"What's going on?" Minerva's voice was growing impatient, probably antsy from the lack of answers.

"I don't know," Penny snapped, finger at her ear. "Ramona's not coming through, and neither is Claude. Lindsay, have you seen him?"

"He's not at the rendezvous. I dunno what to tell you." She sounded a little on edge, maybe even a bit nervous. "You don't think he got caught, do you?"

"By who, the D.A. or the guards?" Penny glanced around the corner, not really wanting to hear speculation on that particular question. "We're at the west wing. Ramona has to be in there by now. If something's happened to her, we can't wait."

She dropped her hand from the earpiece and stormed into the hall, flanked by Bear, pointing her halberd at the guards barring the entrance.

"There's an emergency in the queen's quarters!" she barked. "One of you go alert the king!" One of them opened his mouth to protest, but she elbowed him out of the way, flashed her security card through the scanner, and forced her way through. "Now!"

Armor clanked as guards rushed to do something, some unsure where to go. Bear's eyes narrowed at the doors to the queen's room as they approached it. "Runes again," he growled, slamming his spear into the locking spell to no use. "She must be close by." He glanced up, trailing along the rafters.

"Who?" muttered Penny. She began to pace. "We've gotta find another way in—where are you going?" Bear didn't answer, vanishing down the hall to chase after something she couldn't see. "Ugh!" She slammed a fist into the doors uselessly, turning to another approaching guard. "Is there another door?"

The guard blinked. "I—I don't know how this happened. We've been watching the hall all this time."

"That doesn't matter now. Unless you fancy her being dead, figure out another way to get to the queen," she said harshly, and for a moment, she must have been a princess again, because the guard promptly straightened, nodded, and disappeared to find her answers.

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Ears ringing, blood dripped from his nose. Claude's eyes fluttered, just barely open. He hardly remembered how it had happened. He was remembering something else, now—screams and the smashing of bottles and car tires screeching across the road. Wincing, he tried to roll over onto his side, but found he was immobile.

I'm sorry, Sicilienne. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.

He awoke in the dark. A great light bloomed before him, and a golden hand reached out, accompanied by glowing eyes. Thoughtlessly he took it, led forward into the dream.

Claude's gaze wandered to the sand that kicked up softly beneath his feet as they walked, swirling through the air. There was nothing but endless sand dunes for miles, but he felt no heat of the sun on his back, only a distant sense that he should be somewhere other than here. A soothing, low voice brought his attention back to the golden man.

"What will change your mind, Claude? What will make you leave this behind?"

His brow furrowed, not comprehending. "I... what?" he managed, slowly.

There came a soft chuckle, and they stopped walking, the eyes facing him now. "Your friends—they have nothing. Nothing to lose, nothing they care about. But you do. What do you have left, Claude? What would convince you not to do this?"

Do what? Claude thought, but of course he was picturing his sister. He struggled to answer, puzzled by the question. What were they talking about, again?

"I see," said the Sandman, and he patted his hand. "Go, my child. People need you."

People need...

Claude jolted awake gasping. It was musty and humid, and he'd been beaten bloody—and there were a dozen little elves with huge eyes peering down at him, giving him a disapproving once-over. Sucking in a sharp breath, he pushed himself painfully to a sitting position, assessing his surroundings.

"This the servant tunnels?" he asked the elves breathlessly. When he got several bobbing nods, he wiped his nose and swore, still feeling lightheaded. "Curses—Ramona! How long have I been here?"

They shot each other knowing looks and turned back to him. "Can't say," one chimed.

"What do you mean, you can't say?" The color drained from his face. The elves were loyal to no one. They'd been there. They'd been there.

What were the odds some of them worked for the Sandman?

Blearily stumbling to his feet, Claude tried to recall the strange dream but got nothing more than a fuzzy recollection of light and sand. He definitely remembered taking an ax blow to the head, although not much else. He grabbed the nearest elf by the ear, making him squeal.

