Author's Note: Just to let folks know that, while we'll be using some of the book history, we treat the movie - and this series - as more of an adaptation. So things aren't going to be identical to the books.

Also, giving credit where it's due: some of the odd items in the maze were pulled from the old tabletop RPG setup, Warehouse 23.

The Boy Who Found Fear At Last

by Kira, Kate, and Kaylin

Chapter 2

"Santa! He's on my side again!"

"I am not! I am three times her size! I get three quarters of the bench!"

"That is so not how benches work! And you're reaching over Jamie!"

"Jamie is part of my quarters. He is a storyteller. Stories are my domain. I have blessed him as my own. My side is his side."

Jamie, squashed between Cupcake and Anansi, hissed a breath in as Anansi squashed him to his side in a spider-legged hug. "I don't know, Santa, things are getting pretty crazy back here. Maybe you should come and deal with this. I can take the reins for a moment." His eyes shone with eagerness that betrayed his false tension.

"Hah!" North barked out a laugh. "Children of all ages, if I had time to turn this sleigh around, I would still say sort it out amongst yourselves! We have places to be, people to visit! Hold on!"

He tossed another snowglobe, portalling to the opposite side of the planet, where the stars glimmered through scanty clouds in the night sky. The full moon shone above them.

No sooner had the sleigh flown into the moonlight, then the Man in the Moon's urgent voice assailed them.

"Manny, what is news?" North asked of the Moon.

"Have you seen Jack?" asked Tooth.

When Manny had spoken a few moments, Bunny held up both paws in protest. "Hang on, hang on Manny, one word at a time. Where was Jack?"

When Manny had spoken a little longer, Cupcake furrowed her brow. "What are Nysiads?"

"Rain nymphs! Not the worst company for the Guardian of Fun to be in," explained North, a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, as if he had firsthand experience of the nymphs' company himself. "But is no good if he's with them no longer. Manny, you were not seeing him anywhere else after?"

The answer was a quiet, terrifying no.

"We need to go talk to them," said Tooth. "They might have at least some idea of what's going on, of where he was going."

"They live on Mount Nysa," Bunny put in. "North, are you on this?"

North swirled the snowglobe in his hand. "Ah, of course! The Nysiads, they leave an impression. I could find my way back to their home by following the sound of rain."

But the snowglobe was faster, so North threw it. They vanished through another portal.

The sleigh passed through rain clouds to come in for a landing on Mount Nysa, which told them they were in the right place. As the rain fell on their heads, Sandy conjured a massive sand umbrella and held it over Jamie and Cupcake. The sounds of giggles and hearty laughter drifted up to them through the trees.

Bunny leaned over the edge of the sleigh, smelling the wind. "Jack was definitely here," he said. "All over these mountains, actually." He paused, and sniffed the air more deeply. "Smells like a couple satyrs joined in after he left." He took another deep sniff, then looked at Tooth, eyebrows raised. "We should leave the kids in the sleigh."

"But I wanted to meet the Nysiads!" Jamie objected, as the sleigh bounced to a halt on the choppy mountain landscape. "Ow. And satyrs sound cool -"

"Maybe some other time," said Tooth, patting Jamie consolingly as she raised an eyebrow at Bunny in comprehension.

"No way," Cupcake objected, trying to climb out. "I didn't climb on Santa's sleigh to sit in it the whole time."

Tooth zipped up from her seat, plucking Cupcake up and sitting her back down with surprising strength. "Don't worry, Anansi will keep you company."

Anansi, halfway out of the sleigh, looked up. "I will?"

Cupcake and Jamie looked doubtful. "He will?"

"Do not worry," North said, as he followed Tooth, Bunny, and Sandy off the sleigh. "We promise to have no fun without you. Anansi, keep eyes on them. All eight, perhaps."

Jamie and Cupcake flopped back in their seats under the hovering dreamsand umbrella with resentful sighs. Anansi folded himself back into the sleigh, bearing his gleaming white teeth in a slow, sharp-toothed grin. "Would you children like to hear a story?"

Fortunately for the Guardians, despite the satyrs dancing and drinking in the rain, the Nysiads were just having a party rather than a party. As soon as they saw the Guardians break through the underbrush the satyrs waved and the Nysiads squealed with delight.

"Northy!"

"What didja bring us?"

Pedile, Cisseis, and Arsinoe spotted Tooth and swarmed over to her with excited grins as the rest of the Nysiads crowded around North exactly like excited children at Christmas. "He brought us the Tooth Fairy!"

"You left your nest!"

"We thought you'd never come party with us!"

Tooth smoothed back her feathers and smiled at the sisters. "Sorry, girls, I'm still here on business. We're looking for our friend Jack. Have you seen him?"

"Yes, is very important," North agreed. "No time for toys today, ladies, so sorry!"

The Nysiads moaned with disappointment, but composed themselves.

"He was here two days ago," said Bromia, offering a bottle to Sandy, who bowed to her politely before accepting it, as she held a hand up to keep the rain off him. "He said he was on a Spiritual Journey. He didn't tell you where he was going?"

"He didn't tell us he was going on a journey at all," said Bunny, bouncing in place with agitation as Eriphia walked up beside him. "He was supposed to meet me in Waimea, but he's gone walkabout instead-" He cut off abruptly, frozen as Eriphia reached up with a smug smile to scratch a spot on his neck. "Ah - Sheila - this is not the time -" he paused as she didn't stop, and gave in with a sigh half of resignation, half of enjoyment. "At least point us in the right direction. In minute or two."

"He didn't go in any direction," said Eriphia, adjusting her fingers slightly. "He just vanished - poof! Like through a portal."

"Only it wasn't really a 'poof,' said Coronis, "It was more an, uh - otherworldly wrenching of the fabric of space. Does that sound right?"

The other Nysiads nodded thoughtfully in agreement.

"He had this puzzle box," said Erato. "We thought of was from the Man in the Moon, but then there was that noise -"

"This puzzle box," said North, bushy eyebrows raising. "Did it look complex? Intricate?"

"Very," said Erato. "It had all these moving parts."

North nodded his head. "And when the puzzle was complete, he was sent away, as if he had been pulled through one of the portals from my snowglobes?"

The Nysiads nodded.

North paced back and forth in place, animated even in thought, his hand brushing at his bushy beard.

"There are very few who have the skill to create such a thing. That gives us a place to start."

