Cryo woke up in his bed at the Starlight Hall, transformed and with a splitting headache.

The Serpent has Banshee.

The thought jolted him upright, hard enough to set the world spinning around him. He caught a glimpse of daylight through the curtained window as he swayed, gripping the sides of his head with icy claws. It'd been too long, far too long since DragonFae had cast him into sleep. He needed to move, to find his partner, but his body was trembling with exhaustion. He could barely summon the energy to lift his wings off the mattress.

Banshee and Olivia.

Cryo frowned, trying to think through the headache. No--that wasn't right. The Serpent had Banshee--he'd found Grief in the wall--but Olivia was safe. He'd seen her the previous night, and barely an hour or so after, Golem had gone to retrieve her. She'd be safe on golden starstone by now--so why did this wriggling doubt keep gnawing at him?

This can't be my body. Not really. Which means I still haven't woken up.

Cryo looked up, surprised to hear Olivia's voice. It was so clear that he thought she sat next to him, but the room was empty. He shook his head. Perhaps he'd imagined it, the remnant of some nightmare that--

I don't know if I'm me, or if you're you. How am I supposed to trust that?

This time, Cryo knew he wasn't imagining it. Her voice was there, playing through his head. He'd have known it anywhere, followed it anywhere, into any dream or reality if she asked him to. Not only that, but these words felt strangely familiar, as if he'd heard them before.

How am I supposed to trust anything?

Cryo pushed himself off the bed, digging his claws into the ground to keep himself upright. His wings were near dead weight on his back, dragging him backwards. He fought them, tucking them close to his body and reached for his frost to freeze them to his back when a sharp pain lanced through his skull.

Anything you say is something he could say.

Cryo staggered into the wall as his vision flashed white and a dead cold gripped his soul, subsiding a few seconds later with the wave of pain. The voice of Olivia's ghost continued to echo over it, loud and insistent.

You could tell me that you're scared of storms or you could tell me a million others things.

He gave himself a moment to recover before reaching for his frost once more--and receiving a second spike of agony. He gripped his head in his claws, riding the pain until it blessedly left once more.

But it doesn't matter, because he could show me anything.

He'd used too much power. This was the consequence.

I have no control.

"I'm sorry, Sae." Cryo braced himself on the wall as he stumbled out into the hallway. "I'd say I don't know what came over me, but I know exactly what came over me."

I could be dead and he's trapped my mind in some kind of hell.

Cryo emerged into the common room, utterly focused on the sound of Olivia's voice. It was more than just a memory. It felt as though he were eavesdropping a conversation he'd heard before. He didn't exactly know what she'd say before she said it, but when she did, each word felt right, like she was reminding him of something important that he'd forgotten.

He didn't notice Nereid in one of the chairs until she was standing up, placing a Liaiser on the book-covered table in front of her and darting towards him.

Nereid took his arm, her fins flared to attention as she helped hold him steady.

"Fae said you wouldn't be well when you woke, but I didn't expect you to be this bad," Nereid murmured, half carrying, half dragging Cryo until he sat down on the armchair of the lounge.

If you are real and you manage to remember this, the Serpent has me, and he has Banshee.

Cryo closed his eyes against the room as it spun. "What happened?"

Nereid's fins went flat. "You've been, um, asleep for a day and a bit. DragonFae's scrying with Grief didn't work. Olivia has been refusing to speak with anyone from the temple, something about the stress and her seizures--"

If Cryo doesn't already know, tell him--

Olivia's voice silenced abruptly, and in its place, Cryo felt his own shock rise up. It was a tangible thing with a tang of panic that had every instinct buried in his ice thawing in an instant. Hole. Silver. Impaled. Barrier. Tendril. He sorted through the words in his mind until he found ones that felt right, but couldn't figure out how to piece them together.

Then he heard his own voice--Jason's voice--in the same mental space that Olivia's had been.

This isn't real. You can heal whatever the barrier just did to you.

It was calm, desperate, and filled with a kind of inevitability, because he could see the look on her face. A blackout was coming, and neither of them could stop it. He was the only thing holding her up. He knew he was about to lose her.

Her hands. Olivia's hands on the sides of his face. Warm and real, a flicker of a dream in an expanse of nightmares.

"Cryo?"

Cryo's gaze snapped back to reality, where Nereid was watching him, her brow furrowed with concern and her fins nervously flaring at the sides of her head.

"I didn't imagine it," he said. "It wasn't a dream. The Serpent has Olivia."

