Will Scarlet groaned quietly to himself. He felt supremely uncomfortable and his side ached. He couldn't decide why the bed that had felt so comfortable was now so hard and...

Dirty?

Will opened his eyes and sat up, rubbing the back of his head absently. Wherever he was, it certainly wasn't Nottingham or Sherwood Forest. He was surrounded by hills and—was that a tower? That certainly warranted investigation. At the very least it would give him a good view of the surrounding landscape and hopefully Nottingham. He pulled himself to his feet, dully remembering the reopened wound on his side. A glance at it showed that the wound had closed. The only memory of it was the large amount of blood on his bandages.

Well, that was certainly odd. For someone who was supposed to be immune to magic, somebody had healed that wound extremely quickly. It ached a bit, but that was all. It was abnormal, but Will forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. All that mattered was that the wound was healed. At the moment, it didn't matter how; it suited his purposes to have the wound healed.

A task set firmly in mind, Will started towards the tower. He felt at his hip, hoping his sword would be there, but unfortunately it wasn't. That was not good. Whoever had sent him to that place had obviously wanted Will to be unarmed. Wonderful. If somebody wants me unarmed, that can't mean anything good is going to happen here. For a brief moment he considered abandoning his journey to the tower.

But a glance around revealed no other evident places to go, and whoever had taken him from Nottingham obviously hadn't wanted him dead immediately, or he would already be dead. Of course, they didn't want him to survive enough to give him his sword. That wasn't promising, but he intended to continue on.

It didn't take Will long to reach the tower. The problem came when he stood at the foot of the tower. There was no door, and the only window was at the very top—very high up. Will stared at the tower. There were no evident footholds, aside from some ivy growing on the side. He didn't feel confident about climbing on the unstable-looking ivy.

He took a different approach. "HELLO?" he yelled at the top of his lungs. After all, if this was a trap, they would be expecting him anyways.

For a moment, there was silence. Then he heard a girl's voice answer him. "Hello!" she called. "Who are you?"

"My name is William Scarlet!" Will shouted. "I'm lost!"

"I can't hear you!" the girl replied. "Hold on a moment. Stand back!" Will stepped away from the tower. A moment later, a golden rope was tossed out of the window and stopped inches from the ground. "Climb up!" the girl told him.

Will grabbed the rope, frowning at its strange texture. It didn't feel like rope. The girl started pulling him up with remarkable strength, and he started climbing to assist her. In extremely short order Will was at the top of the tower.

The girl smiled at him. Only around Will's age, her green eyes sparkled cheerfully. "Hello!" she said in her high-pitched voice. She twisted an escaped golden curl around her finger. "Are you a prince?"

"Erm...no," Will admitted. "Try an outlaw. Former outlaw."

"Ooh!" the girl said excitedly. "An outlaw? I've never meant an outlaw in any of my Stories before! Only a boring old prince, who, by the way, is incredibly late. Your name is William?"

"I prefer Will," he corrected her, a little distracted by her golden braid. Despite her height—she was nearly as tall as Will—her hair reached the floor...and kept going. Will traced the hair with his eyes, finally ending up at the window, where it had been thrown out to use as a rope for him. The hair was about ten times as tall as the girl. "Is this...is this all your hair?"

The girl frowned at her braid. "Yes," she said. "Darn—you mussed my braid. Now I have to redo the whole thing." She touched her hair where the braid started, and Will watched in astonishment as the entire braid unraveled by itself, leaving her with a mass of blonde curls extending all the way to the window.

Will's mouth must have hung open, because the girl laughed. "Wait 'till you see this!" she said, and touched her hair again. Her entire head of hair braided itself, once more in mere seconds. The whole thing was astonishing.

"Who are you?" Will exclaimed.

"My name is Rapunzel," the girl answered. "At least, that's my Story name. I don't remember my true name."

"Your...true name?" Will asked, frowning.

Rapunzel rolled her beautiful green eyes at him. "Yes! I was a Guardian, you know."

That explained the books lining the walls of the one-room tower. Will had noticed all former Guardians kept hundreds of books. "Did you choose to be in The Story?" he inquired.

"Uh, no," Rapunzel answered, shaking her head. Her hair trembled from the movement. "I was written in after...a mistake. One that caused everyone in this Story to be..." She stopped.