"Is Jack in trouble?" asked Eriphia.

"He has to be." Bunny ducked (reluctantly) out from under from Eriphia's scritchy fingers. "He wouldn't break a meeting with me otherwise. North, have you got a lead?"

Ambrosia, who'd come up beside Eriphia, brought her hands to her face in glee. "You and Jack were doing a thing? Are you friends now?"

"That's adorable," said Eriphia, mirroring her sister.

Bunny rolled his eyes, but it didn't mask his half-smile. "That lead, North?"

"I am having a thought. Is just a thought," said North, his brow furrowed, resting his chin on his knuckle. "But is very persistent thought. There are few who could make such a device - very few. To the sleigh!"

"Thank you so much for your help," said Tooth, as she drew away from the nymphs

"We hope Jack is okay," said Ambrosia. "Please have him come see us when you find him."

"And you should come see us sometime too," said Cisseis, mainly to Tooth, but she nodded to the rest of the Guardians. "All of you work too hard. If Jack's spiritual journey goes well, maybe he can still teach you a thing or two about relaxing when you get back."

"Here's hoping," Bunny agreed. The Guardians glanced between themselves as they made their way back to the sleigh, their worry unspoken, but clear to each other.

They arrived to find Anansi engrossed in the telling of what was apparently a very suspenseful story, by the way Cupcake and Jamie were leaning forward, silent and motionless, their mouths open with anticipation.

"- but when she pushed aside the branches, she saw only -" Anansi looked up to see the returning Guardians. "Oh look, they've returned! It seems we'll have to finish later."

The kids wailed "Nooooooo!" and Jamie flopped dramatically out of his seat.

"You can't stop there!" Cupcake howled. "Not when everything's so horrible!"

"Did they find the statue? What happens next? I'll die if I don't know!" Jamie wailed, writhing at the bottom of the sleigh.

"Of course I can stop there," Anansi said, grinning as the children loudly, wordlessly objected. "If I didn't, I couldn't enjoy these beautiful tears from my audience."

"You're evil, Spider-man," Cupcake accused. "If you don't tell us the ending, I'll make one up."

Anansi laughed out loud. "And I would love to hear it," he said, without a trace of sarcasm.

The other Guardians piled into the sleigh, Bunny taking the seat behind North.

"You didn't say what your lead was," he reminded the Cossack. "You gonna share that insight with any of us, mate?"

"There are few who could make a device such as the Nysiads said - very few," said North. He gave Bunny a meaningful look. "And there is one of those few who has no love for me," he added, and Bunny's eyes widened with recognition.

"But first, I think we stop to see one who does have love for all of us," said North. He cracked the reins and sent the reindeer soaring into the sky.

There was no way to track where he'd been. It wasn't as if he had a marker on hand, after all. So, it was with great hesitance that Jack decided to mark the walls with the only thing he had available to him - his blood. Biting his finger hard enough to make it bleed was exactly as painful as he thought it would be, but the bites healed quickly and the pain was tolerable as long as he gave each finger time to let the dull ache from his self-inflicted wounds fade.

At each junction between turns of the maze, he marked one wall with a number to keep track of where he'd already been. He also smudged the pages of his book to mark the passage of time, one smudge per day. It was hard to tell without the sun to guide him, but after living over three hundred years his sense of time had gotten rather well-developed.

He was fairly sure at least a day had passed, and so far his searching had amounted to a big, ol' nothing. The passageways all looked identical, aside from his marks. If not for them, he would have thought he'd been through the same turns multiple times already.

After what felt like the millionth right turn, Jack finally walked into a room that was unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Light came from nowhere, much like it did in Bunny's warren, and like the Warren the entire area was filled with plants - but they were all made of colored glass. They scattered the light through the room in prismatic bands of color, wild conflicting splashes of light that seemed as alive as real plants.

Jack reached up to touch one, pleased as it swayed on its fragile glass stem without breaking. It was cold to the touch, like the smoothest sheet of ice. He brought his face close to it and breathed on the flower petals. Frost from his breath scattered across it in fractal patterns, even though he was completely powerless without his staff.

After hours of wandering in the dark, featureless maze, the delicate beauty of the flowers was as good as a glimpse of sunlight. Jack was caught up in enjoying it for a good moment, before it occurred to him to wonder what something lovely was doing in this maze at all.

Pitch had said there were horrors in the maze that made one wish it were empty instead. So what did that make this room of beauty?

As if reading his mind, the flowers all suddenly bent on their stems, turning to face him like so many eyes, their petals spinning, exposing razor-sharp edges.

Jack didn't wait around, no longer interested to see what the room was. He booked it through the field of flowers and reached the other side just before they exploded in a cloud of whirling razor-edged shrapnel petals.

Well, so much for a moment of soothing beauty. Jack sat against the wall to calm his frantic breathing in the nothingness of the maze as the noise of the shattering flowers died down.

He looked up briefly, and saw a mark of his own blood on the wall

"Cock and pie!"

He'd gotten turned around again. Jack rose to his feet with a groan, and trudged on. At this rate, it would take him years to make any progress.

The next turn of a corner brought him into a room shelved almost to the very top of the maze - almost, but not quite enough to climb to the actual top from. That was Jack's first disappointed observation. The second was that the shelves were all full of stuff - some of it weird and unrecognizable at first glance, some of it apparently mundane - like all the nails, spoons, and single socks lying around.

"Well." Jack frowned at the stuff. "This makes perfect sense and isn't weird or seriously creepy in any way."

He hadn't forgotten the razor flowers of before, but he still had to wonder if some of the things on the shelves might be useful.

If he'd had his staff, he would have poked the nearest thing (a box, with weird symbols on it). Then again, if he had his staff, he'd have flown out of the maze hours ago.

The next best thing he could do was poke at a box, back away, poke at it again, back away, flip off its lid, back away - and so on, until he was sure it wasn't going to explode in his face. He crept over slowly after all that timid poking and peeked in. The moment he did, the contents of the box shot out, narrowly missing his face. They arced in the air above him. Jack threw himself backward and covered his face, peeking through the gap between his arms.

It was a pair of ice skates, of all things, old beat-up leather ones, child's sized and crudely stitched. They reminded Jack of the ones he and his sister had used when he was young. Far be it from doing anything dangerous, they glided and twirled overhead, as if someone was skating invisibly in the air.