"Didn't imagine what?" said Nereid carefully. "How do you know that?"

"I've been hearing her voice since I woke up," said Cryo as the realisation stabbed him through the gut. "Olivia's voice. She told me. Wherever she is, she pulled me in with her for a while. I don't think she knows where she is, or what's going on. She was confused, terrified. I have no idea how long she's been--"

"She's fine, Cryo," said Nereid, grabbing the Liaiser off the table behind her and flicking to a variety of cameras. "When she refused to come, Harpy--um, Gwen--made a deal with her parents that given the threat, they could put up cameras around the place. DragonFae spelled them so the feed couldn't be hacked into, and just to be sure, Gwen is still in the building and Golem is nearby to intervene if need be. See?"

Nereid pulled up the camera feed that had Olivia on it, showing her asleep on her bed.

Cryo grit his teeth. "The Serpent has figured out how to replace Banshee with an imposter, it's possible that he's done the same with Olivia, too." He took a breath to force himself to focus. "We need DragonFae to scry for the real Olivia. Do you know where she is?"

"Her body is here, but her mind is elsewhere," said Nereid. "We've all been given Liaisers linked to each other though, so I can let her know. What about Golem?"

"Inform him of my suspicion, but tell him not to act," said Cryo. "If I'm correct, the imposter could prove useful to us. If I'm not, I'd rather avoid accusing the real Olivia of working for the Other a second time.

"...A second time?"

Cryo attempted to retain his pride. "I made an error in judgement in the past. It's something Olivia has not forgotten, I'm sure."

Nereid nodded and hit send on the message she'd typed on her Liaiser. "Anything else?"

There was so much 'else' that Cryo could barely figure out where to start. The urge to storm the City until he found Banshee and Olivia was creeping through his body, but the echo of pain from earlier still sat squarely in his mind.

He needed more information. He needed a plan.

Cryo looked to Nereid, who was still waiting, Liaiser in hand for his next words. "Nereid, I have a question for you: has your Ascended always been a crystal?"

"Yes."

"And when you tap your tattoo," continued Cryo. "Can Pegasus feel it?"

"Sometimes," said Nereid. "Banshee suggested it at one point, so we tried. Most of the time it didn't work, I had to be concentrating on it really, really hard on him for either of us to feel anything, and even then it didn't always work."

It gave Cryo another possible reason as to why the bond was blocked. Assuming Banshee's Ascended hadn't done it intentionally, the Serpent had broken it. He didn't know what that meant for her powers, but there was something that could give him a hint.

"Is Grief still with us?" asked Cryo.

Nereid turned around and shuffled a few of the books on the table before lifting one up to reveal Grief sitting there underneath.

"If her daggers are still active, then Banshee hasn't dimmed since she threw it at the wall," said Cryo, taking the dagger as Nereid held it out to him. "She isn't Dark yet, which means she isn't dead. We can still save her."

Nereid's expression didn't change, but her fins gave her away as they drooped.

"What is it?" asked Cryo.

Nereid bit her lip. "Banshee's imposter is still on the loose. It's been sighted at a few places around the City, in places where she shouldn't be. The Government is still after her, trying to arrest her for what she did to the Shadowspeaker. It's where DragonFae is."

That left another question: Why had the Serpent attacked Aurelia at all? Was it simply trying to ruin Banshee's reputation with a high-profile target that held a grudge, or was there something more to the Serpent's choice of victim? The reason for kidnapping Olivia was obvious. Kidnapping Banshee, harming Aurelia, the idea of an imposter--Cryo could find reasons for them, but none that seemed solid enough. He was still missing the overall focus of the puzzle.

"Has the City been told of Banshee's imposter?" asked Cryo.

"DragonFae released a statement about it." Nereid glanced at the Liaiser in her hands as it buzzed. "But it doesn't seem to matter much. Half the City, including the government, wants proof. They want to see the real Banshee next to the imposter."

"Which we can't do," said Cryo. "Not without telling the City that the Serpent took the real Banshee."

"Fae doesn't want to cause panic yet," said Nereid. "Given what happened during the festival period, the majority of the City are still worried. But give it a few more days, and it won't matter what we do. Whatever this imposter does will be linked to the real Banshee forever, even if she does come back."

Cryo stood on his own claws, finding the strength to lift his wings a little higher than they'd been.

"Banshee will come back," he said, leaving no room for doubt in his words. "I'll make sure of that, regardless of what I have to do to find her and Olivia."