"Get me to the queen's quarters or I'll bury the lot of you alive."

Indeed, this motivated them to show him the way in record time. It wasn't comfortable, but Claude forced himself out of a grate, pulled himself up from the floor, and emerged in a spacious wardrobe, made flexible by dozens of travels through wall vents. He shoved his way out through enormous, suffocating walls of expensive fabric, finally blissfully emerging into the light.

The first thing he heard was the baby's cry. The next thing he registered was the gaping maw of the beast Ramona was fighting off quite terribly with a little wooden table. He stood there, frozen, for about a second, but there wasn't time to be afraid. The wallpaper had been ripped to shreds, and a creature was slither-thumping towards the canopy crib. He didn't think. He just moved. The baby wailed still when Claude scooped him up, whipping the dagger out from his sleeve and jamming it forward into the eye of the beast, grimacing as gore dripped and the growls of the monster heightened to a scream.

He supposed he was lucky the spell had decided that this was peril sufficiently mortal enough to activate.

"CLAUDE!" Ramona shrieked from across the room. Not Verelia, not a colleague. Just Claude. "WHERE WERE YOU?"

"I'LL EXPLAIN LATER!" He ducked from the slash of a paw, holding the prince close to his chest and rolling out of the way. He slashed aimlessly with the knife again, but this time it squished like rubber against gleaming scales. Oh, so now he suddenly wasn't in mortal peril? He hoped the warranty on this thing wasn't up yet. "WHAT ARE THESE THINGS?"

"REMEMBER THAT CURSE THE WRITER WAS TALKING ABOUT?"

"DAMN!"

"YEAH!"

Everything pierced his ears at once—the baby's cries, the demonic roars, and finally, a thunderous crash as something, or someone, burst through the wardrobe.

"Holy Jack Horner!" Penny's halberd dropped from her hands in shock. "What the fu—"

"Penny, give me that!" Ramona cried desperately, gesturing for the weapon. "I can't keep hurling chairs!"

Penny tossed it through the air, and Ramona crawled across the floor to reach it, stabbing the ax-end into the hellhound closest to her. Materializing her sword, Penny readied her stance.

This would be just like the manticore fight, she told herself.

Only this time, she could die. And she wouldn't even get paid for her trouble.

Adrenaline pumping, she quickly isolated her targets. Two, three, four. She would take them one at a time. After a split-second scan for injuries, blade in hand, Penny lunged. The first demon was a thing of scales and far too many eyes, flopping on its gargantuan belly and slithering with odd, jerky movements. None of it made sense, but it didn't have to. The wound Claude had inflicted to its face made sense. She jammed her sword in, eliciting an ear-splitting screech, and dragged the blade down, tearing its throat in two. She narrowly missed being crushed as she leapt out of the way of its fall, launching herself off its belly to attack the next one just as it dissolved into acid and ash.

Her sword sliced through flesh like a fin cutting through water. Breathless and panting, Penny dodged, swung, kicked, and rolled. She took a paw, a head, a tail, until everything was reduced to ashes, and she collapsed on the blood-soaked carpet, the rush leaving her as quickly as it had come. After it all she was just... empty, like it had taken everything out of her. But the beasts were dead. Her friends were safe. She raised her head.

The glowing crack, the unstitched seam, lingered.

Ramona lowered the halberd. The baby had quieted, clutching onto Claude and refusing to let go. "Where's the rest of the guards?" she asked finally.

Penny shook her head, everything aching. "Gone to get the king. Some still waiting outside, trying to get the door open. Somebody sent for the Department of Hexes and Curses, I think."

Claude glanced apprehensively at the portal and then back at her. "What's wrong with the door?"

"Must be the work of Goldilocks. Oh!" Penny spun, and Ramona threw up her hands.

"What are we yelling about now?"

"Bear! That must be where he went—"

"He left?" Claude said immediately.

"Yeah, I'll just—" She grappled with her earpiece before realizing he didn't have one. "Or not." She turned to Claude. "What happened to yours?"