Jack stayed where he sat on the ground for several minutes, waiting for them to do something dangerous, but they never did. Before long, Jack found them far too elegant to be frightening. Like the left socks and sets of keys and some of the battered toys he saw lying around, he had a feeling that the skates were certainly lost but just as certainly harmless.

"Don't suppose you know the way out, huh?" he asked of the skates, climbing to his feet. They suddenly stopped, something he took as a no, before starting up in sluggish spirals again. "Guess not or you'd be triple salchow-ing your way to freedom right now instead of hanging around with me."

The skates followed Jack in the air as he stepped forward towards the boxes again. The skates weren't exactly useful but maybe there was something in the piles of junk that could actually help him.

Jack used his tried and true poke-and-retreat method on another box before finally mustering up the courage to peek inside. This time it was a tuning fork. Curious, he reached inside and picked it up. It was strangely warm in his hands. There weren't a lot of ways he imagined a tuning fork could be helpful in escaping a maze, but he still struck it as lightly as possible on the side of the box, thinking it would be nice to hear something other than the sound of his voice.

There was no audible sound but pain exploded in Jack's head, a stabbing pain in the center of his skull so piercing it brought tears to his eyes. He dropped the tuning fork, unintentionally making it ring out again, and crumpled to the floor in a ball. Fortunately, the stabbing pain lasted for only ten seconds before fading to a dull ache.

"Not my most brilliant moment."

Jack carefully put the tuning fork back in its box and put the lid on.

A bottle on the shelf caught his eye, and he stood up to get a closer look, pressing his hand to his forehead against the dull ache lingering there. Inside the bottle was a tiny figure dressed in what looked like a fanciful Arabian costume.

It was too good to be true, but Jack still grabbed the bottle. His spark of hope all but died as he saw the little figure inside was not a living genie, but a skeleton. He opened the bottle but all that happened was that it smelled a bit musty.

On closer inspection, the tiny skeleton inside had already crumbled slightly from Jack shaking it around. He set the bottle back on the shelf with a sigh. Even if the bottle had held a genie, it might have been one of the ones that killed its liberator upon gaining freedom. Anansi had told him stories. Still, it had been worth a try.

Jack poked the lid of a new box open and jumped back when a few notes of music tumbled out. He crept forward, inspecting the box more carefully. It was old, gilded and carved with elegant golden designs, obviously quite valuable. He pushed open the lid again, and more music filtered out. He left the lid open, and the music went on and on, with no signs of winding down, but that was all it did.

Jack had never heard a music box with a song that changed subtly each time it played, though. Curiously, he pulled the back of the music box off but all he saw inside were the usual parts most music boxes had. He snapped the box back together and set it back in its place.

The music was eerie, but not frightening. It was more unearthly than anything, filled with the kind of beauty that took someone far away from where they were. It sounded like like kind of music that came from places that were brighter - and older - than anything Jack had ever known.

He left it playing as he looked through the other boxes. The golden-toned music was a comfort.

The next box opened from the front, like a door. Jack pulled it open -

- and was suddenly looking out from inside the box. Yet his hand was still on the knob of the box's door. His headless body stood in front of him.

He shut the door, and suddenly he was looking at the box again, his head back in its usual place. Jack stood stock still for a moment, looked left, looked right, felt reassured that his head was still connected as it ought to be, and opened the door again. Instantly, he was inside the box, looking out at the rest of the room. The ice skates breezed merrily in front of his vision, twirling as if for his benefit.

He lifted the hand not on the tiny door's knob, and waved it through where his head normally was. His hand encountered nothing.

Jack shut the box and walked quickly away. "Worst. Box. Ever."

A sword leaned against the wall, gilded gold like the music box, and engraved with runes. It took longer than usual for the Guardians translation magic to kick in, but when it did, Jack read "Take Me Up" on the blade.

He laughed out loud. "How about no, mysterious sword?"

Then again... it was a weapon. And he was currently unarmed. He knew which side to hold, right? He'd seen North waving his swords around all the time. How hard could wielding one be?

Reluctantly, Jack stepped forward, reaching out and brushing his fingers against the hilt of the weapon. When he wasn't randomly electrocuted or set on fire, he let his fingers curl around the hilt more tightly.

He lifted up the sword to take a good look at it. The other side was engraved as well: "Cast Me Aside."

That was when he heard the whispers. They were ugly and oily and reached deep inside Jack's head to that area of his brain that itched when he was his most afraid.

"end it all. end it break it let it fall to dust. let the dark sweep in and devour it. the light must die. kozmotis, make them bow down in fear of us..."

Jack threw the sword to the ground with a loud clang. No go on that one. (Who was Kozmotis anyway?)

He lifted open the next box and saw nothing inside but a greyish layer of dust. The tiniest air currents swirled it up from its rest, and Jack watched the patterns they made.

Suddenly, the box fell apart, and dust avalanched over Jack's hands. He jumped back, shaking the dust off, but they quickly began to itch. He blew on his hands, reluctant to grind the dust in or wipe it on his sweater, but before his eyes, angry blood bruises blossomed on his hands.

"Ahh!" Jack shook his hands more vigorously. The itching went on, but the blisters stopped growing once his hands were mottled and angry-looking. He crouched in the center of the room, blowing on his hands, breathing heavily, but soon, the itching subsided. The bruises began to recede, healing at his usual accelerated rate.

It was probably about time to go - but Jack spotted another box gilded with similar carvings to the music box. He looked at this one closely, trying to decipher the pictograms on its surface. These were not words, apparently, because the Guardian magic didn't translate them, but the circular lid had notches around it, like a timer. Jack touched it, and when his hands didn't burst into flame, he tried to lift the lid. It twisted instead. He turned the lid counterclockwise, and it began to open, ticking open slowly.

The lid flew open with a flash of light and a bang like a star exploding. Jack shut his eyes in pain as a dull ringing filled his ears. He must have yelled, but couldn't hear it as he fell to the ground, away from the noise and the light.

He waited as the ringing in his ears faded slowly into silence. The pain in his eyes faded, and he opened them.

Nothing changed. He blinked his eyes, and saw only darkness.

He realized he couldn't hear the ringing anymore - but he couldn't even hear the sound of his own breathing.

He yelled. He knew he'd yelled, because he felt himself yelling, but he didn't hear it. He blinked his eyes, waved his hands in front of his face, but - nothing.