Bracing himself, Cryo attempted to spread his wings for flight. As the frost began to form between the icy crystals of his wings, the earlier stab of pain shot through his gut. He pushed it for a second, but the pain only increased and he was forced to release his tentative grip on his power.

"This, however, is a problem," Cryo said through a grunt of pain. "I can't wait for the auroras to recharge, but I can't access my powers to reach a skyshrine's apex chamber."

"Thought you might have that problem," said Nereid. "DragonFae said you could just wait for the auroras, but Pegasus and I had other ideas. We've been, well, um, practicing something."

Right on cue, Cryo heard the sound of hooves on starstone from the floor below.

Nereid grinned. "Aaand it sounds like your feathered taxi service is here."

*+*+*+*

She was bruised and she was broken.

They wanted something. She didn't know what. They wouldn't tell her, only taunt her, goad her, push her further and further towards an edge that some part of her still raged and fought against.

Everything was lost under a haze of constant pain that blurred the lines. Pain meant she existed. It meant that she'd lost control. She hadn't. Not really. She could still move. Still try to run. They didn't tie her up enough for that. They didn't need to. No matter how she tried to run, tried to lose herself in the endless maze of dark corridors, they always found her again, always dragged her back and started working on her until she managed to get up and run once more. That instinct was all she had.

But none of it mattered, because it wasn't real.

She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her consciousness inwards, desperate to find some place of refuge among this constant agony, even as her body slammed into the wall of another dead end and she heard their footsteps approaching.

She placed a fist against the wall, pressing her forehead to the cold stone and taking a breath of musty air before turning and running once more.

It couldn't be.

*+*+*+*

Cryo discovered that there was something distinctly unnerving about being high above the ground when you weren't in control of the wings that kept you there.

Perhaps it was just the fact that Cryo had seen how Pegasus 'landed' far too many times.

"Don't worry!" Pegasus said as they stood on the roof of the Starlight Hall and prepared for take-off. "I practiced with Nere like, three times! Short flight from here to the skyshrine, absolutely no problem at all!"

Cryo just closed his eyes and kept reminding himself about why he was here as he held onto the straps of cloud that secured him to Pegasus's chest.

"Aaaand there's Nereid's signal," said Pegasus. "Here we go!"

With one giant burst of wind, Pegasus shot himself up into the air.

Cryo, dangling underneath, did not feel either secure or dignified as the furious flapping of Pegasus's wings grew more frantic and they began to lose altitude. "Use your wind!"

"Right!"

A second gust of wind shoved them towards the Ri skyshrine at a terrifying speed. Cryo's talons curled below him in the open air, his body desperately trying to balance itself out among the bouncing jolts of feathered wings.

The skyshrine was still coming up far faster than Cryo was comfortable with. "Slow yourself down; use your wind again! Less power, aim it from the skyshrine to yourself!"

"Got it!"

Cryo felt the wind blow against his face, hard at first, then softening down until Pegasus was close enough to grab the roof of the skyshrine and stabilise himself. Another gust of wind nudged Cryo from behind, pushing him close enough to sink his claws into the starstone pillar of the skyshrine and find his footing.

He had never been so grateful to feel solid ground beneath him.

"Looks like Nere's distraction worked," said Pegasus, pulling himself into the skyshrine's apex chamber with Cryo before tucking his wings away. "I don't think anyone noticed us."

On the ground, Nereid had the attention of everyone. She managed the crowd effortlessly, manipulating their focus from one thing to the next with words that Cryo couldn't hear. She was simultaneously on the sidelines of the main distraction even as she puppeteered the whole thing.

Cryo wasn't certain how she'd managed it, but it clearly wasn't her first time doing so.

"Okay, well," said Pegasus, stretching his arms towards the ceiling. "I'll leave you to it--and uh, for the record, DragonFae said your Ascended might be a little... out of it still. She said you used a lot more power than you had any right to, I'm not really too sure how to explain it but either way it's gonna take another recharge or two before you're both back up to full power."

"I understand," said Cryo. "Thank you."

"When you're done, come find us," said Pegasus. "Nere and I found some interesting stuff while you were out, might be worth looking into. Neither of us really know what to do with the information, and Fae and Golem would probably just yell at us for doing it in the first place."

Cryo glanced at the indent in the floor. "Tell me now. I'd appreciate having something to consider while I wait for my Ascended to recharge."

