Over the next couple of weeks, strange, eldritch things began happening more and more often. Oh, eldritch things had always happened in the world, but so rarely that they were often dismissed, and the people who experienced them, even died because of them, were considered to have died by far more normal means.

But newscasters began to report of strange, feral horses with waterweed in their hair appearing throughout Europe, somehow beguiling people into lakes. The next day their human livers washed ashore. They were ascribing it to some kind of communicable disease, a sort of shared madness, but any attempts to find and kill the horses failed. And some of the search teams themselves had been drowned. There were warnings throughout the United Kingdom especially to stay away from still bodies of water. Special government task forces were being created to investigate.

At the same time, the USA experienced a sudden surge of reports of a little misshapen girl with an evil reek about her, attacking homeless people. Police found their dried out husks the next day and the deaths of rough sleepers – those without homes, even truckers sleeping in their trucks – skyrocketed. Some of the people of Detroit began to talk about how the Nain Rouge had found her way out of the boundaries of their state. They had always been aware of her presence.

Jack knew of this because North kept him updated. Adults and children were both being targeted, and North was thinking of summoning the Guardians together even if the Globe itself wasn't showing anything too awry. But the Globe was tuned to belief in the Guardians, not the deaths of adults and children. The Man in the Moon was staying quiet, understandably, as the Moon was waning.

North let Jack know that he was keeping Bunnymund and Sandy the most informed, since Bunnymund had a great deal of knowledge about other spirit beings in the world. And Sandy encountered most of the world's children every night. Jack was to keep his eyes open. Jack didn't see much on his travels, and because of the heavy weight of depression that lingered, he didn't travel as much as he probably should have.

One day, he listlessly traced the whorls of bark on a tree bough that he was resting on. Frost followed the twists and turns of the bark as he began to absently trail his fingers back and forth.

He was – though he wouldn't ever tell anyone else about this – thinking about Pitch. He was thinking that if Pitch had his shadows removed, instead of having sent them out to do his bidding, then he was probably more alone than usual. And he was thinking that he had no idea how long Pitch had been without those living shadows for, and that it must have been difficult.

Jack found empathy easy. Like Toothiana, he thought about what other people were going through, the pains they held within them. He knew how loss could change a person, he knew how loneliness could make everything seem duller. It made his ability to create fun all the more special. He knew exactly how much the presence of fun in a child's life could lift their hearts, whether they just needed a day off school, or to have their minds taken off the passing of a parent or a family pet.

It wasn't that he wanted to feel anything for Pitch, it was just that he couldn't stop thinking of the similarities between them. His mind kept coming back to the encounter he'd had with Pitch in Antarctica. Granted, a great deal of that had been terrible, it had ended badly, but he'd seen facets of Pitch that – now – he thought might have been genuine.

Jack watched frost curl around a twig and thought of Pitch in the darkness without his shadows for years possibly.

Tiredness marked his days. The loss of Jamie was something that North hadn't referred to again, and the only person who seemed to remember Jamie at all were his family, friends, and one lonely frost spirit. He felt like no one else really understood, and he hated that he felt he had things in common with Pitch. The Nightmare King had tried to destroy them all!

But no matter how many times Jack reminded himself of this, his mind crept back to the Pitch without his shadows. The Pitch who could be hurt and thrown against a stone wall without a second thought. Who had furniture and a bed, and told Jack that his fear tasted delicious and had threatened him, but hadn't actually hurt him with anything other than well-placed words.

Jack sat up and looked at Mora, who was lying down on another bough, legs tucked neatly under her.

'Do you want to go see Pitch again?' he said, and she was up and on the winds faster than he thought possible. He laughed. 'Okay, okay, we'll go. But don't like, get too comfortable or anything. Okay?'

In answer, she galloped ahead of him, tossing her head in excitement, tail streaming behind her as she picked up speed. He tumbled off the bough and fell a few metres before he let the winds catch him.

He found his way to Pitch's lair. Down he went through the darkness again, into the heat of Pitch's strange underworld. He moved warily through the gigantic cavern where the Baby Teeth had been imprisoned all that time ago, past the rusting cages, those still hanging from the ceiling of the cavern and those lying sideways, broken, on the dusty stone floor.