He knelt on the ground, feeling himself making noises he couldn't hear, waiting for his body to heal itself, and curling up on the ground when it didn't.

He lay that way for an hour, feeling exposed and terrified, blinking his eyes in attempt after attempt to clear them. It was only at the end of the hour that he began to see shadows in the blackness of his vision, and hear his breath as he took it in and out. Slowly, finally, his vision returned, his pulse beat in his ears, and he heard himself speaking again.

The ice skates twirled above him when he was able to see again, hovering there like they hadn't left him while he curled up senseless.

He was still trembling as he pushed himself up to lean against the wall. He rubbed at his eyes and wiped his still-wet face as he sat there, waiting for the rest of his vision and hearing to come back.

"I think, uh, I think that's enough opening boxes for today, huh?" he said shakily to the skates. "Let's save some for next Christmas."

As he stood, though, his gait was unsteady, and he knocked into one of the shelves, knocking a box from it. He yelped and jumped back, closing his eyes and covering his ears, but nothing flashed.

He caught sight of something moving in the box, though. Instead of taking a closer look, he stepped back.

"Yeah, I've had enough surprises today."

The creature inside the box thrashed, throwing the lid open, and out scurried a many-legged thing that - no, it was a pair of hands sewn together. The hands reared up on one set of fingers, opening a palm in Jack's direction. An eye blinked at him in the center of the palm.

Jack stared at it, motionless, and the creature scurried away with sudden, surprising speed. Jack scurried even more quickly in the other direction, running out of the door opposite the one the sewn-together hands had run through.

The skates followed him, still doing their lazy twirls overhead. He lead them down a long corridor, wondering when they'd stop following. They never did.

"So, are you in this for the long haul, skate-buddies?" Jack asked, eyeing them. They swished side to side across his path as he kept walking it.

Well. Jack couldn't say he minded.

When he looked down from the skates, a glow up ahead caught his eye. Something shed a blue light around the next corner of the maze, a bright gleam unlike anything else that illuminated the dull maze.

Jack saw something at the corner far ahead of him. A hand, reaching around the join in the maze walls. Half a face, peeking at him, shedding that blue light.

He'd only opened his mouth to call out when the figure disappeared around the corner.

Jack bolted after it. "Hey! Hey, uh - person! You're not leading me into a trap too, are you?"

He was all too keenly aware that he'd done a lot of running into traps, especially lately, so when he reached the corner of the maze, he slowed down and took it carefully.

The figure was flitting around the next corner just as Jack looked around the wall to see it. Jack caught a glimpse of a spear grasped in the running figure's hand.

He kept up the chase, taking the corners carefully, always just in time to see where the light boy had gone by a gleam at each new corner.

Finally he saw him standing still at the end of a long hallway, long enough to get a proper glimpse of him.

He was just a slip of a thing, barely substantial, like a cloud of warm breath on a cold winter day. He looked younger than Jack and was skinny in a way that almost looked alien. His clothing absolutely looked alien; his strange armor looked like it had been grown rather than made, replete with pointy shoes that gave him an elfin air. His hair was bright white and his skin glowed with a pale light like the light of the stars. The thing was most striking to Jack though was how similar the boy's face looked to his own - just different enough to make it clear they weren't the same person, but similar enough that they could've been confused for cousins, maybe. Given the boy's strange - nearly alien - form, it was clear that was just a coincidence, but it was striking in its strangeness.

Clutched in the boy's hand was a spear with a glowing blade at the end that looked more like a crystal than something made of metal, but he didn't seem to be planning on using it. His body language was far from aggressive.

In fact, on the elfin boy's face, Jack saw an expression of great sadness, sadder than he had ever seen before in his life. It didn't look like it belonged there naturally - a face like that seemed like it was more prone to laughter and joy.

"Who are you?" he asked the boy, cautiously approaching him in the hallway, his heart panging with the possibility that this boy - younger than he was - had been trapped alone in this maze, too. "Are you - are you lost, too?"

If he was, who knew how long he'd been lost?

The boy stared down the hallway, sad eyes boring into Jack like he was trying to communicate something with his gaze alone.

Then he darted around yet another corner.

"Hey! Hey, kid, wait!"

Jack ran over, turned the corner and found himself in a gilded walkway with windows that opened up to the most beautiful city he'd ever seen. Ships - flying ships like something out of a sci fi movie - shot along from place to place, gleaming silver and gold, as if they were made from parts of the finest Swiss watches. Jack could only gape in awe at the majesty of what he saw, at the massive buildings spiralling up into gold and crystal towers.

"General Pitchiner, I have the guard shifts for next week."

Jack turned and saw -

He saw something that made absolutely no sense. Two men in red and black uniforms, their armor a shining gold, walked up the walkway towards him, in lock-step.

"Thank you, Captain Breen," said a voice Jack was most used to hearing from the shadows.

Jack could only stare, slack jawed, as the two soldiers walked towards him. One of them, Jack had never seen before - a bearded man with sparkling, golden skin that reminded him of Sandman's.

The other soldier, though, was clearly, and bewilderingly, none other than -

"Pitch!"

Jack threw himself at the soldier to punch him in the face, but he passed through him like smoke - just as he'd passed through every human before he'd had believers.

So this was an illusion.

Jack stood for a moment, wondering if he should try to find his way out of the vision, or follow the two men. Ultimately, the pull of curiosity was too strong to ignore. He followed the two soldiers.

The illusion of Pitch looked...different. His skin was pale, but the normal fleshtones of a human being rather than a dreary gray. His eyes, instead of being eclipsed by a dangerous yellow color, were the only thing grey about him, but they were warm and almost...kind. His hair looked normal, instead of spiking up like he'd found some porcupine roadkill and decided it'd make a dandy hat. It was cut short, like that of military officers on Earth.

Instead of oozing everywhere he walked, he carried himself with a quiet, upright dignity that Jack never would have thought Pitch capable of.

"Very good, Captain Breen." The soldier who resembled Pitch nodded. "Make sure it's posted before the end of your shift today."

"Yessir." The golden-skinned man paused. "By the way, sir, am I supposed to curtsey now that you're a general, sir?"

Pitch seemed to be resisting the urge to grin and nearly failing at it. "A simple salute will do, Captain Breen."

"Sir, yes, sir," the soldier added, with a perfectly straight face, "Sir."

"Jem -" Pitch corrected himself. "Captain - if you have any problems with protocol, you are free to voice them."

