After being dragged out of Eline's throne room, the guards started pulling the prisoners off towards the dungeons. As they were being taken along, Rachel started to feel a funny tingling sensation at the base of her skull. At first, she wondered what it was, before understanding dawned on her.

Only one merman was holding her arms behind her back. The others seemed more concerned about keeping the two men in place, since Alan was struggling the whole way along. She focused on Merlin, forming a connection between them and putting him into something of a stupor with her magic. "Merlin. Merlin, can you hear me?" she asked in his mind.

"Rachel?" He sounded a little befuddled as he looked around, as if trying to determine who was talking to him. "How are you doing this? I thought you didn't have magic anymore."

"It's back, a little bit. Enough, I think, to put one or two of the guards to sleep. But I don't have enough to put them all to sleep ... do you have your magic back yet, Merlin?" Rachel was worried that the guards would notice how befuddled the sorcerer looked and question it. But they just seemed intent on bringing them to the dungeons and getting them out of their hair, so that was a good thing for the prisoners.

Merlin hesitated. "My magic isn't back yet. But you need to get out of here. You're the one The Editor will want, not the rest of us. As long as you escape, you can come back and save us later. You need to get out."

Rachel flinched at his words. "I can't leave you ... they would kill you!"

"Not until they capture you. You have to go, Rachel. Don't be a fool!"

The idea of abandoning them was appalling to Rachel, but she couldn't see a way out of her predicament other than his suggestion. Back during Carson's attack on The Story, she'd been faced with the same choice of abandoning Will to his captors or escaping with her life, and her brother had been forced to drag her, kicking and screaming, through a Story door. She wished she could say this choice was easier, but it still hurt to even think about leaving them behind. Even Guinevere.

But Merlin was right. If she stayed, she would put them in even more danger. Even if she wasn't able to rescue them, The Editor would only use them as hostages. They wouldn't be harmed until Rachel was under The Editor's power. Which meant that was what she needed to avoid at all costs.

Having made a reluctant decision, Rachel put it into action without further hesitation. She pushed her magic into the man holding her, watching as he floated backwards, fast asleep. Then she lacked the time to watch him anymore, as she flicked her tail and shot off, back the way they'd come. Behind her, she heard Alan give a triumphant whoop. "You show these fishy folks, Lady Andric!" he yelled after her.

She didn't have the luxury of breath to answer him as she zipped through the water like an arrow fired from a bow. The guards behind her were yelling as loud as they could, and within seconds, a loud clanging echoed through the castle. Rachel found a window, and putting her hand through it, realized there was no pane in it. She pushed herself through and kept swimming.

Her breaths came in ragged gasps. Blood rushing to her ears made it impossible for her to tell if it was a guard catching up to her or just her own heavy breathing. Even though the bells were clanging in the castle, once she entered the city, nobody made any attempt to stop her. Everyone just watched her swim by without a fight.

Still, she knew she had to get out of the city. It didn't take her long, and she breathed hard as she finally allowed herself to slow down, letting her fins rest near a garden of different sea flowers. There was a cave nearby, and she figured she could rest in there without getting found by the guards.

"What am I going to do next?" she whispered to herself, fingering one of the beautiful sea flowers. Her eyes went wide as the bud just floated off and grasping tendrils of roots came out, wrapping around her wrist. She cursed, jerking at her hand, but more of the previously-beautiful flowers were now attacking her, wrapping around her like that dratted seaweed from before. It was like they were ... alive.

Struggle though she did, Rachel couldn't get herself free. One of the tendrils wrapped around her neck, and she gasped as it tightened, cutting off her breath. This couldn't be how she died. It would be just cruel to die out here, rather than dying with her friends, at The Editor's hands ... she would be dying alone.

The last thing she heard before losing consciousness was a voice right by her ear. "A fine specimen, don't you think, my pets?"

Then she blacked out.

. . . . . . . . . .

Rachel woke up. That in and of itself was a bit of a shock, since the last thing she remembered in her foggy brain was getting choked to death by seaweed. Her second thought immediately following the first was the echoing of that creepy voice right next to her ear, referring to her as a specimen. In her opinion, being a specimen was never a good thing.

"She is awake, mistress." The voice was not quite in her ear like the first voice, and this one was significantly deeper. It seemed to bounce around her head and make it ache even more.

