince Ramiro, with his arrival, has just become the single most eligible bachelor in Snow, and though as I recall he's quite a bit older than her—isn't he?"

"Yes, yes," murmured Sicilienne. Her uncovered eye darted back and forth as if visualizing bullet points on a study sheet. "Mid-forties. Everette was so desperate for a mother in his life that he accepted Snow as his own without question."

"Right. Well, Snow liked the idea of marrying Ramiro anyway. And both he and his son took on her name, mostly for the sake of public appearances. We all know how Lakelanders can be about foreigners," he sighed, pouring tea for Bear to his right. "Terrified of fairies, they are. Speaking of Lakeland, the transition from that to Snow Kingdom was a nightmare, wasn't it, my dear? She initially enacted the change to rid her land of the evil and hated ruler before her, and symbolize a new beginning. Fine enough. But the irony of it afterward..."

Sicilienne looked harrowed just thinking about it. Ramona literally knew nothing aside from headlines, so she was a little curious now. "The Snow Queen's curse. What a disaster... All the lakes froze over and Snow Kingdom started to feel like a more fitting name after all."

The Writer turned to the others, leaving memory lane and finally explaining how this tied into today's dilemma.

"When this happened, I recall that the whole tower shook on its foundation," he said carefully. "Fate had been twisted the wrong way around. It's our job not to let that happen. It took quick, decisive thinking to fix it. Nice little girl from the east—Gerda—with determination like no other and a sense of adventure that could have rivaled any Prince Charming. I'm lucky I found her. Now, you all..." He was addressing everyone, but his eyes, instead of following Claude like Sicilienne had been, were fixated most peculiarly on Ramona. "You all are my Gerda in this instance. I cannot do this without you. There are forces, ancient ones, at play that I alone do not have the strength to fight."

"What makes you think we can?" Penny said roughly.

"Before me are some of the most resourceful, clever, and stubbornly determined fairytale characters I have ever had the privilege of rescuing multiple times from near-death," he replied cheekily, with a smirk that was startlingly mischievous. "I have seen Penny escape from murderous rioters, Claude smooth-talk his way out of perilous situations, Baby unwittingly charm away danger, Lindsay weave a new life for herself out of sheer defiance, and Minerva con the slyest of men. I have seen Ramona single-handedly keep every single one of you, and herself, alive and afloat through thick and thin. I've seen the way you all work together. How could I not depend on you for such a monumental task?"

The weight of his words sunk in.

"Because none of us are trustworthy," responded Ramona finally. "Even those of us who like to pretend we are."

"Ah, trust is subjective," he said dismissively. "I am not trustworthy. Sicilienne is not trustworthy. No one can be worthy of such a thing. We as people are too flawed, too selfish, too unpredictable. The key is to wield those flaws properly. They are tools at your disposal if you make them so."

Minerva toyed with her necklace. "So... you need our help. Up against who?"

The Writer took a seat. "They call themselves..." He rolled his eyes, like he considered it childish. "The 'Alliance of Darkness'. The antithesis of the Royal Alliance, and so called because most of them practice dark magic in some form or another. Led by the Sandman, who considers himself my immortal enemy for a reason I was born too late to understand. He doesn't hate just me, but every Writer before me, and every Writer after. Obsessed with freedom to a fault. Sicilienne has spent the past few days studying extensively each and every member of this shaky organization. She can tell you all about it."

All this talk of destiny in recent days was something Ramona certainly wasn't used to. Destiny was the higher power that most everyone assumed, whether consciously or not, puppeteered the universe. It was a generalized concept, and most didn't really believe in the Writer, who was little more than a bedtime story, and yet here he was standing in front of her. And unless her eyes and ears and reasonable faculties were all failing her, he was real, too.

The Writer cleared his throat and murmured to Sicilienne to bring the tarts. The thieves whispered among each other as he pulled Claude aside.

"Allow me to show you something."