"Well, sir, it's just sir, sir sir, sir sir sir. Sir."

Now Pitch laughed, openly and freely in a way that was completely devoid of any sneering malice. It was a laugh Jack never could have imagined coming out of Pitch's mouth.

"Jem, I know it's an adjustment, but if anyone else catches us being casual, it won't reflect well on us. We have our careers to think about."

"No one will catch us being casual when it's just us, Koz. Back when you were a captain and I was a lieutenant you weren't like this unless we were deployed. Now you're a general, who says you gotta stuff your shirt up, and why are you listening to them?"

Koz? Was that short for Kozmotis? That was the name Jack had heard those frightening voices whisper when'd picked up that sword earlier.

He followed the two down several more turns, running alongside them to see their faces as they talked. They passed several strange circular devices which they put their palms on that seemed to perform some kind of scan - maybe security checkpoints? The massive, heavy doors that opened after they did it didn't seem apt to opening otherwise.

"It's different in the upper ranks. There are...expectations."

"What we really need is a good round of Moonball," said the golden, bearded soldier. Kozmotis snorted at the suggestion. "No, hear me out," he went on. "Imagine it - you're a general now, you've got general clout. You've got rank over Asmeagan, and he's more stuffed-shirted at his funnest than you are even when you try. Take that rank, and order him to let us make him eat dirt with it. Our unit, and his unit, Saturday. What do you say?"

Kozmotis waved his hand. "I'm far too busy on Saturday for such frivolities now that I've achieved rank."

"C'mon! What use is rank if you're not using it to stick old sticks in the mud, uh...in the mud?"

"I said I was busy Saturday," Kozmotis said smoothly. "What about Sunday?"

The bearded soldier laughed, clapping Kozmotis - General Pitchiner - on the back.

"See you then," the burly man said as he ducked down another hallway, report still in hand.

Pitch - Kozmotis kept walking, the slightest spring to his step as he did. As he approached another security checkpoint, this one full of heavily armed soldiers, that spring in his step faded away and was replaced with trepidation that he seemed to be trying to hide.

The soldiers at the checkpoint saluted.

"Sir. The area is secure, sir."

Kozmotis returned the salute. "At ease, soldiers. I'm here to relieve Captain Jelias and report for my shift."

There was another security check to complete here. The soldiers scanned him with handheld … somethings that weren't unlike the metal detectors at an airport.

"He's clean," said the soldier at the checkpoint. He placed his hand onto another circular device. The massive doors behind the checkpoint opened and the general strode into a cavernous room. At the end stood a massive, massive door. It was locked up with all manner of magic seals and protective sigils. They were all alien, but it was very, very clear to Jack that they were meant to keep something inside.

Standing in front of the door, keeping guard, was a female soldier. Under her helmet, her hair was blond, and a large scar twisted her lips.

"Sir," she said, saluting Kozmotis. "The gate is secure, sir. All seals have been checked for stress fractures and are intact. All fifteen containment spells have been recast as per protocol."

"At ease, Captain Jelias. You're relieved. I'll be assuming the next guard shift."

"Thank you, sir."

Kozmotis took his post at the door. The captain relaxed just slightly as she walked away, looking back at him with a lingering glance of what possibly was concern.

"They've been quiet today, sir."

"As per the usual, I expect."

"As per the usual, sir," she repeated slowly.

"I said you're relieved, Captain," Kozmotis repeated, but his voice wasn't overly harsh. In fact, he sounded as if he was trying to keep it from sounding too gentle because he knew it would be unprofessional.

"Of course, sir," the captain said. She marched out with obvious reluctance.

The massive doors shut, leaving Kozmotis alone in the room, keeping guard in front of what only could be an incredibly high-security prison.

When the silence fell, the whispers began.

"kooozmotiiisss."

It took a while for the whispers to form into voices. They were easy to mistake for ambient noises before their words became too pointed to mistake for wind from outside the walls.

"it will fall. it will fall into dust."

"everything will fall away into the void. even the dust will spin apart."

"and it will be you that undid them."

"You," the man said shakily, "are trapped - and that is where you will stay. Never to harm anyone - any child - ever again."

Yet he shook as he stood there, looking as if this was some great torment he endured on a regular basis and always dreaded going back to.

"It's over, and the worlds are safe. You're never leaving this prison."

"you will try to stop us."

"you will not stop us."

Jack could almost feel the man's emotions as he felt them. Pride seemed to be the strongest among those feelings. Pride that made him hide just how difficult this was for him - and shame at his own weakness.

Other feelings of his were far more selfless in nature. If he had difficulty enduring this, how could he force this duty on others? Only those who could endure it should have to - if he gave up his shifts, others would have to suffer through them instead.

This was simply another burden for him to endure.

"you're going to fail them all, kozmotis."

His fear was as sharp as the rasp of the voices on Jack's ears.

"I never have," protested the man who looked so much like Pitch, in calm, even tones betrayed only by his shaking hands. "I never will."

Just as suddenly as Jack had found himself in the strange vision, it blasted apart, dissolving into golden dust that faded away. Jack found himself in an empty room with empty gray walls, a room that looked like all the other passageways in the maze.

"What," he said to the skates, now pirouetting into view over his head, "the heck. Was that?"

The sleigh emerged over a Siberian forest, the day just breaking as North brought the reindeer lower over the stretch of evergreens. Jamie and Cupcake leaned over the side of the sleigh, gazing at the new landscape in wonder before returning to their prior activity - pestering Anansi.

"C'mon, we've got time! Keep telling the story!"

Cupcake agreed, "One more chapter! One more chapter!"

Jamie took up the chant, and Anansi sat smug and satisfied as they wore themselves out with yelling. "Maybe you should yell louder. It might magically give us time for the rest."

"C'moon, we gotta know what happens next!"

"You're gonna tell us when the sleigh lands, right?"

The Guardians laughed.

"Just one part of a story, and already you are wanting to stay in sleigh when you are in a great story yourself?" North asked of the children. "No, my little friends, storytime is all very well and good but if all you are doing is listening to the stories of others, you are not making stories of your own! As our dear friend will tell you - ah, sooner than I thought."

He nodded to a distant speck on the horizon, which resolved itself into a large bird, flying towards them. Too large a bird, in fact - greater than any Jamie and Cupcake had ever seen.

