Lady Louise was not back in the yard where I had left her. After a brief moment of panic, I found her fast asleep on the floor of the kitchen. There was no way to check and see if she still had a fever, but she was breathing and her face appeared awfully peaceful as she lay with one cheek smushed against the cold tile floor.

In more ways than one, she appeared more like a child than her daughter.

With no sign of Hornroot, and no realistic way to do much else with how things were now, I chose to lie down on a cool spot on the floor near Lady Louise's face. If nothing else, I would notice if she stopped breathing when it stopped tickling my ear.

"I would like to know about them," Ash declared, her voice taking on a rare note of stubbornness.

"For what purpose?" Mary challenged as she placed one hand on her knee while the other rubbed her forehead in agitation. "If we give them the pill—which I am still very much against, by the way—you'd know more than you'd ever want to know about them. And trust me, it doesn't take much to get to that point."

"I know about my own abilities. You do not need to tell me about them, I make them real." Ash's pale blue eyes flashed to me for a moment with a brief "Hello, Alex," before focusing her half-assed glare back on Mary. "I am asking because I wish to know who among them is the most—"

"Alex!" Mary leaped up from her sitting position on the floor when her eyes found me as well. "When did you get here?!"

"Just a few moments ago," Ash answered for me, not bothering to stand up but instead moving her head to try and keep her unfocused glare trained in the direction of Mary's face. "Now, as I was saying—"

"It's still daytime, isn't it? Why are you asleep right now? Did something happen?"

I shrugged, the action making something I was wearing on my chest move around. When I looked down to see what it was, I swore I heard Mary suck in her breath.

"I don't know. Can I ask you something, though?"

"No, you can't."

"Why am I wearing a dress?"

"It isn't a dress. It's a 'formal dinner gown'," Ash said, answering for someone else again. "Mary had been dreaming about having dinner with the Princess of Forests. She had been playing the part of the Green Knight, faithful servant of the beautiful Princess."

Mary stared, open mouthed, at the pale woman while I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry.

She remembered? Mary still remembered that stupid little act we did when we first, 'officially' met? I had thought I had forgotten it until just this moment—this strange little dinner inside a foreign and grand dining hall.

"Ashling, what are you doing?!" Mary exclaimed, finding her voice before whipping her red, heart-shaped face in my direction. "And stop smiling, Alex. You look ridiculous."

"This coming from the girl wearing a full suit of green armor," I responded, my smile going nowhere.

I had never seen a person in a suit of armor before. Let alone one as shiny and emerald as Mary's. It came complimented with a flowing yellow cape and an insignia of a leafless tree engraved on the breastplate.

"It's pretty cool, though. Very elaborate. You really thought this stuff through, huh?"

"I don't have to answer that."

Mary turned her head pointedly away from me. Her long hair was braided close to her head in two separate buns, exposing the jagged scar in her cheek. The one I had given her that had never fully healed.

Suddenly, I no longer felt in the mood to smile.

"It is unfortunate you arrived when you did," Ash spoke up as she stood up and brushed off her own fanciful blue gown that looked really foreign when compared to her dull appearance. "You missed the elegant dance around the ballroom and the horse ride through a star lit night sky—"

"Okay, Ash, enough! I get it. I'll tell you about them." Mary threw up her hands and, almost as if on command, the grand dining room fell away and was replaced by a scene much more familiar. The abandoned ticket booth.

Sitting in chairs on the other end of the room were Kat, Stallion, and Mutt. They sat with backs straight and faces forward, staring at nothing, like they had been commanded.

"Do you have to make them look like that?" I muttered.

"Nothing is intentional in our dreams, remember?" Mary said with folded arms as her eyes moved around the small room, looking anywhere but at me or the others. "Blame yourself and Ashling for winding me up like this."

All our clothes had changed to fit the scene at the time. Me in the dark butler suit and Mary in her silver butterfly dress. Ash was still wearing the flowing blue gown from before.

"Why does this one have just one leg?" she asked, pointing to Mutt who sat on the far left.

In response, Mutt looked down to the missing appendage. He swiped a lazy hand through the empty air where his leg used to be.

"He lied," Mutt said.

His voice nearly made me jump. For one, I did not expect him to talk, and for two, his voice sounded distorted—broken—like the music from those old records Fawn used to play from time to time.