"Okay, well." Pegasus shuffled on the spot, his wings fidgeting behind him. "I felt responsible after Fae told us what happened to Banshee, so I pulled some favours, a lot of favours, until I found something."

Pegasus reached into one of his pockets and produced a scrap of paper, handing it to Cryo.

"The family who owns the house with the basement where you found Grief was evacuated that night, literally like, ten minutes after the Hunters posted Banshee's location," said Pegasus. "Something about a faulty starstone device they'd recently purchased potentially exploding, only I don't think they ever bought one. They didn't have the funds for it--the parents had a pretty big gambling debt and there's no evidence of a purchase."

"Where is the family now?"

"Back in the house. They seem to think they spent the last night or two in a fancy hotel on the behalf of the company who made the faulty device, 'Gleaming Stone Creations', but there's no evidence of that either. I can't see why the family would lie about it though, and the company denies all knowledge of it."

"Hallucination?"

"That's what I'm thinking."

Cryo looked over the paper that Pegasus had given him. The handwriting on the page was elegant, yet certain edges were hard, like frustration had leaked through. It detailed the company who'd apparently made the device, the technical details, and every name that had come across in the paper trail. For someone as air-headed as Pegasus often seemed to be, it was strangely organised.

"If this was the Serpent's doing and he discovered Banshee's location through the Hunters, he moves quickly," said Cryo. "It seems like too much of a coincidence. Was there anything else strange about it?"

"Actually, yes," said Pegasus. "There were flowers in the windows of the house, but the oldest kid is allergic to flowers. Like, puffs up and can't breath type allergic, which is one of the main reasons they live in Kaladrel. Minimal flowers."

Cryo went quiet, reading over the paper yet again, memorising every name and location. It all came down to two things: the Hunters, and the mysterious flowers appearing in the window.

The flowers had some meaning, that much was clear. Cryo was willing to bet that somehow, the Serpent's followers communicated through them. If he could figure out the code, it might give him something, but the message was likely going to be outdated.

As for the Hunters, how had they known where Banshee was going to be? Had the Serpent evacuated the family after he received the new information, or had he reacted only once he knew the information was no longer secure? Given the timeline, the first option seemed more likely.

"I'm guessing by the silence that you've got some kind of plan brewing," said Pegasus after a minute of silence. "Or at least I'm hoping so, because I have no idea what to do with this information."

"We need to learn how the Hunters receive their information," said Cryo. "Which means we're going to have to find a way to successfully feed them information."

"And how are we going to manage that?"

Cryo touched the place on his wrist where not long ago, he had placed a feather of snow upon Olivia's.

An idea was forming. A reckless idea.

"It depends how you feel about being bait."

Pegasus tossed his hip-length ponytail back over his shoulder and tilted his chin up. "There ain't no better bait than this guy right here. I'm your man." He frowned. "Pony? Hmm. Anyway, what's the plan? Who am I baiting? Am I gonna need a safety code word?"

"I'll need to consider it some more before I start forming details," said Cryo. "But if we lure the Hunters out with something that would intrigue the Serpent, we might have a chance at following one of his minions back to a nest. It'd give us a start."

Pegasus nodded. "I'm in."

"I don't know if you should be in at all yet," said Cryo. "The last thing we need is the Serpent getting its scales on a second Luminary."

Pegasus folded his arms over his chest, his shoulders hunching in. "I don't care about the danger to myself. It's my fault she was taken in the first place. I need to help make it right."

"It's not your fault, Pegasus," said Cryo quietly. "If anything, it's mine."

"I was there." Pegasus dropped his arms, his fingers curling to fists at his side as a sudden breeze picked up. "There were so many things I could have done better. I keep replaying the fight over in my head. If I hadn't done something stupid and let those two Manifested nearly rip my wing off, she wouldn't have had save me. She wouldn't have gone down in the basement in the first place to find the guy. Maybe if I hadn't used my ultimate then I could have gone down there with her, and that would have been enough to get her out." The wind died, but Pegasus remained tense. "Not to mention, she might not have even been there in the first place if not for me."

Cryo released a soft breath.

"Did you willingly hand Banshee over to the Serpent?"

"What?" said Pegasus, stepping forward, his hands going loose at his sides. "No! Never! If I'd known then where we'd be now, I would have followed her into that basement whether it meant I went Dark or not, just to try and get her out."

"Then it's not your fault," said Cryo a second time. "This will not be the first or the last time that you regret your actions. You might not be able to stop those situations from replaying through your head, but make them productive. Ask yourself: what could I improve next time? What can I do now? Focus on those questions. Don't focus on the 'what ifs'. They will drive you to a dark, lonely place."