Bunny, Tooth, and Sandy's worried expressions had lifted briefly. Anansi grinned hugely, steepling his fingers with eagerness.

"Who -?" Jamie asked,

"Her name is Katherine," said Anansi. "A lady of taste and talent."

"I haven't seen her in a hundred years," Tooth commented, as they drew closer to the bird, and the children realized it wasn't the bird the Guardians were talking about - it was the woman riding the bird. "She visited the Tooth Palace while chasing down some story close to my home. I wonder how much she's written since I saw her last."

Sandy nodded as they floated out of the sleigh, sand images of books and scrolls that Toothiana seemed to recognize floating over his head.

"Yes, I loved that one! I couldn't put it down! I had to get each sentence in between assignments." Tooth's smile was sheepish. "Some of the fairies got lost that day."

The bird, a giant, snow-white goose, wheeled in midair a half-mile ahead of them, flying their way as the sleigh caught up. When they'd drawn up beside the goose, the woman on its back waved to them.

"Make some room for me," she called, to the full sleigh. "I have a lot to go over."

The Guardians slid to the far side of the sleigh, and Katherine stood up on gooseback. The goose veered over the sleigh, and she leapt onto a clear seat. The goose circled overhead, and suddenly diminished in size until it was small enough to drop down into the myth lady's arms. She smoothed its feathers with an affectionate stroke, and it settled into her lap.

She was in her twenties, and wore a yellow coat. A colorful hat sat on her head, tied to it with a blue kerchief so it didn't blow off in the wind. Strapped to her waist was a curved sword, much like North's sabers, in an intricately designed golden sheath.

Her expression was stern in a way that came of constant, practiced concentration and focus rather than an ill temper, but it gave way to a broad smile as the Guardians swarmed to greet her.

"Good t'see ya again, Katherine."

"It's been too long."

A sand pictogram of a scroll being written upon, with a question mark.

"It's good to see you too, it has been too long, and the writing is going just fine, thank you for asking." Katherine's face warmed with the hint of a smile. "I wish this visit was on much better circumstances than these, but it's good to see all of you again."

Anansi slid to her side, bearing his gleaming white grin. "Kaaaatherine," he said, in his smoothest-toned voice. "How long has it been? Years? Decades? Do I have a story for you."

"Might it be called 'The Frost Spirit and the Honey Tree?'" asked Katherine, giving Anansi the sort of wry expression that made her look like she ought to have a pair of reading glasses to be looking over the rims of at him. "Because I've heard it."

"What!" Anansi's composure fell. "How! Who told you that one?"

"Is that one about Jack?" Jamie's expression perked up. "It sounds like it's about Jack. Can we hear it?"

"When you're done with the other one," Cupcake put in.

"No time for stories now," said North, putting the sleigh in hover mode, and grabbing Katherine and pulling her into a massive bear-hug, goose and all. "But there is at least time for this!"

"North, I know technically I don't need to breathe, but being able to would still be nice."

North released her with a laugh, clapping her on both shoulders. "Forgive me. And may I introduce Jamie and Cupcake?"

The children waved politely, Jamie's smile slightly shy, Cupcake's brazen and confident.

"Children, Katherine. She is my dear friend, who joined me on many an adventure when I was young and shall we say, more clever than wise. She was the first to believe Nicholas St. North could be more than a bandit looking for next big treasure. "

"You'd know her better as Mother Goose," Bunny put in.

The children's eyes widened with recognition.

"Keeper of stories," said Anansi. "All stories," he added, smugly. "Not just the quality ones, like mine."

"Says you," Katherine said tartly. "Just because you look at a grander scope than I do, it doesn't mean the stories you know are more important than others. Which brings me to why I was leaving Santoff Claussen. I was flying to see you, North."

"What luck that I was flying to see you in the same sky!" North exclaimed. "We have problem, big big problem. Our friend, Jack -"

"He's missing," Katherine finished for him. "I know. That's why I was looking for you, North. I heard a whisper or two you might want to hear."

North leaned intently. "You have heard word?"

"I know someone who knows someone who - well, you get the idea. I have my network of contacts. I've gotten word that a goblin named Mnug was overheard bragging in a bar in El Dorado about bringing meteor ore, laced with stardust, to an enemy of yours. He said it was meant to be used for a trap for one of the Guardians. "

"Which enemy?" North asked.

"By all accounts, that's the one part Mnug hasn't bragged about but I'm thinking it's someone with an old grudge. Someone who would need that meteor to make the kind of metal you use in your snowglobes to created portals..."

North leaned back, sucking in a breath. "Just as I thought."

"From the sound of it, he was contracted out to make this...whatever it was, for someone even worse, someone whose name Mnug was too afraid to mention - someone who wanted to trap a Guardian."

"Who? Who made the thing and who's the person giving the thing to?" asked Jamie, as the Guardians exchanged knowing, concerned glances. They said nothing, and Jamie frowned. "You guys are being really heavy on the foreshadowing, just so you know."

"They probably didn't," Anansi whispered conspiratorially to Jamie.

North raised his eyebrow in what, to all appearances, was a friendly fashion. "Katherine, my dear, where might I find this Mnug?"

Katherine smiled her savvy hint of a smile.

"Naturally, he'd have left the bar in El Dorado long ago, but someone with good sources might be able to tell you he has been returning there quite regularly as of late."

North smiled his beaming smile. "And I do know someone who has very good sources."

"So then I says to 'em, I says 'Nobby ain't got nothin' on Mnug the Treacherous' and pow, right in the kisser. Went down like a sack of cats over the side of a bridge."

"Waste of good cats, that is. Good eatin'."

"S'just an expression."

The city of El Dorado gleamed with gold, as the legends said, but like every city, it had its seedy sections. The ones where the gold had become a bit tarnished. Or, to be more accurate, where any of the gold not firmly welded in place had long since been filched when nobody around was looking (and where some of the firmly welded gold had been pried away with a crowbar when nobody around was conscious).

The nameless, (nearly) goldless bar provided drink and a resting place for a lot of such filchers, one of whom had recently become quite the storyteller - to a point. Mnug was a tough nut, as mouthy goblins went. There were some heavy hitters in El Dorado's shadowy corners who had to give him credit - it took more than the usual measures to get the names of shady employers out of Mnug, for all that he bragged freely about the work he did for them.

