The morning council meeting had been even more dull than it normally was. Miss Robichaux's had thousands of applicants, and the council were trying to establish a system to test whether or not they were real witches. Queenie had a short attention span, and the rest of the council never seemed to like her ideas anyway, so she often found herself incredibly bored. They'd settled on bringing each applicant in for an interview where she could demonstrate her powers before she could be accepted into the academy. Cordelia had originally been opposed to the idea, saying it was "wrong" to reject girls who only wanted to join their sister witches. Queenie had to remind her several times that if the girls weren't witches at all, they would have no place and no purpose at the academy.

Queenie sighed and shifted in her seat, her eyes wandering over to where Zoe sat, tense and unusually quiet.

"What's up, Zoe?" she asked. Zoe didn't respond. "Zoe!" Queenie pinched her own backside and Zoe yelped. "What's up with you? You've hardly said anything all morning."

"Sorry," Zoe looked down nervously. "I saw something in my sleep last night. I saw Misty, and she spoke to me."

Cordelia smiled sympathetically. "I know it must be hard for you to lose her, Zoe. You've coped amazingly well, seeing as you were especially close friends with her." Zoe flinched at the last statement. "It's totally normal for you to dream about her sometimes." Queenie inwardly rolled her eyes. Cordelia's heart was in the right place, but she wasn't the brightest penny in the box, so she often ended up making things worse.

"No, it wasn't like that. This wasn't a dream, I always know when I'm dreaming," Zoe furrowed her brow in her attempt to explain, "this was vivid. It was real, but I wasn't."

"Say what?" Queenie asked.

Zoe put her hands to her head, like she was trying to physically organise her thoughts. "I could only touch the walls and the floor, everything else just passed through me, like I was a ghost. No-one could see or hear me either, no-one but Misty."

Cordelia leaned forward, intrigued. "What happened in the dream?" she asked.

"Well, it was a classroom, a science classroom. There were kids sitting at the tables and Misty was sitting with them. They were dissecting frogs. Misty kept ressurecting her frog, and the teacher made her kill it, over and over again." Zoe's eyes were brimming. "I tried to stop it, but I couldn't touch anything. I couldn't help her," her voice broke and a tear rolled down her cheek. "It was her hell. I'm sure."

Queenie was silent, perplexed. How could Misty possibly contact Zoe from hell, bring her into hell, then return her safely? She was probably forced back by the sunrise. Queenie was very clever. She always had an answer, and hated the rare occasions when she didn't.

"It makes so much sense." Cordelia looked up as if she'd seen an angel. Bitch actually got an answer for once, Queenie smiled to herself.

"How?" Zoe asked.

"The realm we access during Descensum is not, in fact, the afterlife. I was confused, but now it all fits."

"Yes, and...?" Queenie urged her on.

"When I went to my hell, I was blind. I expected to be able to see, since the afterlife shouldn't be subject to the restrictions of the body, but when I got there, I was still blind. I never went to the afterlife in the first place." Cordelia paused to check the girls were following, "Misty isn't dead."

Queenie frowned, "but we saw her, her body disintegrated in your arms. We're still finding bits of ash in the carpet. How can she be alive if she doesn't have a body?" She didn't like being the one asking the questions. Queenie didn't like depending on someone to answer her, or to do anything for her for that matter. Growing up in the care system, she'd learned that the only person she could truly trust with anything was herself.

They all sat silently for a while, contemplating the question. After a short time, Queenie spoke up again.

"Unless she's in a place between life and death. Maybe Descensum is like a trial period between the two, and you only really die if you stay there too long. You guys ever heard of Purgatory?" She sat back, satisfied that she was on top of the situation.

Cordelia stared hard at nothing. "Why is she still there?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the invisible point. "Why did she not die when her time ran out?"

"Misty knew a lot about life and death, with her resurgence," Zoe replied. "I remember something she said to me, when we were bringing Madison back. She said "there's too much death inside of her." Life and death are forces, and Misty understood that." The others nodded, intrigued by her idea. "Misty's powers got stronger the more she used them. At first she could only bring back little animals, now she can bring back alligators and human beings. I think whenever she uses her Resurgence, her life force gets stronger..."

"...so she's building up her life force by bringing that frog back" Queenie finished. "She has so much life inside her that death can't fully enter her and take her to the afterlife!"

Cordelia gasped. "If she's strong enough to contact Zoe, maybe we can get her out of there. But I need to check something first." She opened her laptop and began to rapidly type. She nodded and smiled as she read what was on the screen. "You're right, girls. On all of the recorded instances where a witch has been stuck in Descensum, then contacted the living, the witch has had the power of resurgence. Normally, souls that go to hell will pass on after a while, but witches with resurgence have a life force so strong that it and death cancel each other out. Misty isn't going anywhere until we get her out of that place."

Queenie slammed her hand on the table. "Then let's get her out."