Tipstaff skittered around the sanctuary, crashing into mages and bouncing off walls. He rounded the corner and ran straight into Ghastly.
"Oh, I'm sorry, so very sorry." Tipstaff said whilst bowing deeply.
"Um, no worries, it's ok. Why are you in such a rush?" Ghastly asked.
"Well I have to find Miss Low because the British sanctuary wants her to come to England," he said out of breath.
"Why?" Ghastly asked, puzzled.
"They want to charge her for the murder of Quintin Strom."
Ghastly paled and pushed past Tipstaff. He sprinted across the hall and disappeared around the corner.
Tanith walked down the hall only to see Ghastly flying towards her. He crashed into her, and their eyes met. She could see all the emotions running through him. The love, the worry and the fear…the fear?
"What's wrong, Ghastly?" Tanith said, a hint of worry in her voice.
"Th-the British s-sanctuary," he stopped for breath, "The-they want you to charge you for murdering Strom."
"What? They can't do that. I've already stood trial!" Her eyes started to shine with tears.
"Oh, Tanith. It's ok." Ghastly said, feeling himself start to tear up. He couldn't lose her, not again.
Tanith took a deep breath in and wiped her eyes, "If they want me to go, I'll go. I'll show them what I showed them before. That I've changed, that I'm not a criminal."
'That's my girl,' Ghastly thought. He knew she was strong, but she had come close to dying so many times, he couldn't help but feel scared. "I think they have a plane ready for you," Ghastly said, his voice slightly shaking.
"Ghastly, I can see you're worried. But don't be," Tanith said, "I'll be fine." She turned and walked towards the door, where a cleaver was waiting to escort her to the plane.
Tanith walked alongside the cleaver in the crisp Roarhaven air. She loved this place, Ireland felt more like home then England.
Suddenly, she felt a twist in her gut. Tanith whirled around only to see a bat swinging towards her face. She dodged, sliding underneath the bat on her knees. Then she heard a voice calling, "Tanith, Tanith." Tanith turned her head slightly. In that one small laps of concentration her attacker struck. The bat hit her head and Tanith swayed before falling to the ground. The last thing she saw was Ghastly, running towards her.
Sometime later, Tanith woke. She was in a dark room. She was bound to a chair in the middle of the room. The chair was made of steel and was bolted to the floor. Her ankles were chained to the legs of the chair, and her arms shackled to the arm rests. Tanith suddenly felt a wave of nausea and panic consume her. She remembered being nailed to a chair years ago, she remembered being tortured. And then she remembered Ghastly, calling out her name, and she smiled, the pain vanishing instantly.
"Why are you smiling Miss Low," a voice asked.
Only then did she realise that there was someone else in the room with her.
Ghastly had tailed the van for over an hour, before it came to a stop in front of an apartment block in the middle of nowhere. He dove behind a wall and watched as two burly men unloaded a large crate. Ghastly could tell that the crate contained something worth more than all of the money in the world.
Tanith.
The men carried the crate through a fire-door and into the building. He waited until they were out of sight before he started moving. As he neared the door he heard the door bolt shut on the other side. A little bit of his hope crumbled away. Damn, he thought, Wait, there must be more than one door on this building.
Ghastly circled the building twice before deciding which door was the weakest. He walked back to the side door, which, judging by the peeling paint, was very old. Ghastly drew back to punch the door, but he realised moments before that if he punched down the door, it would create an awful lot of noise, which, in turn, would bring an awful lot of people to his location. He decided to take a subtler approach by ripping the door off its hinges.
He grabbed the door, and as he did, he thought perhaps he should try the handle to see if it was unlocked. And he found that at the slightest touch, the door gave inward and fell. Ghastly lunged to catch it to prevent it from making any noise. Carefully placing the door down on the floor, he walked towards the flight of stairs. Ghastly followed them down and down, until he heard voices.
"When do you think she'll wake up?" one of the voices said.
"Dunno," another voice said, "I wonder if that guy's gonna come after her. You know, the ugly one with the scars."
"Maybe."
"You really shouldn't talk about people behind their backs," Ghastly said as he punched both of the men square in the face. He then stepped over their unconscious bodies and continued down the stairs.
"Who are you?" Tanith asked.
"Me, I'm your worst nightmare," the man said.
"Really, I doubt that. I've dealt with much worse criminals than you. I've had a remnant stuck in me for the past few years, I've murdered the grand mage of the English sanctuary, I've been Darquesse's closest ally, I've collected all the God-Killer weapons and I was engaged to Billy-Ray Sanguine," Tanith paused, "Would you like me to continue?"
"Uh..uh…uh," the man stuttered, "W-well I have you chained to a chair!"
"Cat got your tongue?" Tanith smirked, "You know, you should really work on your self-confidence."
That was it. He'd had enough. His mostly calm demeanour had given way to anger. He lunged towards Tanith and started choking her.
"Who's the powerful one now, pretty," the man said as the door flew off its hinges and Ghastly burst in.
"No-one calls her pretty but me!" Ghastly roared as he tackled the man. He rained punches down on him, pummelling his gut, "Nice to see you my lady."
"Oh, I'm your lady now?" Tanith said, clearly amused.
Ghastly turned his head slightly towards Tanith. But he returned to punching the man, harder this time. He was too busy furiously punching the man that he didn't notice the cleaver sliding into the room.
"Ghastly look out!" Tanith screamed.
Ghastly whirled around only for his face to be met by the butt of a scythe.
When Ghastly woke up, he was strapped onto a chair next to Tanith.
"Rise and shine, my unsuccessful saviour," Tanith said.
"How long have I been out for?" Ghastly asked.
"A little while…"
Ghastly went to stretch and in doing so, broke the chains that were binding him to the chair.
"Oh," Ghastly said.
"Oh, indeed," Tanith said quite surprised.
"Would you like me to free you, my lady?"
"Yes please!"
Ghastly pulled Tanith up out of her chair and into a bone-crushed bear hug.
"Well, at least you kind of saved me then…" said Tanith, blushing slightly.
They heard heavy footsteps coming towards them and they broke apart and spun around to face the door. Tanith's "Worst Nightmare", the cleaver, the two burly men from the van, and about a dozen other people that they didn't recognise flooded into the room.
Ghastly and Tanith stood back to back.
"Together?" Ghastly asked.
"Together."