Slowly, Rachel raised her head, groaning softly. Her neck was bruised and her head pounded like someone was drumming out a repetitive beat in her brain. The first thing she saw was the merman standing beside her, his muscly arms crossed and tattooed with intricate patterns. He glared down at her with his pale skin, his bald head shining from the light above. It must have been morning, she assumed, since the ocean was significantly brighter now than it had been when she had lost consciousness.

Once her burly guard had moved out of her way, Rachel saw the woman he was addressing, and the first thing she noticed was the hair. A dull sea-green color, it floated in the water around the woman like the dratted seaweed braided into the locks were giving it life. The hair fell all the way down to the tip of her black tail. Unlike other mermaids, her tail lacked the shimmering scales that made them beautiful; it seemed to swallow the light around it.

Once Rachel had moved past the overall oddness of her general appearance, she focused on the woman's eyes. They were glowing a bright green in the shadows of the cave Rachel found herself in, feeling like that gaze was piercing into her very soul. She forced herself to meet the mermaid's gaze without flinching away. "It seems I was correct about you being an interesting specimen," the woman said, her voice still as silky smooth as the whisper she'd hissed into Rachel's ear. "I would know those eyes anywhere. Andric eyes. And if I remember correctly, you would be the last Andric, wouldn't you be?" A piece of seaweed floated forward and stroked Rachel's cheek, and she winced at the contact.

Rachel tried to draw back from the feeling tendril, before she realized she was tied up securely by, of course, more seaweed. She was getting genuinely tired of the stupid things. "Who are you? What could you possibly want from me?" she groaned. Hopefully not another person who had tied her up to complain about the changes she had made to The Story.

The woman smiled, and she had pointed fangs to grin at her. "You may call me The Sea Witch. Or, if you would prefer a more personal name, you may call me Lovise. Why have you come to our ocean, Andric?"

Rachel squirmed around more, trying to find a way out of her bindings, and realized there was a familiar weight missing from her finger. Her ring. The ring Guy had proposed to her with. The witch had stolen it from her. "Why have you taken my ring?" she demanded, struggling to sit upright. "What do you want from me?"

Lovise bent closer to Rachel, a piece of seaweed absently running through Rachel's hair. "That is the question, isn't it, barn?" Without warning, she flipped backwards, her tail nearly slapping her prisoner in the face with her fins. "But an even better question would be ... what do you want from me? Everyone who comes to my cave, no matter the reason, must leave here with a deal, otherwise, I'm afraid ... it will not end well for you."

"And ... what would happen to me ... if I did try to leave without making a deal?" Rachel asked nervously. "Because I can't possibly think of a reason what you could do for me."

Lovise indicated a trunk sitting in the corner of the cave. It was the only furnishing in the gloomy area, and Rachel eyed it worriedly. "Do you see that?" she asked, as if Rachel could see anything else but that. She was picturing all these terrible things concealed within and didn't even bother to answer Lovise. "These, my precious tang, are where I put those who don't make a deal with me ... or those who break deals with me."

Rachel winced, glancing from the woman to the trunk before letting go a long breath. "What do you mean, break deals? Didn't Eline break her deal with you?"

Lovise chuckled. "Break it? My dear, she hasn't made it quite yet. You are a bit early in her Story. Haven't you wondered yet why she is so bitter? She has not yet had the chance to meet her beloved. In fact ... let me share a little secret with you." The Sea Witch bent closer. "Tonight is the night."

"The night? What night?" Rachel was beginning to feel a little bit lost through this whole conversation.

"The night that her elskede falls into the water," Lovise said. "She rescues him and falls hopelessly in love with him."

Understanding suddenly dawned on Rachel. Eline's bitterness and her anxiety stemmed from the fact that tonight, she would face a terrible choice. If she rescued her prince, then she would fall in love with him and she would follow her Story right to the bitter end. But if she didn't rescue him, then he would drown and she would have to live with the guilt. Knowing what was going to happen to him didn't make her Story any easier. If anything, it made it harder. How could she choose between herself and her prince?

Forcing herself to remain calm, Rachel met Lovise's eyes. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Nothing. I simply thought that a Guardian like you would find it to be ... interesting," Lovise said with a grin. "I'm waiting for you to make that deal, child." The Sea Witch held up her hand, and in her palm sat the golden ring Guy had given to Rachel when she'd accepted his proposal. "I believe this belongs to you?"

