When 3:30am rolled around, loud erratic banging could be heard throughout the vicinity of City Hall as Lin tried desperately to wake a sleeping Lord and his uncle who decided to make their quarters there for the night. "What in the world?" Zuko asked in question to the sounds coming from his room's door. He sat up and slipped a robe around him before he made his way over in the darkness.

He held the palm of his hand out whilst creating a ball of light so he could see and when he opened the door, he was surprised to see Toph Beifong's daughter at the door. She looked distraught, panic-stricken and looked ill to the point of wanting to throw up. "Lord Zuko!" she exclaimed as she gasped with excitement. "Lin," Zuko said in slight shock. "Why so early? Shouldn't you be with Kya?"

Lin practically bursted out into tears as she informed Zuko what had happened. She presented him with the two items and the tape recorder that was found in the metal puzzle box and Zuko had this befuddled expression. "You mean to tell me that Kya had been kidnapped? We must alert Katara and Aang now before things get too complicated." Lin forced herself inside the room and closed the door, making sure that no one from the council would eavesdrop on their conversation.

"I can't let them know," said Lin.

"She's their daughter, Lin. They deserve to know."

"No. I'm risking it just by coming to see you about it."

"What do you mean?" Zuko moved toward the table off to the side to rest his aching feet. He was starting to get too old for this, but being only in his mid-fifties, he realized that there was still a lot to accomplish before he could retire from being the Fire Lord. "This guy is testing me. You're one of the few people in this world that know about me and Kya and this guy or whoever it is, doesn't like the idea of it all. He's threatened Kya several times." She sat down across from Zuko and slid the tape recorder to him. With his arms folded across his chest, Zuko looked down at the recorder curiously before reaching to inspect it.

"I think he's hurt her, too. There was blood on the tape recorder."

"That doesn't mean it's hers," replied Zuko optimistically. "For all we know it can be frog squirrel blood. Can't go accusing just yet."

"But Lord Zuko, you can hear him on the recorder threatening her!" Irritated, Lin raised her voice a little that accidentally stirred Uncle Iroh from his deep slumber. The older man turned over in his sleep and Zuko panicked slightly. "Shhh, you'll wake uncle. He's had a long day and he needs rest." Zuko fiddled with the recorder for a moment before he went to listen to the contents of the tape. He leaned back in his chair, eyeing Lin whose face twisted into a fearful one when she heard Kya's voice again, even if she already knew what was on the tape. This was dramatically effecting Lin both physically and mentally. "Lin," said Zuko. "You need to breathe. If one thing Aang taught me is that patience it a virtue. You need to calm yourself and think through before acting on your own accord."

After Zuko brought his advice to Lin's attention, she realized had been gripping the edge of her seat with her hands and grinding her back teeth as she anxiously sat there listening to Kya's voice on the recorder over and over as Zuko played it back. He was making sure he wasn't missing anything. "What's that ticking sound in the background?" Zuko asked suddenly which caused Lin to raise her eyes to him from the table. "It sounds metallic." Nodding reverently, Lin shot a finger in the recorder's direction.

"Exactly what I thought!" Lin pondered the clues that she had been given up until now and realized that there were only going to be more given. "I was thinking if it was metallic, then maybe my mother's school might have something to do with it?" Zuko raised a dark, curious eyebrow in her direction and placed the recorder back on the table in front of her. "You might be right. "Toph's school might be a single location where our enemy is keeping Kya captive, but… there's also Future Industries. A lot of metal work goes on there, too. There's too many options at the moment to pin point one specific place."

Lin felt she like she had been defeated. There was no way she was going to be able to come up with an answer to all this puzzle nonsense in time to save Kya before something drastically happens to her. Her forehead met the table as Zuko stood from his chair, and the older man began to feel concerned for one of his best friend's daughters. "Lin," said Zuko as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "We'll find her. There's still time left. We just have to figure out where he's keeping her." It was at this time Iroh had woken from his deep slumber and he glanced over at his grandson and the woman sitting at the table.

