"Robin. Hey! Robin!" Someone aggressively pushed at his shoulder, causing a dull pain in his shoulder to increase rapidly as Robin began to gain consciousness. Bert, did you heal him yet?"

"I'm trying, Margo."

Robin blinked up at Margo and Bert, who were looming over him. The dark trees of the forest, where he and Otto had just been standing, hovered above their heads. However, the light that streamed through was less than before, making Robin wonder how much time had passed between then and now.  The woods had grown eerily quiet, though it could have just been the pounding in Robin's head that caused him not to hear anything. A worried look passed between them as they gazed down at him.

Robin groaned as he rolled onto his side; he was hurting all over.

Margo let out a sigh of relief. "Oh—Robin! Oh, thank the heavens. He's alive." She let out a short laugh. "That was some impressive work, Bert."

"Thanks, I've been trying to figure out Robins's healing magic after he fixed th-'

"What—" Robin started to get up, but his surroundings began shifting around him, and his head pounded.

"Wait, Robin, don't sit up too quickly. You lost a lot of blood," Margo said, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Where is your brother?"

"What?" Robin asked wearily. "Otto was just with me."

"Okay..." Margo glanced at Bert. "But what happened before the Nanahounds attacked?"

"The... Nanahounds?"

"Yes, we found you unconscious and being attacked by Nanahounds," Margo explained, her voice tight with urgency. "Which is very strange, Nanahounds don't usually travel in groups like that. We think they might have been controlled or lured here by something... we managed to scare them off, but you still got hurt pretty bad."

"H-How did you know where I was?"

"Well, we might have planted some spider spies in Holly's house in case of any sightings of the heart thief. We saw Otto take you through the portal.... But he killed the fly on your shoulder we used to follow you." She said with an irritated sigh. "Luckily, there are plenty of bugs in this area, so we could find where you were, but it's far from Sunshine Aches, so it took us a while  to find your location. Sorry about that." Margo said with pity in her eyes as she looked at Robins bloodied clothes.

Robin felt her gaze reach his torn shirt. Immediately Robin reached for where his necklace had been around his neck, but it was gone. Only blood stained his hands.

"I don't know where Otto is, but he has my necklace."

Margo froze. A worried look crossed her face.

"That's...where it is?"

"Yes."

"You gave it to him?" she asked sternly.

Robin paused, suddenly embarrassed.

"I—y-yes."

Margo sighed, shaking her head. She stood up and yelled into the trees. Scaring some birds to flee i to the sky, before she sat down next to him.

"I want to be mad," she said after a moment of thinking. "but with how little I trust your brother, and seeing the state of you now...that might have been the smartest move. Otto would have taken it whether you gave it to him or not. Those Nanahounds were the plan."

"What plan—"

"We need to find Holly, fast," Margo said to Bert, standing and dusting off her suede skirt.

"W-Why?" Robin asked, his head still pounding as he tried to make sense of the situation. In a half-minded daze, he started healing himself in all the places Bert hadn't yet gotten healed, or couldn't fully heal. The pain of his injuries felt numb against his touch, as a growing panic started to settle in his stomach. "Wait, What's going on?"

Margo pulled out a broken wristband of red stones. As she took it from her pocket, the large metallic clasp in the center broke off, crumbling into her hands. Her frown deepened, and she cast a glance at Bert. "I'm not sure."

"What's that?"

Margo scoffed, looking at Robin, confused.

"What do you mean, 'what's that?' It's part of Holly's heart stone. You should recognize it. She gave you the largest piece of it. And it just broke, despite not being in her presence. Which... is very bad."

"Her—" Robin laid back down. . He felt so dumb. Of course, the metal was the stone and not the green jewel. That's what the powder was in the drawer, that's what all her pieces had in common, not the stone, the metal.

And, oh, right. Robin willingly handed a big portion of that metal to his brother.

"I—" Robin swallowed. "I thought the green jewels were her heartstone," he said, his face reddening as humiliation rose in his chest.

Robin slowly pulled out the green stones from his necklace from his pocket.

Bert snorted, putting his head in his hands. "Well, it's nice to know you tried at least..."

"Listen, it's okay." Margo said, her face both sympathetic and disappointed. "The only way to take a heart is if it's given freely, or if the person dies. Nobody really kills anyone over another sorcerer's heart since a sorcerer's heart on its own doesn't give any particular powers to the owner... so it's a bit taboo. But if your brother is working with who I think he is, he would likely have taken that chance. It's good you gave it to him so he didn't have to."

"My brother is working with the heart thief?"

Bert looked up at Margo with a concerned expression.

"Yes. That's what we think. That's what we were thinking... and why we thought you were in on it, too. But you weren't, which threw us off. That must be the reason you weren't in on it in the first place. Can't find a motive in an innocent man," Margo said, mumbling to herself. "But why go through all this for just a piece? Unless... a piece is all he needs to use his power?"

"Hank wouldn't know unless he tried. Maybe a good-sized piece is more than enough," Bert murmured.

Margo let out a deep sigh.

Robin sat numb. Only the slight poke of pine needles and the soft pinch of betrayal were all he could feel. He couldn't wrap his head around what had just happened.

"Otto... would have killed me?"

"Well... I mean, we can't know that for certain... but he definitely left you to die," Bert replied awkwardly.

Robin swallowed. Suddenly, everything felt like his fault.

"Listen, Robin, where did Holly go when she left the house today? The town, right? Where would she have headed?"

"I don't know; she just said she would be in town. Cookie should be with her."

Margo nodded, quickly turning to open a portal and stepping through it.

"It's going to be okay," Bert said, trying to be reassuring, but his voice sounded uncertain. "Margo has handled this before; we can handle this again."

"I had no idea my brother would do something like this. I haven't seen him in such a long time... I—I can't help but feel like I caused all this." Robin's voice broke, his chest tightening with disbelief and guilt. Holly had been right. Otto had almost to kill him earlier, and he had tried to kill him again just now. He swallowed the growing knot in his throat, trying to hold back the panic over his brother's betrayal.

"No," Bert said with a laugh, shaking his head. "Not at all. The man, Hank Furrow, who we think your brother is working with, gets what he wants, regardless of who he has to walk over to get it. If anything, your brother dragged you into this. Which is something I just can't understand... Why would he sacrifice his own brother? I mean, if I had siblings, I can't imagine—"

Suddenly, Margo stepped back into the clearing with a cold and wet Cookie.

"I couldn't find Holly," she said, shaking her head. "Someone said they saw her disappear into thin air in front of their shop, but that was a while ago."

"Shit," Bert mumbled with a sigh.

"Bert, search through the eyes of animals nearby to see if any of them have seen her. Hurry—any memory, anything current, any sign of her at all."

Bert nodded in agreement, humming and closing his eyes. He slipped both hands under his glasses, his fingers drumming on his eyelids in an erratic pattern. He occasionally peeked through them, taking a moment to stare before him, before tightly closing his eyes again.

Robin watched in worried curiosity. He was always mesmerized by how sorcerers used their magic.

Margo mumbled to herself as she paced back and forth.

"I found something—a memory from a fly in a barn not far from here."

He pulled out what appeared to be broken eyeglasses, one with a mirror and one with a standard piece of glass, switching out his regular glasses for the broken pair.

"Shit, we need a mirror," Bert said, standing. "Margo, a mirror, if you please."

Margo snapped her fingers, and a human-sized mirror appeared before them. Bert stood in front of it, with Margo and Robin coming up behind him as a scene slowly dissolved from their reflection.