[edited: 26/08/2017]

Sarah woke up with her hands bound together by something black and gleaming, and immediately wanted to scream. She didn't, though. She bit her tongue instead, glancing around frantically. She was in a room—or so she thought—one that felt damp and cold, though that might have been her clothes, which clung to her skin and chafed together when she tried to move. The walls were rocky and uneven like those of a cave, and they dug into her spine when she sat up.

The stench of earth and salt, and underneath that, something rotten, filled her nostrils. It was dark but for one small white light in the corner that seemed to have no source; instead, it hovered as though it was dangling on an invisible piece of string. Beside that stood a man she had never seen before, though he was dressed almost exactly the same as the one who had captured her. There was something about him that seemed worse than the other, though; he felt wrong to Sarah, as though his very existence was sickening. Every instinct she had was telling her to get as far away from him as possible, but she only managed to shuffle a few centimetres backwards before she hit the cave wall again. 

She began to scream.

She was stopped. Her voice wasn't working. All that came out was her shaky breath and a small squeaking sound, and she looked to the man, whose palms were outstretched in the same way the other's had been before black sparks had flown out of them.

"I would not bother if I were you," the man said and walked towards Sarah until he was close enough to kneel in front of her. "Nobody will hear you, anyway."

"Who are you?" she whispered with wide eyes, dread and fear pooling in the pit of her stomach.

"I am Ackmard," the man said as though it was obvious. Slowly, he reached for a strand of Sarah's brown hair and tucked it behind her ear. The motion seemed blurry, and it took her a moment to realise that it was because her glasses were gone. "You are a very plain mortal girl, plainer than most. Not like that friend of yours."

"Look, whatever mess Remy has gotten herself into, it has nothing to do with me." She stammered over her words, feeling her wrists burn against whatever material it was that tied them together when she tried to move out of the man's reach.

"Oh, but it must," Ackmard responded and stood up with a frown. When he moved, his boots sprayed water in her face from the wet ground, and she was suddenly aware that she was sat in it, too. The cold liquid seeped into her jeans and the bottom of her coat. In the distance, she could hear water dripping, reminding her of the time that Remy had taken her into one of the alcoves besides the beach. It was almost a relief to realise that perhaps that was where she was. It meant she could still get home. "You are her close friend, are you not? She cares for you. She would not want you to get in harm's way."

"Is that why I'm here?" She raised her voice, more confident now that she had hope of escape. "So that you can get to Remy through me?"

"Oh, you are clever. That is surprising."

"What do you want with Remy?" she questioned then. "Where is she?"

"The mortal girl has something that I need." Ackmard sounded bored, and looked it too as he lent against the cave wall. "In fact, she has two things that I need, but the second is of no matter to you. I will use you to get it."

"If you think threatening me will get you what you want, you're wrong. Remy and I are friends, but she's stubborn and won't be willing to give up whatever it is you want for my sake."

"I have seen her. I have been watching her for a while, in fact. She has a very big heart, your friend, though she does not always show it." Ackmard ran his fingers over the rocky walls, not paying any attention to Sarah. She took the opportunity to pull herself up onto her feet, ready to run when she needed to. "I think you underestimate what she might do for someone she loves."

"I think you don't know her as well as I do," Sarah whispered, her breath catching as she glanced around and found an opening on the other side of the room. She exhaled shakily. Any moment now, she could run.

"Perhaps not." He looked at her sharply, as though he knew what she had been planning. "If you wish to run, you may. I do not think it is a wise decision, though."

Sarah did not need telling twice. She sprang to her feet and ran to the opening, ignoring the stiffness in her bones and the numbness in her toes. She was lead into a dark passage, one that seemed to go on for miles. She didn't dare look back to see if he was following her. Her legs ached as she pulled them through the water, each step splashing noisily. It was a good thing that her escape wasn't subtle to begin with, she thought to herself. 

Then the passage stopped and brought her out into open air. She was expecting to find the beach, and she almost continued to run without really noticing where she was, but something in her subconscious brought her to a halt. She looked around in a panic, her stomach dropping.