Somewhat reluctantly, Claude followed him upstairs to the upper library—but the Writer didn't stop there. He pulled at a book on the shelf (how tastelessly stereotypical, Claude thought) titled The Twelve Brothers. He realized that it didn't look quite like the others, with an author's name inscribed on the spine. A history book, a narrative interpretation of a fairytale, rather than a life-book. This one did not belong here upstairs.

Just as Claude had presumed, this was intended to indicate that the shelf turned outward, allowing space for himself and the Writer to move through a hidden passageway. The Writer pulled it back shut behind them. They were faced with a short, curved hall and a door with no handle. The Writer pressed his hand to it, and his handprint glowed, opening the door like magic. Well, that was a silly thing to say when it clearly was magic. Claude had never been born with any sort of magical abilities, and he didn't mind, but it tended to be something he saw as out of reach, despite most of his companions having possessed at least a little. His view of magic saw it more as technology than anything else.

For lack of a better word, they entered an attic. The inside of the tower's turret served as the roof, and the room was filled with dusty bins and old quills. A ring of stone statues circled a stand in the center of it. A ragged blanket had been thrown over something leaning against one wall, and an overweight, frazzled-looking Himalayan cat was prowling around it, clawing at something on the floor. A spider scuttled just out of its reach, and it made a miserably failing attempt to pounce and catch it.

"Stilts isn't the most athletic," the Writer said amusedly, picking up the cat. Stilts slumped in his arms looking as though someone somewhere was disappointing him.

"Stilts?" said Claude, a question in his eyes. He nodded.

"We've got another one named Rumpel." Oh, heavens. "Sicilienne was thrilled when she found out you'd had a part in a major fairy tale," he added, his eyes shimmering. "I left out some details when I told her about it, of course. She thought it was such a noble thing for you to do, and I didn't want to ruin that for her."

Well, now he had him feeling guilty again. The Writer held out Stilts, an offer, but Claude stepped back, remembering that he really shouldn't be anywhere near cats.

"I'm allergic."

"Ah, right. That explains why she was so keen on getting a cat once she came to live here. Goldie was old, though, and she passed just this year. Hence Rumpel and Stilts."

Claude eyed Stilts apprehensively, who looked intent on committing a murder. The Writer set him down.

"Mr. Writer, sir?"

"You're going to ask if I have a name. I do. I don't need it anymore. Clinging to the past only inhibits the future, you know."

Claude folded his arms, shifting his weight to one hip. "Alright, then, wise guy. Let's get on with it. Why'd you bring me up here?"

The Writer breathed in deeply, taking in the scent of dust and parchment.

"I need you to comprehend the weight of the threat at hand—you more than anything else. You have a stake in this where the others don't. You have something to lose, and so it is you I can depend on."

"And what is it I have to lose?"

"Sicilienne."

The name hit him like a punch to the gut. Alarmed eyes flicked towards the Writer's.

"You'd better explain yourself real quick."

The Writer made his way over to one of the statues, which Claude had initially paid little attention to, distracted by everything else around him. He finally observed that it was a spitting image of a slightly younger and less stressed Queen Snow White, biting into an apple. Only the stone apple was on the ground beside her, and the fingers on one hand were crumbling. Red cracks snaked through the statue, apparently the cause of the slow decomposition of it. But as Claude watched, the red flare fractured through the lower portion of the statue and into the floor, causing cracks to form beneath the Writer's feet.

He carefully stepped back, and turned to Claude. "This is what I mean."

"What is that red stuff?" Claude asked, anxiety building in his chest as the cracks spread in different directions, inching towards the walls on the opposite sides of the room. He might have been imagining it, but the floor beneath him didn't seem so stable anymore.

"It's exactly what you think it is," he answered. "Magic. And not the good kind. Some freedom makes for a healthy society. Freedom at reasonable levels. Too much freedom, and humanity's inner demons begin clawing their way out of the human heart and into everyday life. Leaders keep in place justice, and allow for virtuous lives to flourish within proper boundaries. Anarchy releases everything." The way he said it suggested that there was something much bigger here than just ideas like virtue and vice. Like something awful was just waiting to happen, bursting at the seams that had been held together by Snow White and everyone else in the Royal Alliance. "All the previous royals, the generation before the Alliance, seemed to keep dropping dead in the span of barely a few decades. There was dark magic at play there, Claude. The stardust plague didn't just come from nowhere. Not in the first wave, and certainly not this time."