A burly troll was about to head out through the bar door but some instinct itching in the back of his troll brain told him to wait a moment. He was the lucky one. The other two goblins near the door were not. They flew halfway across the room when the door was kicked open, partly from the force of the kick, partly because the sight of the kicker's red coat and massive boots incited them to spontaneously learn to fly, just to get away.

Every head in the room turned to the bar door and the individuals that stood there. Those that were only mildly malicious, mere ruffians a little rough around the edges, stared in open awe. Those who had performed certain deeds they wanted to hide were all consumed by the same terrified wish - 'Please let the Guardians be here for someone other than me.'

The Guardians followed Nicholas St. North in, all but one - including the Spider, a new addition to the Guardians, though rumor had it he had perhaps been working for the Man in the Moon longer than anyone could have guessed. Even the Tooth Fairy had left her palace, and judging from her expression, had come down from her mountain to unleash her wrath upon the person who'd made her come such a long way.

The Guardians were accompanied by two human children, wearing bemused expressions, fearless in this otherwise-unsavory environment.

Those patrons that had weapons, resheathed them. Those that had no sheaths quietly put their weapons down, hid their drinks, and straightened their posture.

It was in their best interests not to present a bad image for children while the Guardians and actual children were present.

Mnug the Goblin shrank in his seat, trying very hard to slide out of view and not look like he was doing it, in a bar full of carefully motionless rapscallions. But his motion only caught Nicholas St. North's eye, and the goblin froze again as North's smile blossomed across his face.

"Mnug! Good fellow! A moment of your time?"

"Yes!" squawked the harpy sitting to Mnug's left, leaping from her seat. "Yes, he is Mnug! You may talk to him! You may have my seat to do so!"

"And mine!"

"Oh, yes, mine too!"

"We're not all sitting," Bunnymund cut in, in a dry voice that silenced every whisper in the room.

North, however, pulled a seat up cheerily. "Thank you, very courteous. So! Mnug. I think perhaps you have noticed - we are missing a friend. The whispers on the street, they say you perhaps can tell me where he has gone, yes?"

Mnug, whose reputation was of not giving up the goods, of being reliably tight-lipped, trembled under Santa Claus's smiling gaze, and cracked like an eggshell beneath a bowling ball.

"I don't know! I swear, I wasn't told nothin. I'm just a finder, that's all. I had no idea -"

"Ahem." Jamie had crawled up onto one of the vacated bar stools a few seats away from the bone-chilling interrogation going down. The server, and a few members of the audience, spared an eyeball or two his way. Jamie looked very serious. "The lady and I would like some hot chocolate."

"Excuse you," Cupcake said. "The lady wants a -" she hesitated, like she was trying to think of something. "- A scotch. On the rocks."

A couple of the savvier patrons looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Then they looked back at the Guardians with alarm as the mythic defenders of childhood (that weren't in the process of terrorizing a goblin while wearing an expression of benign cheerfulness) all chuckled with sudden, but genuine, amusement.

The bartender looked desperately between the two children and the Guardians, his expression torn between terror over what might happen if he gave the child what she'd asked for if he wasn't supposed to, and what might happen if he didn't give it to her and he was supposed to. He was a goblin, he didn't know what children drank. He had an inkling, though, that there were some things that they did not.

The Sandman smiled kindly, sympathetically even, at the bartender, and two mugs of hot cocoa appeared over his head as he pointed to the children.

"And maybe a fluoride water after that," put in the Tooth Fairy, with a neat little smile. "If you have it, of course."

Once upon a time the bartender had been the sort of troublemaker that knotted the manes of horses, cursed the odd traveler, and, his personal favorite, rotted people's teeth in their sleep.

The Tooth Fairy's polite, thin-lipped smile, made it clear that she was aware of this, and furthermore, aware that he was not doing this anymore and never would be again.

"I'll - I'll see what we've got in the back," he said, meekly, before scurrying away from the Tooth Fairy's piercing, panic-inducing gaze.

"You had no idea, you say?" North said, stroking his beard in thought as Mnug trembled in his seat. "Hmm, my friend, I think you might want to tell me what ideas you did have. I would be grateful. You see -"

He leaned in, as if to speak conspiratorially.

"We look for Jack Frost," he said. "He is new Guardian, perhaps you had not heard?"

"I heard," said Mnug, in a tiny voice stretched as thin as a violin wire. "We - we all heard."

They'd heard amazing things. They'd heard that Jack Frost had taken Pitch down at the height of his power, with no more than a snowball to the head. They'd heard that Jack Frost had laughed in Old Man Winter's face and undone his work, when so many older myths than he had been devoured by the old incarnation of winter. It was said, too, that Jack Frost's presence had stayed Bunnymund's hand, when he had the chance to end the life of the being that had destroyed his home and left him bereft of kith and kin.

Old Man Winter had still died of course, but the point was that he had not died at the hand of the Guardian who had every right to end his life. And the Guardian said to be responsible for that mercy was missing.

And Mnug the Goblin had been bragging that he'd had a hand in procuring things meant to trap a Guardian.

Every eye in the room was narrowed at the goblin, as they realized that the Guardian he'd helped trap was the only Guardian who hadn't already beaten anyone present in the room to a bloody pulp.

"We're all fond of him," North went on.

"Very fond," put in Bunnymund.

"Deeply so," added the Tooth Fairy.

"So if someone has taken him - I am inviting you to consider: you know what we Guardians do for the people we love. You do know what we will do, don't you, Mnug?" North's smile took on a hint of concern, as if over the notion that Mnug might not be aware what the Guardians would do for the sake of those they loved.

"I know," said Mnug, in the same thin voice.

"So I think, say you are knowing a thing or two." North shrugged. "I think you will be understanding and share your knowledge with us."

The bartender returned, sliding three mugs of piping hot cocoa onto the bartop. Cupcake looked a little disappointed, though not surprised, and she and Jamie reached for theirs.

"Hold on," Bunnymund warned them, loping to the bar and flaring his nostrils wide as he took a deep sniff of the steam from all three drinks. He looked up, considering the scent, his steely glare locked on the barkeep.

The entire room held their breath until Bunnymund said, "They're clean. Go for it, kids."

Only then did North, too, pick up the cocoa he hadn't even bothered to ask for.

He took time to enjoy it as he drank it. That seemed to be the final straw for Mnug: North casually taking time to enjoy his cocoa.

"Okay, okay, I give!" said Mnug frantically. "I was hired by Krampus. He needed someone to get meteor ore, laced with stardust, said he was using it to trap a Guardian. Someone hired him to make it for them."

