The world slows to a stop until all Elodie can hear is the rush of blood through her ears.

Then cacophony of glass shattering as the beast tears through the thick window as easily as she might have torn a piece of paper in half. A handful of desperately quick steps backward all that saves the Queen from her skin being shredded by a shower of glass.

It does not save her from what comes next.

The creature lunges for her, and instinct alone takes her careening out of its path.

She and it both avoid slamming into opposite walls in their haste. Swinging around to face each other seconds later, circling each other like two predators, each waiting for the other to flinch first.

It cracks toward her, sending the bookshelf tumbling over, the old tomes spilling out onto the floor, none making an impact with the creature's body. Falling through nothing and hitting the carpets underfoot.

Another crack, serpentine body arching toward her and suddenly all she can see is the flash of fangs.

She's screaming before its great, dagger-long fang even hits her flesh.

The heat of the bite almost as agonising as the ripping of flesh itself. Her scream drags bloody from her lips, and all that saves her from losing her arm is the quick enough wit to remember Aeyliv's dagger at her hip.

She slices, the movement closer to a stumble than it is the usual dance of her battles.

It cleaves through not-flesh, and for a painful moment she fears the strike wont aim true even at point blank. She might as well be slicing through air, not the sound of metal slicing through flesh, but something more akin to embers sizzling out.

But after a heartbeat of sinking through aether, her blade drives into something more tangible.

Tangible enough that it sends the beast recoiling back, shadows scattering and reforming like a cloud of startled birds.

It doesn't bleed, but it hurts.

That was good enough for her.

More of that careful pacing, circling in the limited space of the strange bedroom. Footing between debris and furniture, nothing peeling her eyes from the monster before her.

Around her the world snaps back into full speed as the beast lunges for her a second time - undeterred by the shattered glass falling to the ground around it like a midwinter snow.

It crackles, shift, like lightning visible behind a layer of storm-clouds. Ever shifting, trying to find a single point to focus her gaze on was like trying to track a snowflake in a blizzard.

Not for a heartbeat does this monster stay remotely still.

If the thing could be described as having an expression, Elodie might have attributed it to surprise, maybe confusion.

The creature seemed surprised she could fight back.

A sentiment she could understand.

She bares her teeth, and the second time around its Elodie who is the first to lunge forward. It meets her half way, tries to drive its fangs into her arm a second time, but the Queen wards off the attempt with a swift turn, a slash of metal.

Two dances, spinning in and out of each others reach. A morbid waltz across glass splinters and plush carpets.

Blood dripping with every step the queen takes.

Any flicker of confusion that might have bolted through this beast disappears. 

Any hint of emotion on its features were now simply predatory.

The beast lunges again, Elodie swerves as she'd done a few times now, aiming a blow for whatever comes close enough to her reach. It aims true, slices cleanly.

But this time the beast launches back for her, slamming into her. Suddenly tangible, tangible like a freight train, a wall of power. 

The blow is enough to send her stumbling, fingers lurching for the bedpost, the mattress, the wall. Anything she might have even half a hope of steadying herself, wings have way through a furious, rightening beat, but it comes too late.

A second blow knocks the wind from her, and her feet lose their grip on the floor beneath them.

Sending her slamming to the carpet, her heart in her throat she is scrambling. A medley of flailing limbs, wings and wits, it isn't elegant but anything that might save her life. 

Trying to force herself back to her feet.

It doesn't give her the chance.

For a beast that moves like the wind, like the smoke, it lands on her with more weight than she would have given it credit for.

Fangs gnashing mere inches from her throat. Missing only by the breadth of her hair as her hands scramble, seeking purchase as she tries to shove it away. Her blade had gone scattering from her person with the second of the blows, but she claws and tears like her fingertips are swords, like her teeth are daggers. 

Her legs joining the fight, kicking with all the might she can deliver.

A snarl of fury rips from her throat, a similar sound tearing from its, a mirror of one another. One fighting for her life.

But she's not convinced this creature is trying to take hers.

She fights like it is anyway.

No matter how the Queen kicks, her assailant is undeterred. Her wrist is bleeding, hot red gushing down toward her elbow, her movements slowing more and more as the stain on the carpets underneath widens.

Suddenly its fangs flash again, but it's not her throat it goes for, but the hood of her cloak.

They close tight around the hood, yanking furiously enough that for a split second it feels like her head will come clean away from her shoulders.

It too seems to notice the slight problem with its plan, adjusts enough to allow Elodie to take breath.