Jack trusted in the cave winds to help him find his way, down further into the heat of the earth, all the way to the side tunnel that hopefully hid a wooden door in all that impenetrable blackness. Mora was unafraid, her glowing eyes offering an eerie light in the dark.

Jack found the place easily enough, though he had to take a deep breath before going into those shadows himself. Complete blackness still gave him pause, even now. It didn't matter how much time passed, it would always remind him of the lake. He felt around the door until he found a handle, and then – hoping it would not be locked – turned it.

The door swung open on a whimpering creak, warm light poured out yet again.

Jack was just about to enter when Pitch suddenly appeared with a silver long-sword gripped expertly between two hands. The point was aimed directly at Jack's heart.

Jack took a shuddering breath, his eyes widened. His body temperature plummeted and he all but forgot about his staff. But by the time he began to collect his thoughts, Pitch dramatically rolled his eyes, lowered the sword and turned around.

'Oh, it's you,' he said, not bothering to give Jack a backwards glance as he walked away. He opened one of the giant, looming wooden cabinets, put the sword back inside of it.

'You were expecting someone else?' Jack said, dropping the cave winds and walking in on the slate-like floors.

'Would you like some tea?' Pitch said, evading the question. Jack narrowed his eyes as he looked at the huge, cast iron kettle resting on the table. Beside it was an ornamented ceramic mug, which looked out of place amongst all the rock and stone. Pitch withdrew another ceramic mug from a cabinet, just as ornamented, and set it down by a large, wooden chair.

'You mean poison?' Jack said.

Mora picked her way around the outer edges of the room, before finally coming to rest by the wooden chest in the shadows.

'Tea.'

'I only drink iced tea,' Jack said, grinning. Pitch looked up and sighed as though Jack was the most tiresome thing he had come across all day.

'Of course you do.'

'What the hell was that sword? You look like you know how to use it. How come I've never seen it before?'

'I never needed it then,' Pitch said, turning his empty teacup on its saucer. 'The shadows made the weapons I desired.'

'But you need it now?' Jack said, looking at the cabinet where it was stored. He wondered what else was in there. 'Because of what happened to you? Is that it? Did you think I'd be one of the people who attacked you?'

Jack remembered how determined and competent Pitch had looked, holding the long-sword and staring down whatever was coming his way. If Pitch was in league with whomever had taken his shadows, then why would he have been so quick to defend himself? That sword looked like serious business.

'Who attacked you? Why did they steal your shadows? Did they steal all of them?'

Pitch poured himself the tea and then sat down at the table, considering Jack soberly before he answered.

'Yes.'

'How long ago? How long have you been down here just...like this?'

Pitch sighed melodramatically.

'Long the years have been since that night.'

'Well, that's helpful,' Jack said, and Pitch sipped at his tea almost primly before setting down the cup.

'Turnaround being fair play and all that, answer me this. Why do you keep coming here? I know you mustn't be comfortable in this heat. In this tomb of rock and stone. And you know that I am the type to use Jamie's death against you, if not anything else I can get my hungry hands on. Yet here you are.'

Jack walked forwards carefully, holding his staff out to the side in an unthreatening manner. He looked at the ornamented cup that Pitch had set out from him from the distance of about a metre. It showed an unusual amount of craftsmanship. It was something that Jack wouldn't have guessed the Nightmare King cared for. He always imagined that while he was surrounded by shadows, he was mostly just concerned with lurking in the dark. A lot. It made him uncomfortable to see these other sides to Pitch

'North says that we all have some kind of essence. You know; fun, memories, wonder. What's it like, your essence being fear?'

Pitch looked bemused for a moment, and Jack caught the way he briefly drummed his fingers on the table, one after the other, neatly. He had seen piano players with hands like that.

'Firstly, I have no idea what you're talking about, though it sounds like the kind of nice fairytale Santa would tell a baby frost spirit. And secondly, you didn't answer my question.'

Jack sat down, frustrated, and began playing with the cup. He lifted it, turned it upside down, spun it with a small ping of frost. Pitch leaned forwards and took it away from him, and set it out of reach. They both scowled at each other and then Jack tried to remember why he'd been so annoyed in the first place.