"Is that really him?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"No, just my dream version of him," Mary answered, before shooting an irritated glare Ash's way. "Our former Master, another familiar, cut it off thinking it was poisoned."

"I see," came Ash's reply. She already sounded disinterested.

"What is going on here, exactly?" I asked, growing more uncomfortable by the second. I found myself trying and failing to look my friends in the eyes. They were like life sized dolls. "Why are we doing this?"

By contrast, Mary's eyes were alive with emotion when she switched her glare back to me. "Oh, I don't know, Alex. Why don't you tell me? Why do you think Ash has a sudden interest in the others when I told her nothing about them?"

Hmm. Maybe Kat wasn't that bad to look at. Despite the doll-like expression, she was still pretty easy on the eyes—

"You told her about them," Mary answered for me, her hands on her hips now. "And from what Ash has been telling me, and from what I can only assume, you've been out there risking your neck trying to give them her pill."

"Oh, well, doesn't that sound familiar?" I said, using the little spark of fire in my stomach to turn and face Mary.

"Alex, don't. This isn't the same thing." Mary turned away from me and ran a hand through her now free flowing hair. "I don't have to know the details to know that you've probably been running around without much of a plan, with little to no regards of how much trouble you could get everyone in if you failed." Mary dropped her aggravated look in favor for one more sympathetic as she turned back to me and placed a hand over her chest. "I risked my life, yes, but I also planned. I narrowed the chances for failure. I didn't act until I was certain that it was our best shot. Now, it's been almost two months since I've brought you here and, I'll continue to assume, two months since you started trying to bring back the others. While you not being dead is a good sign, the others not being here probably means things haven't been working out the way you want them to."

I had to pause, for a moment, to take in Mary's sudden assault. It wasn't the fiery flurry of shouts I had expected after witnessing the years of arguments between her and Stallion. She was calm, straightforward, and calculated. Every word she said was true.

But that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

"Being stuck as an animal hasn't made it easy," I said, keeping my eyes locked with Mary's. "Neither has being alone."

"We're all alone, Alex. Being in here doesn't change that."

"But you can't say that it doesn't make it harder, right?" I pressed, gripping my hands into fists. "I think I would have lost my mind eventually if we hadn't found each other, if I'm being honest."

Mary took a step forward, but seemed to think better of it and instead turned around to face a wall. "You would have been fine."

I shook my head. "No, I really wouldn't have. I don't know if you know what it's like, Mary, to be the familiar to a witch that doesn't even want you. You at least get to work, to try and do good things still. Ever since...Ever since what happened in the cabin, I feel like I've just been going through the motions. I haven't had anything to work for—anyone to keep fighting for. Not until you showed up."

I stared at the back of Mary's head, hoping that if I glared hard enough it would simply translate how badly I wanted for her to not just hear me, but to listen. "You can't expect me to just go back to being a witch's house pet. Not after this. I'll keep risking myself, I'll keep pushing forward without a plan and without regards to my safety because that's what I do when I run out of other options. It's all I've ever done."

"And I will keep helping him in whatever way I can because the two of you are beginning to grow dull," Ash announced, suddenly coming up beside me. "Your interactions always go the same way. Alex's one track mind and emotion fueled passion come into conflict with Mary's meticulous focus on details and reason. Mary tries to convince Alex to see through her point of view, but Alex can only see through his tunnel vision and pushes his way of doing things until Mary eventually gives up due to her twisted affections for him and her own deep rooted insecurities and, thus, Alex never matures and grows and instead keeps his childish, close-minded view of the world."

Mary and I shared a moment of silence while Ash caught her breath.

"We've only talked three times since we've taken your pill, you know," Mary pointed out.

"You got all that from our dreams?" I asked, filling in the blanks.

"No...No—Not normally, no." Ash stared hard at a particular spot on the floor before moving her pale gaze between me and Mary. "I suppose...I suppose I've just been...paying more attention."

As Mary and I took that in, Ash's eyes drifted over to the other three and, for the first time ever, I saw a look of pure interest flash across her pale blue orbs. "I have to know more."

...

*Author's Note*

Consider this chapter a bit of a break from the heavy talk and emotions from last week. A small breather till we dive back into the deep end in the next one. 

 Once again Foxy sleeps, and once again he comes in contact with Ash and Mary.  What will come of this shared dream? What new things will Ash learn about the complicated and messy lives of familiars? Whatever your thoughts, I'd love to hear em.