And begins dragging her across the carpet, toward the window. With a flap of not-flesh, not-tangible wings, the beast is airborne again.

Dragging the queen with it.

Elodie screams again, for what or better yet who even she doesn't know.

But the sound tears so viciously from her throat in the aftermath she tastes blood. 

Echoing, she thinks, into the nothingness, as she's dragged closer to the window. Limbs lurching out, clawing for purchase on the slick carpets, fighting it even as the inevitable draws nearer. 

Yet her terrified scream is answered.

Behind her all she can hear is the sound of an echoing thud, again, again. Then thick oak splintering, and paws on carpet. 

A blur of motion.

A large mass, faster than should have been possible, dark russet and furious, glinting grey. 

Colliding with the beast, sending it sprawling.

Suddenly free of dragging, free of friction. Elodie leaps to her feet, and her balance does not stumble. 

Now it isn't just one one one, but three on one. 

The beast does not seem deterred by the change of events. 

Over the rush of the blood in Elodie's ears, the Queen is very barely aware of Aeyliv beside her, steadying her. His hands on her wrist, but she pushes him off. 

Steps into the fray again. 

Quinn has drawn the beast into her earlier dance, the rhythm of it. 

All muscle and sinew, a wild creature and a monstrous reflection, so similar and timed are their movements. 

Some unknown cue only to two of them are privy to, and they lunge for each other. Colliding hard, all fangs, claws and violence.

Something splinters, Quinn's blood splatters the carpets alongside the Queen's. 

The Wolf barely seems to notice that they've made contact. Dancing out of reach again, lunging forward at the apex of his arc in order to deliver a blow of his own. 

He's levelled the playing field, and Elodie steps closer again. 

Stooping to snatch her dagger from a pool of blood on the ground, wiping it on her dress as she straightens and joins the Wolf as it circles. 

Only vaguely aware of Aeyliv stepping back, back back. Then coming to stand at the door.

The Poet taking a position of sentinel, to stop someone wandering in rather than out she supposes. 

Something closer to feral seems to take hold on her assailant now. 

Thrashing, trying to keep its eyes on two attackers at once. 

Quinn lunges forward, Elodie distracts. 

Elodie moves closer to deliver a blow, Quinn keeps those fangs as far away from her as humanly possibly. 

And ounce by wretched ounce, she can sense it tiring. 

Even as sweat beads at her forehead, and more blood has been shed between herself and her companion.

But finally, something seems to click in the monster. 

And in a blur of motion, it becomes clear its making a run for its life.

Elodie tenses, as though half tempted to give chase. 

A look from the Wolf steadies her movements. 

The politest are you quite sane the Queen would likely ever receive. 

Elodie wasn't positive she'd make it to the shattered window still on her feet, so allows herself on the small pleasure of watching it flee. 

The retreating beast moves at speed, like two forces were acting on it, pulling it in two different directions. The first its own sense of will, urging unwilling bones back through the window it had come through, the second something Elodie couldn't see, but could sense as clearly as the earth under her own feet.

Trying to force it to stay, to fight.

For a split second the Queen can feel the battle of its instinct, the agony it causes the creature. A battle against its own will and something more insidious.

Something darker.

She steps forward, as though she might be able to slice free some unseen puppet's strings - put an end to this.

But she doesn't need to, for finally the former broaches victorious and the beast goes fleeing back through the window. Shattering what remains of the glasswork as it passes through.

Stealing the air from the room as it goes.

But Aeyliv's gaze has not left the shattered window, where the last slivers of the monster can only just be seen retreating into the distant skies.

The Prince of Crow's face is so pale, there is a split second of worry that coarses through Elodie.

She's half way through searching him for signs of bleeding out, when the younger fae speaks, and Elodie realises that it isn't pain that draws his features into that.

That thing between fury and agony.

The words rip from Quinn before he's fully finished swapping from lupine form to human. His words accompanied by a crackling thing not unlike a distant thunder.

"What," perfectly calm but Elodie can taste the well hidden fury in the man's voice, something that errs close to a rumbling growl even now he's two legged. "Do you mean?"

For a moment it doesn't seem that the prince has any intentions of answering them, or in any event is trying to find a way to paint this in a different light.

Elodie's own lips part, about to add to Quinn's demand with something stronger of her own. Fingers taking a tighter hold around the still bloodied dagger.

But finally Aeyliv turns his head back upon the two of them, white as a sheet.

"It means I've been lied to."