Rachel strained against the bindings. "That is not yours ... how can you expect me to make a deal for something that you stole off of me when I was unconscious?"

"It is mine now. You trespassed on my property, it is only fair that I take something for myself," Lovise said. "Consider this payment. You should be grateful; this is better than the alternative." She pointed at the trunk again.

Rachel gritted her teeth. "You're toying with me."

"You want the ring back," Lovise retorted. "Then you need to make a deal with me. Tell me the name of the man who gave you this ring, and I will return it to its rightful place."

"How about instead, I trade you the name of my fiancé for me getting out of here?" Rachel answered. She was trying to regain the upper hand in the conversation, even though she felt like she had never really had it in the first place.

Lovise chuckled as if Rachel was nothing more than an amusing puppy. "Ingen," she said with a shake of her head. "But a good try, Andric. Later, we shall try to arrange a deal for your freedom. But for now, we start small, hm? Give me the name, I give you the ring. I am a woman of my word."

Rachel stared at the ring. In her world, where nothing seemed certain anymore, that ring meant more to her than anything else. It was Guy's testament of his love for her, but when she couldn't talk to him, couldn't find out what exactly it was that she had done wrong, it was all that she had from him. No more fond words, no more gentle kisses, no more comforting embraces when her grief threatened to overcome her. All she had was that simple engagement ring, and this woman was going to take it away from her.

Rachel closed her eyes, feeling defeated. "His name is Guy of Gisborne. My fiancé. His name is Guy of Gisborne, from Robin Hood's Story."

Lovise grinned and slipped the ring back onto Rachel's finger without removing the seaweed from around her wrists. "Guy of Gisborne, you say?" she said. Rachel didn't like her tone. "How very, very interesting."

It was definitely time for Rachel to take control of the conversation. She leaned back a little and raised her eyebrows, trying to give just a little bit of an indication that she was interested in what she was saying.

The tactic worked. The Sea Witch floated closer and rested her chin on her knuckles. "This Guy, your dearly beloved, he visited me two days ago," she said calmly and quietly, her lips twitching up in a smile.

"That's ridiculous," Rachel said, rolling her eyes to get the woman to give her more information. "Guy isn't a Guardian. He's not magical either, so there's no way that he can breathe underwater. You're lying to me."

"I am not a liar," Lovise said, looking insulted. "However he managed it, he was breathing when he wandered into my territory. I captured him and brought him here, just like I brought you here. He bargained for his freedom. The boy—you must confess, the two of you are little more than children, dear—he gave up another for his freedom. So what are you willing to give up?"

"Wait ..." Rachel's heart skipped a beat. "He gave someone up for himself? How is that even possible, you said he came alone!"

"It's funny how my deals work. They are like the deals made on the River Styx," Lovise said, twisting one of Rachel's locks of hair. "They can bring anyone from anywhere in The Story to my side. He gave up another for his freedom. Someone he knew and trusted. That was the deal. It would be too easy to put an enemy into my hands otherwise, and what sort of a deal would that be?"

"Tell me who he gave you instead. Or do I have to make a deal for that information too?" Rachel said, her voice heavy with sarcasm to hide her distress. He couldn't have given someone up to save himself. It wasn't possible. It shouldn't have been possible ... but she couldn't deny that Guy's actions so far hadn't been what she had known him for. They seemed more in line with what he used to do—the same villain who had killed her parents.

The woman grinned at her. "You want proof, don't you? Proof that your beloved is not the man you thought he was? It would be so hard to see that somebody that you loved wasn't the person you thought there were." She swam over to the trunk and opened it. Rachel watched nervously as Lovise rifled through the contents of the container. What sort of shape would the person Guy had traded for his own life be in?

After a few minutes, Lovise finally harrumphed in triumph. "Got it. Goodness, I really must dispose of some of these older pieces ... they are very outdated." When she turned back to face Rachel, she was holding a small bottle in her hands, the top capped with a cork. She held out the bottle to her. "Here. See who your beloved traded for his life."

Rachel felt the seaweed retreat and she reached out and took the bottle from her. Still staring at The Sea Witch, she pulled the container closer and looked down into it, holding it up to the light. As she studied it, her eyes went wide. A tiny person within the glass wore dark scarlet, raven hair flowing down her back. She appeared to be sleeping, but that wasn't what caused the biggest shock in Rachel. She knew the girl inside.

It was Red Riding Hood.