"Oh, yeah." He tilted his head downward, scraping out the last few shards of crystal that remained in his ear. "I kind of took a few hits to the head."

That explained why his face was so bloodied and swollen. The baby began to make whining noises again, and Claude bounced him softly. Ramona's hands shook as she pulled out hers, examining it. "I couldn't reach you guys while I was in here. Something might be wrong with mine."

"Think that's the spell on the door," Penny murmured. "I can't connect to Minerva and Lindsay."

Shouting came from behind the door to the queen's room, and Ramona turned towards it nervously. "We have to scram."

Claude watched the queen's lifeless body in the chair. No message, this time, and Corpse Flower had never gotten the chance to carve out her heart. Just death. Plain as day. "We're gonna have to tell Lindsay we were too late," he said, hollowly.

"I know." Ramona gripped the halberd with bloody gloves and moved towards the wardrobe. "But if we don't get out now, it'll be our necks in the gallows. Portals to hell or not."

Claude held out the baby. "What do we do with the kid?"

"We can't leave him," Penny said, eyeing the portal. "Something'll come out and eat him."

"We'll find someone safe to hand him off to on our way out," Ramona assured them both, ducking into the wardrobe. "Right now, all we can do is run."

Penny went in after her, and Claude hesitated, the baby reaching out with chubby little arms for the chair where his mother had sat. Nothing more than a corpse now. Fitting name for the assassin, albeit too on the nose for Claude's taste, personally.

He spotted a pad of stationery on the dresser, and took a moment to produce a pen from his pocket. He scribbled the fastest note he'd ever written, signed his name, took the prince, and followed the others, not giving the red glow in the room even one last passing glance.

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Bear lumbered along the corridor, dragging his halberd with him. His voice echoed along the walls, scraping like gravel.

"Run, Goldilocks. Run like you always do, from the bears and the wolves."

Lockpicks working swiftly beneath her fingers, Aurele held her breath, keeping herself concealed under the hood as she perched precariously on a high decorative shelf. She should've been out by now. But Astrum and Corpse hadn't showed up on time, and now she had to navigate an escape herself, or she'd be carted off to the Fairy prisons—if her nemesis didn't get to her first.

Should've killed you, too, when I had the chance.

She closed her eyes, struggling, under pressure, to picture the map in her head. She'd memorized too many safes and the inner workings of too many locks, crammed in more information than she could fit. Was it this the trapdoor that led to the roof? Or was it the catacombs?

It didn't matter. He wouldn't fit through it. It was a temporary out.

Somewhere, far away, Aurele heard screams. The picks slipped between her fingers, and Bernard Bear approached so, so slowly, carefully, like he'd thought this moment over again and again and again. He loomed from below, and her back pressed against the wall, pushing further against the painting that hid the trapdoor. The picks clicked in.

Bear dropped his halberd. Aurele blinked, inadvertently releasing the breath she'd been holding. He leaned closer.

"I don't need a weapon to kill you, goldenhair."

She wasn't prepared to be grabbed by her boots and dragged down abruptly to the ground, stifling her shriek. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her towards him. "You thought that was it?" he hissed into her ear. "You thought you could come into my house and take everything from me and we'd be done?"

"What'd you do with the guards?" she gasped, head falling back. As far as she could tell, they were alone.

"The guards? You kiddin'? Most every guard on this side of the castle's a little preoccupied with your precious runes." His meaty hand encircled her neck, and Aurele felt the wind escape her throat. Her runes. Those she could remember.

Bear's eyes were preoccupied with their current infestation of crazy, but as her breath began to dwindle, her head cleared. She gripped her wrist with both of her hands and the last of her strength, choking out the first spell that came to mind. Acid burn. His skin crackled and soured, forcing him to let her go, stumbling back.

Aurele crawled backward, coughing on her hands and knees. "Now... you will... die... alone," she spat, fingers curling against marble. She panted, catching her breath, putting as much distance between them as she could. The burns spread across Bear's arm, and he growled in frustration and pain. "Like I will."