"To be?" Will pressed her gently. He could see it was hard for her to discuss, but he was too curious to ignore it.

"Written out." Rapunzel's voice, so cheerful before, was hard and quiet. "I caused everyone—the original Rapunzel, her prince, Gothel, Rapunzel's parents...all of them to be written out and undergo Final Death."

Although he wanted to know more, he sensed pushing her any further probably wouldn't be good. Instead, he said, "So being written out is Final Death?"

"How should I know?" Rapunzel answered, shrugging. "I think it is. After all, have you ever seen anyone again after they were written out?"

"No," Will admitted. That gave him a little guilt; he'd written the intruder, Carson, out of The Story, after all. He'd made the man undergo Final Death. Trying to ignore the pulls from his conscience, he wondered aloud, "What exactly is Final Death, Rapunzel?"

"No one knows," Rapunzel replied. "It could be nothingness, it could be the same as an ordinary person dying; maybe we get to go to Heaven, maybe we don't. I don't even know if we have souls. Of course, it could also be something else."

Will cocked his head curiously. "I don't know what you mean."

"As a Guardian, I was morbidly interested in Final Death," Rapunzel explained. She grimaced. "Part of the reason I was written in, really. So I spent a lot of my time researching it. What I found out was that the Guardians have no power over who lives and who dies in The Story. We were there to protect The Story and keep it on point. We had nothing to do with the writing of The Story or any of that. So, my curiosity got the better of me and I continued searching for answers. There's only one person who knows what happens to a person after Final Death. The Editor."

Will struggled with the thoughts running through his mind. He'd been fascinated by the concept of Final Death after Ewan, Rachel's brother, had willingly made a deal to undergo Final Death in order to save Rachel's life. He felt a strong desire to find the Editor and learn the truth about Final Death.

Rapunzel seemed to think there was a chance Final Death was something else. Perhaps there was a chance Final Death wasn't dying. Perhaps there was a possibility that Ewan Andric could still be alive. And if he was, Will wanted to find him for Rachel. Her face when Ewan died had haunted Will in the months following the end of their fight with Carson. If there was even the tiniest chance Ewan was alive, Will would find him for Rachel.

He was about to say just that to Rapunzel when a reedy voice called, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair!"

Rapunzel cursed. "Now?" she complained. She looked around the room. "Hide under the bed!"

Will went down on his hands and knees near the bed, but shook his head. "There are too many books!" he said, his voice rising an octave from the tension.

Rapunzel motioned to a curtain on the wall near the window. "Hide behind that, then," she ordered. "And don't move."

Will concealed himself behind the lilac curtain, terribly aware that a single breeze from the open window would reveal him. Rapunzel went to the window and tossed out her braid. Her freckles stood out on her pale face. "There's someone with her," she whispered.

Will didn't answer. His throat felt dry, and he worried about the absence of his sword. He struggled to control his rapid breathing, fearing it would give him away. Rapunzel grunted a little as the weight on her hair increased.

After a few minutes, an old hag and a tall man entered the tower. Will, looking through the curtain, couldn't make out any of the details of either of the newest entrants. He pressed his back against the wall.

"Hello, Mother Gothel," Rapunzel said, somehow keeping her voice neutral. "Who's this handsome devil you've brought?"

Gothel laughed, screechy and annoying. "Guy of Gisborne, of course."

Will's breath caught in his throat, nearly giving him away. What was Gisborne doing here? Last Will had known, Guy had disappeared from Nottingham. He should have been preparing for his wedding to Rachel. So why was he standing in the tower, standing right beside the curtain Will was hiding in?

Gothel turned to Guy. "Search the tower. There's an intruder in this Story, and I have a sneaking suspicion it's your jilted bride."

Jilted?

There weren't many places to look in the tower. A quick survey would reveal that there were only two places to hide; the bed, and the curtains. Guy looked under the bed in a matter of seconds, then turned his attention to the curtains. Will wished he could disappear.

Rapunzel was talking nonstop to Gothel, and the old woman's attention was completely on the girl. Guy swept back the curtain, revealing Will.

For a moment, Will and Guy faced each other. Gothel's back was to them. Guy's eyes were locked on Will's, and they stared at one another. He's going to give me away.