Will woke slowly, feeling as though his body weighed a thousand tons. He attempted to move, only to find his wrists manacled to the wall behind him. Groaning quietly to himself about how many times he'd woken up in an unfamiliar place, he opened his eyes...

And was terribly startled when he met the dark brown eyes of Guy of Gisborne. He drew back suddenly, the chains clanking behind him. Guy simply raised a disinterested eyebrow. "About time you woke up," was the only comment he made.

Will blinked several times, trying to focus his eyes. Finally, he did, and was satisfied that Guy was not an illusion. "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" Guy retorted. "Sharing a cell with an outlaw. The irony is incredible."

Will looked closer and saw that, like his, Guy's hands were chained to the wall behind his back. That didn't allay Will's fears much, though. "How do I know this isn't some big elaborate trick?"

Guy smirked. "Why bother? The Editor has us under her thumb. Why bother tricking somebody you've locked in the bowels of the prison, probably for the rest of their lives?"

"That's a cheery thought," Will muttered, squirming to ease the pain in his shoulders. He leaned the back of his head against the cold stone wall behind him. "And what did you do to end up in here?"

"Apparently, I outlived my usefulness," Guy said. His face grew grim as he looked at Will. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Will repeated uncertainly. "Sorry for what?"

"I shouldn't have...it's my fault. Alan, I mean." Guy looked terribly guilty. "Perhaps if I'd been on your side, things might have turned out differently."

"I wasn't even there," Will said with a sigh. "He died alone. All I can hope is that his Final Death was easy and painless." He remembered that stirring sense of hope in him at Rapunzel's words. She had seen Ewan Andric—after his Final Death. How could he find out what had happened locked in a prison cell? The frustration outweighed any other emotion at the moment. "But what possessed you to switch to the Editor's side?"

"Nothing 'possessed' me," Guy said, shrugging. "I chose to go over to it."

Will's cheeks flushed with anger. "I thought we could trust you."

It looked as though Will might as well have stabbed Guy with a rusty knife. Pain appeared in Guy's dark eyes, and he drew away from Will as though the outlaw had struck him. He didn't answer Will's accusation, and that further infuriated Will. "You betrayed Rachel. She loves you, and you tossed her to the wolves!"

"I did not!" Guy yelled at Will. Will shrank back, surprised by the sudden outburst. "I did not abandon her. I did what I had to; I had to protect her. Even if it meant losing my honor—losing her—I had to."

"I don't understand," Will said, his anger fading as fast as it had come. "Why? What could have happened to her?"

"Don't you wonder how she's gotten so far with almost no challenge?" Guy asked.

"I already told you, I wasn't with her."

"Right. Sorry. Well, she's had a few challenges, but nothing too difficult for her to overcome. I made a deal with the Editor. In exchange for my service, she wouldn't harm Rachel." Guy stopped, his eyes downcast. "She only held up her part of the bargain until the Cinderella Story, when Alan..."

"And now your deal with the Editor doesn't suit her, so she tossed you in here and continued on with her plan," Will finished, hastily moving off the subject of Alan. He hesitated, then came to a decision. "We've got to get out of here, Guy! If you were the only thing holding the Editor back from killing Rachel—"

"It's too late," Guy interrupted with a sigh. "She's already sent an assassin to kill Rachel."

"What?" Will's breath caught in his throat. "Who? We've got to warn her!"

Guy shrugged. "It's too late," he repeated. "The Editor sent Ewan Andric to murder his sister."

If Will's breath had caught before, he choked on it with those words. "Morpheus...is alive?" he gasped. He had never really been able to think of Ewan as anything but his Story persona, the god of sleep, Morpheus. So Rapunzel's words were true. Morpheus—Ewan—had survived Final Death.

"I don't know," Guy confessed. "It's him, most certainly. He looks the same. But he's completely and totally under the Editor's power. If Alan is alive, he'll be the same."

"So you think anyone who undergoes Final Death becomes the Editor's servant?" Will said.

"It's possible," Guy said. "But I don't want to make a guess until I can actually speak to Ewan personally. The only experience I've had with him was him poking and prodding me into this cell."

"Sounds like you can't get much more personal than that," Will commented. He struggled to marshal his excited thoughts. If Ewan was alive, even under the Editor's control, then there was more than a slight chance that Alan was as well. And having Alan alive, even under the Editor's power, was far better than Alan undergoing permanent Final Death.

"You know what I mean," Guy said ill-naturedly. "But I don't think we'll be getting much of a chance at seeing Ewan down here in the prison."

Will deflated. He chewed the side of his lip, considering the problem Guy had brought up. It was true that Will's quest for the truth about Final Death wouldn't continue for as long as he was trapped in the cell with Guy, but he also couldn't break out with his wrists chained behind him. "Any ideas how to get out of here?"

"Do you think I'd still be here if I had?" Guy responded. "Face it, Scarlet; we're trapped here."

"I refuse to accept that," Will said, partly out of desperation, partly out of sheer stubbornness. "There must be some way out. No prison is unescapable."

"Let me guess. Robin Hood told you that," Guy guessed, irritated.

"Yes, but I haven't disproved it yet," Will answered with a crooked grin. His grin faded as he thought, But what if this is the one that does? Quickly forcing his pessimistic thoughts away, he struggled to kick off his boots to get to the pin in it.

Guy watched him, expressionless. "What are you doing?"

"I've got...a pin to unlock stuff with," Will grunted, his boots squeaking against each other. "But I can't reach it."

Guy squinted at his own boots before removing them with significantly more ease than Will could. He stretched his bare feet over towards Will. "Put your shoes over here. I can take them off."

"With your bare feet?" Will's nose wrinkled. Guy's feet were large and dirty.

"I didn't know you were such a girl about feet," Guy said, raising his eyebrow. "Is your freedom not worth enough for my feet to touch your boots?"

Will scowled. "Fine." He stretched his feet as close to Guy as possible, but escape proved impossible. He heard footsteps coming down the hall towards them and hissed at Guy, "Someone's coming!"

Guy quickly pulled his feet under him, pushing the boots out of sight of the cell door. Will simply frowned at the wooden door as it slammed open, revealing a woman with the palest skin Will had ever seen. "The Editor wants to see you, Will Scarlet," she said in a slow voice.

She bent down and unlocked Will's chains, pulling him to his feet with remarkably cold hands. Her white-blonde hair seemed to chill Will's arm. "Let go," Will protested, trying to pull his arm from her grasp. "You're freezing my arm off!"

"They don't call me the Snow Queen because I will melt you," the woman said with grim humor. She turned to Guy. "Put your shoes on and leave them, or I will freeze them to your feet. There will be no escapes from the Editor's prison."

Guy nodded, then stopped. "How can I put my shoes on without my hands?"

The Snow Queen considered him silently before extending her hand towards him. At first, Will thought she was going to unlock his chains. Then a stream of ice shot out of her hand, wrapping around Guy's ankle and forming a chain of ice. "There. And don't complain to me that your toes are cold," she added. Still holding Will's arm like he was a naughty child, she dragged him out of the cell and into the halls beyond.

The Snow Queen didn't speak as she led him up three flights of stairs and through too many halls to count. At long last they stopped at a door in a well-lit hallway with a plush rug. The Snow Queen turned to Will. "I would wish you luck, but I doubt even luck would help you survive this encounter. Farvel."

"Umm, thanks," Will said before the Snow Queen opened the door and pushed him through. The door swung closed behind him and he was alone in the room with the Editor.