Roaring, he lunged for her again, but she cast another desperate spell, enough to distract him long enough to pull herself up the ledge once more. She went through the shoemaker's elves' grate, pulling back the painting behind her.

Guards barked behind him. "There he is!"

Blinded by rage, Bear spun, swinging his halberd with full force into the helmet of the nearest guard and sending him crumpling instantly. Shouting ensued, the guards pressing in on him. He could think of nothing but to viciously fight back, to expel all the hatred and all the anger that had been building in him for so long.

Wham—for Mama. Clang—for Pa. The crunch of ribs under his boot as he crushed the throat of the last fallen guard. Libby. I'm sorry I couldn't save you.

And after all of that, something told him, far in the back of his mind, did you fix it? Do you feel better now? Did it change anything?

He dropped to his knees, knuckles curling into blood, blinking himself back to full consciousness and realizing what he'd done.

"Bear?" Claude's voice was hesitant. That was new. Bear dragged up his gaze, dizzily.

"All for nothing," he mumbled, tearing into his hair, throat burning. "She got away. She got away."

Someone wiped his face, helped him to his feet. A brown hand grasped his. Penny. "Hey. Look at me." He did. "It's over now. Time to go."

Ramona pulled him along by the other arm, and Bear didn't know how they made it out, but somehow, they did.

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Claude hadn't run like this since the last time they'd been fleeing for their lives.

Guards seemed to be closing in, inching closer by the second, his feet pounding one in front of the other as Penny slashed a window latch and they dove through one at a time. Ramona was the last out—he saw her through a wild glance over his shoulder, barely making it through, her tangled hair snagging on something on the way out. Wisely, she tore off the wig but dragged it with her, leaving only synthetic hairs as evidence behind.

"You're late," Minerva monotoned in Penny's and Ramona's ears.

Penny rolled her eyes. "Where?" was all she huffed out, tossing her enchanted sword up to vanish into the void. Helmet lost somewhere along the way, her hair was beginning to tumble out of its braid, going flying.

"I can see you. Just get through the gardens."

Get through the gardens, like that was plausible with fifteen armed guards on their tails. They made a beeline for an exit path toward a nearby side gate. It was all a blur as they ran until they couldn't anymore, losing several guards in the process. The van was rolling leisurely in the back lot with idling delivery trucks.

"You couldn't get closer?" Penny demanded as they rushed inside, barely time to watch their backs. Minerva sped through the parking lot and out the exit, not waiting for anyone to buckle seatbelts.

"It was this or the visitor's lot, and they were checking everyone!" Lindsay retorted. "We only made it in 'cause I charmed the hell out of security—"

"I did that," said Minerva under her breath.

"We didn't make it," muttered Claude.

Lindsay spun. "What?"

"We didn't make it," Ramona repeated blankly. "We were too late. We couldn't save her."

The van jolted along a speed bump, falling silent as Lindsay took this in. She blinked once, twice.

"Oh." Swallowing, she stared at her hands, fiddling with her dress. "I..." Whatever she wanted to say seemed to get lodged in her throat, choking on guilt or grief or something else entirely. Maybe even relief, in the part of her that was selfish.

"I'm sorry," Bear told her, voice stony, bleeding knuckles slowly unfurling from his fists, and she shook her head, waving him off.

"No, no, it's—"

"It's fine if it's not. Okay, I mean," Ramona said. "Even if you don't know why."

Lindsay's throat was tight, coughing up what had to be the start of tears. "I shouldn't—I shouldn't mourn her. It's wrong to."

"Doesn't matter," Minerva added, quietly. "Feeling's there anyway."

Lindsay's face contorted with some emotion she couldn't identify. She turned to the window, averting her eyes from the others. They quickly widened.

"Is that a squad car?"