"Is... is that what you're doing?" said Pegasus after a moment. "How you're... focusing, even when you know who has Banshee?"

"Somewhat," said Cryo, looking at the spines of ice that covered his forearms. The result of his outburst of power, still frozen to his body. "I feel guilty. I feel like I failed my partner, and I haven't quite figured out how to channel that yet. It's not something I can choose to simply activate. It is a process, and a hard one, but for her, I know I can do it. She needs me, and I cannot fail. Not again."

Guilty was an understatement.

The raging winter within him still wanted to rip this world apart until he found Olivia and Banshee. It was swelling, waiting in his chest for the moment he was weak enough to let it out.

That winter had been willing to attack DragonFae as she'd put him to sleep. It had been willing to freeze anyone that became an obstacle, and as a result, that winter had cost Banshee and Olivia precious time.

The winter was powerful, but it was selfish. And yet, Cryo still found himself wrestling with the decision to keep it contained. He was still fighting the whirlwind of emotion that overwhelmed and consumed and froze him, promising to numb any pain he felt. The longer he listened, the louder it sounded, until he swore he could hear the winter winds blasting through the air around him.

Cryo shut his eyes against them. He let the echo of Olivia's voice soothe the raging tempest. He let the hundreds of small touches that he and Banshee had shared melt the harsh ice that was slowly covering his soul. He could still hear the echo of each 'Lay it Down!' after every person they'd saved--together. He could feel it on his hand and on his heart just as clearly as he had heard Olivia's voice in his mind earlier.

He would not let the winter win.

"What do you think Banshee would say if she were here?" Pegasus asked.

"She'd definitely make fun of me for needing a taxi service to reach the skyshrine's apex chamber," said Cryo, drawing an amused snicker from Pegasus. "Then she'd conjure some ridiculous nickname relating to the event that I would never be rid of." He took a breath. "And then, she'd tell us that it wasn't our fault, and she'd ask what we were planning to do about it."

"And what are we planning to do about it?"

"That's what I'm going to figure out while my Ascended recharges," said Cryo. "Until I've come up with a suitably reckless plan, don't do anything rash; I'd like us to be coordinated."

Pegasus raised an eyebrow. "Was that a joke?"

Cryo gave the young Lumi a withering stare. Maybe it wasn't just Banshee who thought it was terrible at them. "Shoo. Go find Nereid. See if she has any ideas about how to get the Serpent's attention."

"Yes, boss!"

Pegasus lifted a hand to his forehead and stepped backwards off the skyshrine, disappearing in a wild rush of feathers and wind.

When the dark, heavy curtains of the skyshrine's apex chamber had settled once more, Cryo turned back towards the indent at the centre of the floor. It was quietly oppressive without Pegasus's personality filling the space. The pang of loneliness had never hit Cryo or Jason before, but now, he felt it as keenly as his own heartbeat beneath the frost.

Cryo exhaled.

It was time to see what Sae thought about all of this.

"Return, Frost of Skypillar."

Despite Pegasus's warning that Sae might not be quite to his usual standard even though the auroras had passed, Jason still found himself expecting his Ascended to pop out and launch into a barrage of insults and accusations that could be summed up by 'What did you think you were going to accomplish, you idiot?'

Instead, Sae fell out of Jason's chest as barely more than a puff of snow.

The Ascended wasn't conscious enough for words. His usually defined features were vague, his eyes glassy and unfocused. He staggered around in Jason's palms, dragging his wings and fluttering about, clearly trying to take off but completely lacking the strength to do so.

The guilt crashed into Jason again.

He had caused this.

"I'm sorry, Sae," he murmured, kneeling down beside the indent in the floor and gently placing Sae inside.

Sae could not hold himself up. As soon as Jason removed his hand, the Ascended fell on his side, one wing pinned beneath his body. The other continued to furiously flap, trying to right himself but ending in only the heartbreaking clink clink clink of his beak on the floor every time he failed to lift his head.

It was agony to not reach down to him, to hold Sae against his palm and stroke his back with a thumb as he had so many times before. It was torture to watch his Ascended struggle alone, knowing that he could not help as the indent began to fill with light.

Jason could only watch another consequence of his winter-fuelled rampage until the auroralight finally crystallised around Sae's body and slowly soothed the tremors away.

He told himself that he would never forget it.

*+*+*+*