The following morning Franklin woke up late. His body, though it usually didn't get tired had collapsed last night in exhaustion. Yes, he had the ability to sleep but his body had basically been a machine since it became undead, this was the first time had ever felt anything akin to being tired.

What woke him up was this electric current skating up his spine.

Someone was in his office.

Franklin lived in the mayor's mansion, his rooms has their own floor, just one above where his office was, but he knew someone other than Margaret his secretary was in his house.

He got up, put on the suit of the day and then headed down.

Usually his first stop was breakfast from Veera's. He'd say hi to Margaret and offer to pick something up for her. But today he went straight to his office, mainly because there was no point in going for breakfast, it was clearly midday or sometime after. That and he needed to be sure that there wasn't an intruder in his office.

Upon first glance there was no one in his office, but the door that led to the Hall of Totems was open. From that alone he could puzzle out who it was that was in his office.

He peeked in and sure enough it was Kelly. She was once again in faded blue jeans, her worn hiking boots, and a red and black flannel shirt. It seemed to be her go to outfit, like Franklin's suits. They only thing that had changed today was the color of the flannel.

"Morning," she said without even turning around to face him. "Or shall I say afternoon?"

"I had a tiring day yesterday," he growled and at that she turned to him, a smile on his face. That was a completely new experience for him and it sent everything in his long dormant heart a flutter.

"Yes, I figured, it's why I didn't come to wake you up," she said. "But I didn't want to wait so I figured that I'd start my list while I waited for you."

That was actually rather nice of her, to not wake him up, to let him rest. He sort of wished she had because he was craving breakfast and now it was too late to order it. He knew Veera would make him a breakfast item if asked even if it was after the cut off, but he also knew it wasn't fair because she didn't do that for just anyone.

"Now that you're here, you can help me with the names. I... I still don't know everyone in town."

Franklin came to stand beside her. She was currently in front of Elsa's totem, with a stolen pad of paper in her hands.

It was a completely blank pad which meant she went through his desk to find his stash of hidden administrative supplies. He'd have to argue with her about that later. Instead he focused on the notes she was making. She had started with the people she knew, though the first name on her list was his.

He was interested in the fact that she had written red sparkles and then double underlined three words. Find real totem.

He pointed to it right away. "What does that mean?"

Kelly frowned and then walked towards his totem. Franklin followed mainly because he didn't trust her to not try and destroy his totem again. She had tried it yesterday after all.

She then pointed to the golden necklace that was clutched in his totem's hand. "I'm pretty sure that's a fake, or you would have turned back by now."

She had just dropped that bombshell on him, just like that. Said it so nonchalantly, as if it wasn't this big massive revelation. Franklin blinked his eyes taking that in and then shook his head.

"Well, I have two curses, so that's probably why."

Kelly shook her head right back at him. "I already told you, that doesn't make sense," she said. "The first curse changed you and the second one traps everyone here. So if the finding the totem and placing it should have broken one of the curses."

Franklin hated how logical that sounded but it didn't make sense to have something fit perfectly into the totem if it was fake.

"Okay, but I'm guessing that that's because I didn't find my totem and place it, it was already there."

At that Kelly turned to him. "What? You didn't... then... well it has to be fake."

Franklin frowned at her. "Why?"

"Because! You hurt Lydia the most, you broke her heart. She wouldn't just give you a totem," she said like it was the most natural assumption in the world. "She'd obvious make it super hard for you to break your curse so... logically the fact that she already had that there makes it pretty clear that that's a fake to throw you off."

Franklin sighed. "Right, does it sparkle red?" he asked. She frowned at him and he pointed to the note pad. "It says right there, red sparkles, so does it sparkle red?"

"It does."

"Then it's my missing piece," he snapped. "Don't waste your time looking for something that isn't there. Break everyone else's curses, I'll worry about mine, okay?"

She nodded and then moved past him and back to Elsa to continue writing her notes. He followed her, reading over her shoulder to see what else she was listing. Along with sparkle color she was hypothesizing about what the missing pieces were and there was a big asterisk saying to ask about the most dangerous places in town.

He didn't have to ask her to figure that she was theorizing that Lydia would have hidden the totem pieces in dangerous locations to keep them safely hidden.

"So uh... does everyone have a different colour of sparkle?"

"So far, yeah," she said absent. "Those three over there are all similar colors of purple, I'm guessing they're family?"

"I... uh... yeah, how did you figure that out?"

"Because Elouise and Cooper are both different shades of orange," she said. "I know they're family, so if that's the pattern that makes those three family. Everyone else has completely different sparkles. Like Veera is a pink and Dr. Vaneer is white."

"And I'm red."

"Yes, you're red."

Franklin nodded at that and then gave her the names of everyone else that she was missing. She got everyone's names, wrote out all the notes she wanted and then she turned to him.

"Do you ever miss your family?"

That was a pretty random question for her. "Sometimes, yeah," he replied warily because he didn't know why she wanted to know that but he figured it was going to lead back to the Harpy in some way.

"Would you be with them if you could?"

Franklin's eyes narrowed again. "I suppose."

"Well either you do or you don't."

"Fine, yes. If I could go home, if I could see my parents, I would. Why does that matter?"

"Well... that right there, that feeling, that's why you should give the Harpy back her daughter."

Then she grinned at him like she had solved the largest mystery in the universe. Franklin, however, was frowning. Just because he had been expecting this to loop around to the Harpy, didn't mean he wanted to be right.

He smiled back at her, his smile wry and sarcastic. "Nice try."

"Franklin, this is serious. Wouldn't you like everyone to be safe?"

"We are safe!" he snapped. "She's only after you!"

"Right and your plan is to have me escorted for the rest of my stay here? That's insane."

Franklin took a step closer so he could glare down at her. "Let me make this perfectly clear. So long as you follow the rules you will be safe but if you continue this, I will lock you up myself."

Kelly's eyes narrowed up at him as he had gestured to all of her. The problem was she didn't seem all that intimidated by him anymore.

"Your plan is going to get me killed," she growled. "And you can pretend you won't care but we both know you will."

And then she whirled around and stormed away from him.

He hated that she was right. He hated that in such a short amount of time she had learned enough about him to guess how he'd feel.

But what he hated most was that she made him feel things, things that hadn't bothered him before, or in a long time. It was a problem because it was taking away his objectivity and his ability to be rational and calm.

She was undoing him. And he couldn't afford to be undone.