North finished his long sip of cocoa, smacked his lips, then said, "Who? Did he say who hired him?"

"I don't know! He didn't say."

North took another sip of cocoa. The goblin cringed.

"I swear he didn't say! It was a major player, though, someone he didn't want to make angry."

"It's probably Pitch again," said Jamie, completely oblivious to his cocoa mustache. "That's okay, I brought the boot I threw at him last time."

"When did you have time to get your throwing boot?" Cupcake asked.

"I keep it in my backpack, just in case." Jamie took another sip of cocoa. "I'm trying to be more prepared."

All the monsters and mischief-makers in the room stared at the boy wide-eyed, their minds all blown by the idea of a kid that knew Pitch Black and wasn't terrified of him.

"I'm sure," North said to Mnug, "that if you were to know where Krampus would be found that you'd have already told me, yes?"

"I don't know where he is. He had me do the drop-off but it's not like he invited me to his home for tea and krumpets. That's everything I know, I swear!"

At that, North reached out and...patted the goblin on the shoulder.

"Your help, it is greatly appreciated." He reached into his coat and pulled out a very menacing … candy cane. "Candy cane?"

The goblin looked terrified to say no, but equally terrified to eat it. Ultimately fear of North himself wore out over any fear of the candy cane being harmful and the little goblin started gnawing away.

"Enjoy," said North, and the merriment in his voice was...so infectiously genuine. "Keep up good work, Mnug. Except maybe less good work for enemies of the Guardians, yes? Is still room enough in this world for small kindnesses."

Small kindnesses...perhaps like the way North was getting up and leaving the bar without putting his boot in Mnug's face.

Between that and the fact that it really was a very good candy cane, Mnug was seriously considering giving up a life of crime.

"For monsters, those guys were pretty helpful," said Jamie, as the Guardians returned to the sleigh and the stamping reindeer, which the passing pedestrian myths gave a wide berth.

"Needed to work on their cocoa, though," said Cupcake. "It was kinda bitter."

"Yes," said North, "But they tried so hard. It was kind not to hurt their feelings."

"You know they're probably gonna shut that place down now, don't you?" said Bunny, with a slight chuckle. "Now that they know we know we know where it is."

"Eh." North shrugged. "The thieves and the scoundrels, they will find a new place to congregate. Don't they always?"

He and Bunny exchanged a look that suggested knowing a bit about congregating with thieves and scoundrels, and chuckled.

Behind them, the thieves and scoundrels fled from every door and window of the nameless bar, now a nameless abandoned building as the Guardians flew away from it.

"Huey, Louie, this way," Jack said, marking another juncture, shaking the sting out of his hand as the skin started to heal over yet again. "I think I found a way forward."

So far, judging from the marks he'd left himself, he'd recently been turned around at least five times. But now he was almost certain he'd found the right path to keep from going in circles yet again. This place...looked new. It was a long hallway, with an actual ceiling, but it was arched terribly high above, painted in a strange smear of colors that didn't seem to have any form or substance to their design.

"Looks like somebody went a little crazy with the fingerpaints, huh guys?" he said to the skates.

They stopped in the air and tilted, as if looking upward.

Jack looked down again to watch where he was going. The floor was...strange here. It was all one massive, flat pane of smooth black stone, shiny and polished, like glass or the surface of water.

It seemed steady enough to walk on though, so Jack traipsed along carefully, his eyes drawn back to the ceiling again.

The longer he looked, the more it seemed as if the colors were moving, blending together in strange shifting shapes.

"Can't say I think it looks that good. Jackson Pollack was never really my kind of -"

A sound like the cracking of ice rang out. Jack's heart clenched in his chest as the floor fell out from under him.

He dropped into black water that obliterated his view of the surface. The water - no, this wasn't water at all. Water wasn't this dark. It wasn't this thick. Water wasn't this cold, even in the Antarctic, so cold that it brought Jack back to his last few moments of mortal consciousness under the ice of the pond three hundred years ago.

Jack clawed his way to the surface and gasped in ragged lungfuls of air, reaching blindly for something to float on. Even three hundred years after his death, his dread of water had kept him from learning to swim. He'd have been out of luck in this case, even if he had - no sooner had he touched the edge of the intact floor when something under the water grabbed him and pulled him down. His skin burned at the thing's contact. The not-water muffled his scream.

More things latched onto his ankles, stinging his skin like nettles. Jack clawed for the edge again, but the grasping hands yanked him under with only half a breath in his lungs.

He clawed his way nearly to freedom and was dragged away from it time and again, until his whole world was fear and the ache of his lungs. Adrenaline burned in his limbs as with a wild flail he finally kicked himself free and launched himself over the broken edge, heaving himself onto the intact floor. He scrambled away from the edge, trailing a streak of black inklike liquid. The water dripped from him, clear until it pooled on the floor. When he'd distanced himself from the edge, he stood and ran.

The floor groaned under his feet the minute he stood, cracking and giving way behind him. He picked up speed but the cracks raced ahead of him as he ran, and the floor broke apart. Jack's agility was all that saved him, given that much of it had less to do with his powers and more to do with 300 years of climbing on things. He darted nimbly from one stable patch of floor to the other, barely stumbling where others would have fallen.

The last few yards of floor still cracked under him, until Jack had nothing solid left to push off of but the wall. He kicked off the wall opposite to where he intended to land and threw himself, finally safe, into a new hallway. The floor held, solid and stone again underneath him, like the rest of the floor in the rest of the maze.

Jack didn't stop. He picked himself up and ran, on and on until his legs ached and his lungs ached even worse. He finally collapsed against a wall when sheer exhaustion stopped him from running any farther.

He coughed, his throat still raw from the near-drowning, and leaned his head against the wall. He tried to breathe, hating that he still felt like he couldn't, even now that the danger was gone. He didn't bother pushing his damp hair out of his eyes. Through the strands, he saw the skates twirling pensively nearby, trembling with agitation just as Jack was.

Except that it wasn't agitation Jack felt. It was fear that ran deep down into his bones.

If he didn't get out of the maze soon, if the others didn't find him and he couldn't find his way out, he was going to suffer. That much he knew.

"Boy, a rescue sure would be nice right about now," he murmured, the lighthearted words betrayed by the quiver in his voice. "Before there's no me left to rescue."