"Lin," yawned Iroh as he rubbed his eyes.

"Uncle, you should be sleeping. I have this handled." Zuko's face immediately twisted into a more professional one.

"Please, Zuko." Iroh smiled and waved his hand to dismiss his grandson's worries. Looking over, he saw Lin's forehead pressed against the table's surface, but he could hear light thuds that were instantly one after the other. "Lin, stop doing that to your forehead. You don't want to get wrinkles like me." He chuckled at his joke. Lin stopped suddenly on command and raised her eyes up to him, rubbing the redness out of her forehead. She watched as Iroh moved slowly from the bed over to the table to inspect the contents of the ziplock bag.

She watched him shake it gently and then open it to smell the grinded up something that was pricking his curiosity. "This is tea," he informed simply with a sure nod. "Not good tea I might add. It was a good thing you didn't drink this. It's from a poisonous plant." Zuko picked up the knife that was also found in the metallic box along with the riddle. "Uncle, can you understand what this madman is trying to do? He has Kya captured and we believe she's in danger." Iroh made sure to look at everything and it took him a course of thirty minutes before he could come up with something solid and plausible.

"I've got it," he said finally. Lin and Zuko both turned their attention quickly to Iroh and made sure to listen fully to what he had to say. "This man, or whoever they are, want Lin to prove that she loves Kya." Upon hearing this, Lin flung backwards in her seat, her face turned a bright shade of pink, a color she wasn't keen on wearing. "Love? Sir, that's highly mistaken. Kya and I are just friends." Iroh was grinning like the Cheshire cat as Lin tried so desperately to come with excuse after excuse.

"This person doesn't think so. Ever since you were put in charge to look after her, you began to favor her haven't you, especially after she consoled you that time after your break up with Tenzin?" Iroh was a clever man, almost too clever for his own good. Furious with Iroh's accusations about her private love life, Lin quickly spun around in her chair, placing one leg on either side and faced the wall behind her. "Doesn't matter." Lin leaned on the back of the chair and folded her arms with a sigh.

"It does. He's testing your love for her. If you want to see Kya unharmed, you must endure true pain and suffering. Love is a painful emotion, Lin, but it's also a beautiful one and all the pain and suffering in the world combined is worth this feeling of two hearts beating as one. If you don't admit that you love her, Lin, like I know you do… then there's no hope for Kya."

Lin looked over her shoulder at the older man, knowing what he was saying is true. She did love Kya with all her heart, even if it was hard for her to admit it sometimes. "Then… if I do love her, what is he wanting me to do? Choose between killing myself with the knife or poisoning myself? I don't understand it." Zuko quickly snatched the riddle from his uncle's hand and leveled with Lin on his knees. "Read this again and tell me it's not saying they either want you to cut a finger off or drink the poisonous tea." Lin blinked, feeling her heart sink to the floor. "If you drink the tea and find Kya in time, there might be a cure waiting for her, but if not… then you know."

She read the riddle over multiple times, knowing how this is going to affect her physically and emotionally. If you fancy your fingers… don't think twice, just take the herb and you might lose your life. If she had chosen the knife and chopped her finger off, then she could be in severe pain, and possibly suffer from lack of blood loss if it hadn't been properly cared for right then. If Lin had chosen the poison, then there was a fifty percent chance she would see Kya again and be okay in the end, but until then she was slowly begin to feel the effects of the poison coursing through her system, making her feel weak and possibly hallucinate.

"This guy is screwing with the wrong woman. I might be fucked either way, but there's no way I'm backing down without out a fight. Kya is coming home, safe and sound even if it kills me in the process," Lin shifted in her seat, turning back around with a serious look on her face, even more serious when she had been studying for classes at the metalbending academy. Lin breathed in deep and exhaled as she reached a hand over toward the knife. "I need to be right in the mind if I'm going to be facing this guy. If the poison is in my system, then I won't be able to focus on anything but that. Then this is the only choice I have." She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the blade and tightly squeezed it, knowing what was about to come.

I'm coming to you, Kya. Trust me.