Lily was in bad shape. Aside from being unconscious, she was very pale. There were open cuts on her face and neck, all of them looking as if they were made with a blade. Most concerning was the river of blood still dripping from between the links of her chain shirt. Her breathing was shallow.

Isarda bent down next to her. "Lily!" she cried. She lifted the chain shirt to see a massive bloodstain on the shirt below it. She pushed that up too to reveal a huge, deep, jagged wound across her side, bleeding profusely. "Oh my gods, Lily!"

"If you don't want to end up like her, you'll hand the girl over."

Four men, dressed in black, had followed Lily through the gap in the window. All four had their weapons drawn.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded Jean.

"Did you do this to her?" spat Balder.

"Hardly," said the man who had spoken. "We're only responsible for the window and the unconscious part. The rest was done by our captain, who the bitch had the gall to knock out while she was escaping. Now, hand her over and you won't end up the same."

"I don't think so," said Jean savagely.

Shadows rose up around the men and folded around them. There were muffled sounds inside the shadow. When it fell away, all four men collapsed to the ground, dead.

Balder turned his back on the dead men and picked up Lily bridal style. "Come on," he said. "We need to take her to the hospital."

Isarda, Balder, Jean, and Noel sat around Lily's bed. She had been bandaged up and her breathing was stronger, but she was still unconscious. They all now saw how much she had changed. Her hair was longer than it had been, and so was her skirt. It now fell almost to her knees as opposed to the ridiculously short miniskirt she used to wear. Now that her armor was off, they all saw how much thinner she was. There were dark circles under her eyes. It looked as though she had not slept properly once in the two years they had been apart. Two long, thick scars adorned her inner wrists. She looked older.

Lily groaned and stirred. She was coming around. She didn't want to open her eyes. She was comfortable; she wanted to lay there and go back to sleep. How did she get here? She remembered getting herself caught but…everything after that was a blank. She half opened her dark brown eyes. They darted around the room, looking for her weapon, which she spotted on the table beside her. She raised her gaze slightly and it settled on two people she knew.

"I-Isarda?" she mumbled, her eyes opening fully. "Isarda! Balder! What are you – AHN!"

Lily tried to sit up, but an excruciating agony shot through her body from her left side, just below her breast. Her right hand shot to the site of the pain, holding it, her teeth gritted and her eyes squeezed shut. Balder stood and walked over, gently pushing her back onto her back.

"Yeah, that doesn't work," he said. "It might interest you to know that you're missing a rib."

Scattered memories formed in Lily's brain, but they were foggy. She remembered a faceless man driving the jagged knife into her side, digging his fingers in and ripping out the blood- and sinew-covered bone. Her own screams echoed in her ears. The rest of her torture, for she was sure there had been more than that, was still a blank.

"Right," she said. She pulled her hand away to check for blood and was surprised to see none. Her wound had closed. She looked down and saw blood staining the bandages regardless. She tried to push herself into sitting position again, slowly and carefully this time, but pain shot up her spine again and she stopped with another small noise of pain. Lying back, she looked around the room. "Alright, I see two people I recognize and two people I don't."

"Lily, you don't recognize me?" asked Jean. "It's me, Jean!"

Lily stared at him before looking down at her hands and saying, "Ohhhh, I'm afraid."

"What, why?" asked Jean.

"Well, one, I saw you die," she said. "Very brutally, I might add. And two, didn't you hate me? Want to kill me even?"

Jean was spared from answering by a knock on the door. It opened and a Negro woman looked in.

"Excuse me," she said. "Is there a Mr. Jean in here?"

"That's me," said Jean.

"Can I speak with you for a moment?" the woman asked.

"Uh, sure," said Jean. "Be right back." Jean stood up and exited the room.

Lily looked back at Noel. "So, who're you?" she asked.

"I used to be Tsubaki," said Noel. "I answer to Noel now."

Lily nodded. "So, what's everyone been up to?" she asked, looking around the room.

"Balder and I are married now," said Isarda, smiling.

"Really? That's great! Congrats!" said Lily.

"What is it, Madeena?" asked Jean in a whisper outside the door. "Why have you come here? I left the town under your care."

"There's a slight problem," Madeena whispered back, looking very nervous. "You remember the rumors of AnuValore? How you sent some men after the woman who owned it and they captured her?"

"Yes," said Jean.

"She, uh, she escaped," said Madeena. "She escaped, stole AnuValore back, and injured the man you put in charge."

"I thought she was under heavy torture," growled Jean. "She shouldn't have been in any state to escape!"

"She was!" hissed Madeena. "I know for a fact she had a rib ripped out just before she escaped. I know they sent four men after her, but we've just found their corpses and she was nowhere to be found."

An odd expression had crossed Jean's face. It looked as though he had been slapped. He cracked the door to Lily's room. Madeena looked in and her eyes widened in surprise.

"That's her!" she breathed. "That's the woman who owns AnuValore."

Jean closed the door silently. "Damn!" he hissed. "If I had known it was Lily we were after I would've sent more men, with the order to kill on sight instead of messing around with torturing her! I would've made certain she was dead!"

"So what about you, Lily?" asked Balder. "You left us on kind of a sad note. Have you held up okay?"

Lily's expression changed. She looked down at her hands, sadness creeping into her eyes. "I'm okay," she said. Her voice had changed; it was quiet and sad. "It's lonely without…but I know…It's just…"

Lily dug the nails on her right hand into her left wrist and began absentmindedly scratching at the scar. She watched what she was doing without seeing. Balder walked over and caught her right wrist, pulling her hand away. She looked up and met his eyes.

"You know, hurting yourself won't bring him back," he said gently.

"What?" asked Lily, looking genuinely confused. Her gaze slid back down to her wrist and she saw the nail marks. Her eyes filled with comprehension as she realized that she had been doing it again.

A tremor shook the building. Jean reentered the room and everyone looked around at the shaking walls. Isarda went over to Balder and he held her. Lily tried to sit up again, but with similar results as before. There was an almighty crack that sounded very close by, the rush of speeding air, and the sensation of falling.

Sorry for the delay; for some reason I simply didn't want to write this chapter. Not sure why.

Yeah, Lily's fucked up both emotionally and physically, and Jean has revealed himself as a royal douche. That, my friends, is a permanent injury he has indirectly inflicted upon her. Bones don't just grow back. And Lily has amnesia; whether forgetting her torture was repressed or something that happened when being beaten unconscious by the four men remains to be seen. If the answer is going to be revealed at some point by our wise and all-powerful DM, it hasn't been yet.