Ramona scrambled to the front to get a better look at the rearview mirror. "Dammit! Cops must've been nearby!" She turned to Claude. "Give me some gloves, godmothers, I'm freezing." He shoved her some from a drawer, and after staring for a moment, she realized what was wrong. "Why do you have a baby?"

"What baby?" Claude looked down to see the infant prince miraculously asleep in his jacket. "Shit!"

Minerva whirled, wheel jerking sideways. "You guys kidnapped a baby?"

"It wasn't kidnapping, we were rescuing him! What are we gonna do with a baby?"

Lindsay looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Did you not notice, or something?"

"We were kind of busy running for our lives!"

Penny clawed her hands into her temples. "We have to turn around and go back!"

"Absolutely not!" Minerva snapped. "There's three squad cars right behind us. Are you trying to get carted off to some Fairy prison?" Her hands continued to jerk wildly at the wheel, and she groaned. "Not this again." She let go of the accelerator, hastily trying to straighten out with her good hand.

Ramona's head whipped towards her. "What are you doing? You can't slow down."

"It's my hand, I can't control the car like this, we'll all get killed—"

"Move."

"No," Penny moaned, covering her eyes, "no, no, no, no..."

Lindsay pulled nervously at her lip. "Duckie, there's a reason Minerva has a license and yours got revoked."

Claude pointed to the obvious. "We have a baby on board!"

"I know!" She elbowed Minerva out of the way. "Move, move, move—"

"Let her do it," Bear said dryly. "If any of us get away from the cops, it's her."

Penny tossed up her hands. "Who are you and what have you done with Baby's sanity?"

It was too late. Ramona was already in the seat, gloved hands flexing on the wheel, and she floored it. Everyone grabbed onto anything in reach that they could hold onto, Claude strapping himself in for probably the first time in years and holding the baby close to his chest. Minerva clutched onto the door handle of the passenger seat for dear life. The police sirens were becoming louder and louder, but Ramona zipped through several lanes of traffic, barely checking mirrors at all as she burned through gas by the minute.

Lindsay doubled over, covering her mouth. "I'm gonna be sick."

The speedometer ticked up to eighty, ninety, a hundred and twenty, and Ramona was on the highway and speeding past stop lights in no time flat. She pointed to the GPS. "Get us to the next city over!"

Minerva hastily obeyed, and Ramona dialed up the volume on the radio.

"This assassin guy is really starting to ruin my day."

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Short reddish hair fluttering in the breeze, the flute lifted to her lips. The melody that played was like none she ever had before. Light, and breathless—like freedom.

They came in droves.

Crawling from the windows, emerging from the tunnels in the walls, popping out from holes in the ground and sliding down vines. They came many, answering the call. For once, Piper did not lure unwilling victims to their demise. She freed the captives, just like she'd done in the prison that had started it all.

Treason. The ratcatcher freed the prisoners.

(That wasn't a good enough story. So it changed.)

She lured away children. She'll take yours too.

There was a child in one of the cells. Fourteen years old. In an adult prison. Piper was a child then, too—and in the girl's shaved head and wide eyes she saw herself.

Some of those inmates were innocent. Tax crimes, illegal practice of magic—no magic should be illegal—solicitation, drug possession, speech against the crown, stolen bread. It was almost too easy to hypnotize the guards. Like catching rats.

And Piper wouldn't be a ratcatcher all her life.

Into the flute she blew, and they came, not one by one but by the dozens. The elves cheered once their little feet touched the grass, barraging through the gardens. Guards flooded in from their stations at the palace entrances, but Piper simply smiled against the mouthpiece, perched in a tree, unseen.

She took a breath. Switched the song. Guards started spasming, limbs jerking into uncoordinated dance moves.

Run while you can. You owe them nothing. You're free.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Welp, they finally did it. They kidnapped a baby.

Merry Christmas! There will still be some more Fairy Palace-related stuff next chapter because I couldn't fit it all in 35 and 36 :) no poll today, I just hope everyone has a good holiday!