She wasn't back at the beach. Whatever that alcove was, it was not the one she had thought she was in. She was stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking a lake that looked almost completely black, though it reflected a pink sky and the shadows of the crags that surrounded it like a shattered mirror that presented only fragments of an image.

There's no way out, she realised. She searched behind her, thinking that perhaps there might be one there, but all she found was the cave opening and more of the rocky cliff walls.

"Oh dear," said a voice behind her, and when she turned back, Ackmard was stood with a crooked grin on his face. His black eyes sparkled with something wicked as he circled Sarah. "Whatever shall you do now, with no way out?"

She looked up at the glowing sky again, unlike anything she had ever seen before. There were no clouds and the sun seemed so far away that it was merely an orange smudge among a vastness that Sarah had never thought possible. "Where am I? This isn't Calderdale."

"No, I'm afraid not," he said with the voice of somebody who knew far more than he should, and was rather eager to share it with others, "but at least now you are much closer to your little mortal friend. She will be ecstatic to see you again, I'm sure."

"This is where Remy is?" She gulped as fear rose up from her stomach to her throat. She wanted to run or scream, but what good would it do?

Ackmard nodded. "I am afraid her accommodation is much less damp and cold than yours, but you will get used to it, I am sure."

"No!" Sarah shouted, surprising even herself. "I don't know who you are or what you want with Remy, but I have nothing to do with it. Take me back to my home. You have to!"

"That is what I like to see; friends looking out for one another." He paused, getting so close to Sarah that she could feel the cold radiating from him. "Anyway, even if I did want to take you home, I could not. I am afraid that portal was only one way."

"Portal? What portal?"

"That rather large one that people of your kind call 'the sea.' You could not miss it, really." His voice was dripping with sarcasm and venom. "What did you think that big old body of water was really for? The scenery?"

It was too much for Sarah to comprehend, and she frowned, feeling suddenly numb and distant from herself, as though she was watching herself from far away.

"Well," he sighed as though he had decided something. "Now you have had your lovely view, it is time to go back inside."

Blackness engulfed her for only a second, and then she was back in the cave, only now her feet were bound together too, so tight that she could barely move. She glared at the man in front of her.

"Do not worry, girl," he said with a smile. "If your friend cares about you enough, you will not be here for long. Your safety is in her hands now."

He frowned for a moment and glanced at what Sarah thought was a wristwatch, though she couldn't tell in such poor lighting.

"I must go. I am wanted elsewhere."

The man who had taken Sarah emerged from the shadows suddenly, and Ackmard nodded at him before looking back to her. His eyes were piercing.

"I will not insult your intelligence so much as to ask you not to try and run away again. You know what will happen if you do." And then he was gone, leaving smoke and the stench of sulphur in his stead.

* * *

Hilda ran a thin and bony finger over the wrinkled spines of her books, swallowing down her nerves by breathing in their old scent. The library was her favourite place, and the only place that ever seemed to calm her anxiety or anger, probably because it reminded her of her childhood, when she had had the biggest library that she had ever seen in the house she shared with her parents. She would spend hours reading thick novels filled with adventures and excitement, and sometimes, she would ask her father to read them aloud.

All of that was gone now, and all that was left was the library in her own house that she had recreated to remind her of her old life. It filled her with a paradox of feelings, the sadness and the happiness that nostalgia always provided, like a beautiful sunset that stung one's eyes to look at.

She knew that he was here without having to look. Perhaps it was the slight breeze that wafted suddenly through the room, causing strands of her red hair to fly past her face, or perhaps it was the foul smell of dark magic that stung her nostrils, or perhaps it was just because it was her son and she would always sense him in a way that only mothers could.

She turned around.

Ackmard was leaning against the armchair, scanning through a book. For a moment, she could pretend that he was still the boy she had given birth to, with his eyes lowered so that she could not see the blackness in them and his face free of his evil smirk. Then, he looked up and flung the book onto the floor, and she knew that nothing had changed; the shadows that fell on his face were not cast by the dim lights, but by his own darkness.

"I was not sure you would come," she said quietly, linking her trembling fingers together to keep herself from brushing the loose strands of hair from his face the way she had when he was a child.