That dug into him like a knife. He pushed thoughts of Bernadette to the back of his mind.

"Their successors formed the most powerful alliance since the Court of Godmothers in the Dark Age. Dislike their rule if you wish, but even if Fairytaletopia hasn't gotten quite back on its feet, the Royal Alliance achieved something. No wars, no territorial disputes, no political rivals kidnapping or murdering each other. If you don't think that breaking the Alliance will shatter all that immediately, you're in for a nasty surprise. Evident here," he added, nodding to the statue.

"If this keeps happening, this place'll be reduced to bricks," Claude pointed out, gesturing around him to the splinters in the stone. "If something's wrong with the... book magic, or whatever, you and Sicilee need to get the hell out of here."

The Writer leaned on his cane. "I can't leave. I cannot abandon my post as Writer. There are stories to be told and lives which have not yet run their course. I don't have the luxury of running from my problems."

That felt like a personal jab at him, and Claude didn't like it. His nails dug into his palms. "Then have Sicilienne come with me. I can keep her safe."

"First of all," the Writer said softly, but there was an edge to his voice that suggested his true feelings underneath, "if that were true, you would never have left her here with a stranger. Secondly, Sicilienne, whether you like it or not, is a Writer as well. She has accepted that responsibility. It was a choice she decided to make, and I wouldn't have allowed her to if I didn't know her heart sang true. Do you really think, Claude, that she'll willingly go with you? You think that Sicilienne will want to live in a car, robbing the rich, sometimes going starving for days when there's no jobs around? Do you think she wants to be surrounded by crooks and liars? She's a little girl, Claude. She lived with no roof over her head and not quite enough food in her stomach for long enough."

Claude's blood boiled. He hated this man. He hated that he was right.

"I know you don't really believe that," the Writer told him. "I know you know she won't follow you aimlessly anymore. I can hear everything you think of me right now. It's a curse more than anything else."

He thought of Sicilienne as a baby, when he'd made the commitment to care for her, regardless of the sacrifice it would take. He thought of Bernadette, who had never gotten the chance to see her little sister. And Sicilienne today—well, she wasn't a little girl. Not to him. She was nearly grown now, and maybe she'd moved on. Maybe Sicilienne was a Writer and Claude was a thief, and maybe that was that.

"You're not just a thief."

Claude reluctantly met his eyes again. "Then what am I supposed to be?"

"That's for destiny to know, and us to find out."

"I saw my book thingy. My destiny's over."

"Are you dead, Mister Verelia?"

Claude made a face. "No."

"Then your destiny can't possibly be over." He stepped closer, eyes bright. "Even if everyone forgets you ever existed, your fate means something. Now, you don't have to give half a shiner about me. But would you save the world for your sister?"

Claude laughed, and it sounded maniacal, even to him. He was seriously losing his marbles. Talking about saving the world and destinies. But—

"For Sicilienne? In an instant."

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Told you it wouldn't take too long to get this one out! I rewrote this chapter a couple times but Este approved it and I'm mostly happy with it so we're moving forward. My first draft doc has surpassed 90k words now, which is crazy to me because this is the first of my books that I've ever continuously worked at this long. I've stuck with plenty of ideas for several years, but this one I have actually written for almost ten [now twenty] consecutive chapters. It's just pretty exciting for me :) Next month will be Lost Destinies's one-year anniversary of existing! (Well... I suppose that's just a birthday, isn't it?)

Feel free to give feedback in the comments! I can't come up with a good poll today, so I'll default to something easy and go with a question about the story itself: Who's your favorite character so far? I have too many to list, but I'd love to hear who you guys like!

A little off topic, but I have been making some artwork for the story as well, lol. Would anyone be interested in seeing my drawings of the characters? I might make a page for it or a little bonus content section or something :D Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day or night or whatever, and if it's late, please go to sleep!