"I was interested in what you might have to say," replied Ackmard and sat down in the armchair with his legs crossed, an expectant expression on his face. "I am sure that by now you are aware of what we are looking for and who has it."

Hilda nodded, lowering her eyes. "A key, one that has not been seen for many years ..."

She was cut off by her son. "One that was last seen around your neck."

She blanched, taking in a sharp intake of breath. She could feel her whole body trembling. "What did you say?"

"I think you heard me, Mother." Amusement smoothed out his dark features. He was enjoying this, she thought, enjoying harming his own mother. Perhaps he was a monster as Maksim had warned. "You see, I know the truth, Mother. I know what you are and what you did, all because of the key that the stupid little mortal girl wears around her neck, completely oblivious to the power it holds. It seems that one has much to learn in one's descent into the darkness."

"How?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "How did you find out?"

"Does it matter?" Ackmard retorted and stood up, casually glancing around the library as though he might want to read one of the books. "You never told us, my brother and I, who you really were. It is no wonder that I have become this. I am simply following in your footsteps."

"The key took its hold on me, yes, but I fought it," she said, her heart straining suddenly with desperation. She wished that Ackmard could understand, but it seemed as though when she talked to him now, she could not get through to him. He was too narrow-minded, too set on his own ideas. Nothing else mattered to him. She knew because she had once been the same, and perhaps still was, though now it was without that darkness. "I threw it away. I did not let myself succumb to the darkness."

"And we both know why that was." He shot her a knowing look, and it turned Hilda's stomach cold. Her knees wobbled, threatening to fall from under her.

He knows, she realised, and felt suddenly as though she was falling into nothingness, like one of those dreams where you feel as though you are dwindling to your death, but wake up just before you hit the ground. Only Hilda was not sure that she could wake up in time now.

"I have a proposal for you," he started, his cutting eyes meeting hers. "Get me the key, Mother, and I will consider rejoining your family."

"No," she whispered. "That key has the power to destroy, to ruin, to lose any lightness that you still have. I will not let you have it. As your mother, it is my job to protect you from it."

"As my mother, it was your job to do many things, but it seems that you have failed all of your children now." Hatred laced his words, and Hilda knew then that there was nothing she could say to him. The damage had been done, perhaps much longer ago than she had thought. "I mean, look at us, Mother. Two of your children are filled with darkness, and the other one, the only one that ever had the ability to be good, is bitter and cold because his own mother treats him as a burden."

Her eyes stung with tears, and so she turned around to disguise them, crossing her hands behind her back and tilting her chin upwards to try and remember who she was; a strong, noble woman, a Council member, a mother.

"You cannot blame me for your own cruelty, Ackmard," she said finally, taking a breath before she turned back around to him. "You are far too old to shift your responsibility to me."

Ackmard no longer appeared to be listening. "Get me the key, Mother. You are the only person who can, for it belonged to you once. Get me the key, and we can be together again. All of us."

"No."

"Then I will find another way. I will rip it from that mortal girl's neck. I will cut her head off to get it if I have to, and then poor little Maksim will never forgive you for denying me. Whatever would he say if he knew the truth of it all?"

"You can do what you will with that mortal girl." Hilda feigned apathy by waving a hand in the air. "You can hurt her in any way you want, but I would sooner die than let you have that key, and I will stand in your way if you try to take it from her again."

"Then die you will," he growled, and then ceased to stand in the library.

Hilda let out a shaky breath and tucked her hair behind her ears with trembling fingers. She forced her legs to move until they reached the spot in which Ackmard had just been standing and extended her hand out, wishing with heart-wrenching pain that she had done better by him, and all her children.

She did not know how long she stayed there, in that same spot, only that when she left the library, the sun was setting. 

AN: plot twist: hilda is actually shady :)))) I kind of felt sorry for her as I wrote it though. We'll learn more about her soon, and there will be a second book that will explain it all a lot more. I'm glad the drama has finally started even though I love writing about Remy and Maksim and will still be including cute scenes and chapters with just the two of them. Let me know what you think about all the drama llama I'm excited!!

Also don't worry Remy and Maksim (Reksim???) will be in the next chapters like I know it's been weird having the story focus on other characters but it was fun to do that and hopefully you liked it too :)