'Firstly, I'm around three hundred and fifty years old, no spring chicken here. And I don't know. The first time I came was because of Mora. I didn't realise where we were going because I had my mind on other things. The second time was because North wanted to check things out and that sleigh is really cool. I mean, have you seen it? It's amazing! It's just awesome.'

'Cool? Awesome? Are you sure you're three hundred years old? You seem a few centuries shy of a full deck there,' Pitch said, and Jack closed his mouth around a breath of laughter, which escaped quietly through his nose. This was not what he was here for! He was not here for banter! He was not here to exchange pleasantries with someone who had destroyed children's lives. He was about the very opposite of that.

'And now we are up to the third time, and you cannot fall back on Mora, or North. Here you are, sitting with me at this table like we are at the very least colleagues.'

'I want to know what happened to you!' Jack said, standing up and pointing like that would somehow better convey his point. 'Bad things are starting to happen already and you know more about this than any of us. Do you know any of the people who did this to you?'

'Three of them,' Pitch said, taking another sip of his tea. 'One I knew well. Two by sight only. And the last one was unfamiliar to me.'

'So it was four against one,' Jack said. He began to think that was unfair until a part of his brain reminded him that it had taken five Guardians to bring Pitch down last time.

'Yes, I must be getting soft in my dotage,' Pitch said shaking his head at himself.

'They must be pretty powerful,' Jack said, looking around the room, trying to imagine what creatures were strong enough to take the living shadows away like that. The caves seemed lifeless without them. Also a great deal less terrifying.

'You must miss them,' he said, absently.

'Pardon me?' Pitch said, confused.

'Toothiana has her Baby Teeth. North has his yeti and his elves. Bunnymund has his little eggs and the stone warriors. And you had those shadow things. So I was just thinking it must be lonely.'

Pitch smiled coldly at that and Jack automatically spread his stance. He often felt like he had to physically prepare himself for the cutting force that was Pitch. There was something a little too self-satisfied about Pitch's gleeful expression.

'It's like you don't actually understand what projecting means! I don't believe you have anything other than the wind.'

'Is it lonely?' Jack asked, angry and forceful now, blue threads of ice starting to crackle along his staff. Pitch's smile broadened to see the reaction and he stayed like that for a moment, as though savouring Jack's loneliness. And then his expression fell away to something sadder, vulnerable. Pitch looked down into his tea as though he could scry secrets from it, he sighed.

'You assume they were mine to begin with,' he said, without looking up, 'but they were not.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means what it means,' Pitch said, as though that explained everything.

'It's just,' Jack said suddenly, tired of these cryptic conversations, 'remember Antarctica?'

Pitch's eyes narrowed, he sat straighter. He made eye contact, and Jack was struck by how unusual the colour of his eyes were, how hypnotic. Even when he wasn't trying to induce fear in others, there was something electric about meeting Pitch's eyes.

'I know, I know you were just trying to take advantage of me. Right? I know that. But some of what you said was true. I'd be lying if it hadn't crossed my mind since then, okay? That we both know what loneliness is like. That, oh, this is ridiculous!' Jack shook his head at himself as though he could erase everything he'd just said, and he turned on his heels to walk out.

'Thanks for the offer of tea,' he muttered, and had one hand on the door handle when he heard the chair behind him scrape back against the floor, echoing loudly in the stone room. Jack turned to look over his shoulder, and Pitch stared at him, a strange shock on his face.

'Not going to say anything?' Jack taunted, when a minute passed. 'Not going to make fun of me again? About how desperate I am? About projection?'

Pitch tilted his head at Jack, eyes squinted as though he hadn't seen the frost spirit before. His speechlessness was something that Jack would have enjoyed at any other point except now, when he wanted to know where they stood. When he wanted some kind of guarantee that Pitch wouldn't simply lash out with words or deeds and betray him and his vulnerability again. He always made the stupidest decisions around Pitch.

Mora stood up suddenly and whickered, agitated.

Jack was thrown backwards when the door boomed open. He looked up from the floor, hip aching where it had caught his fall.

A young girl, only about eight or nine stood there. Jack saw immediately that she was surrounded by coils of living shadow, Fearlings, Nightmare Men. Her eyes were a solid blood-brown, her hands were twisted and covered in soot and gristle. She wore red fur boots and a dress made of a poorly cured animal pelt. Her lips were thin and torn.

She looked down at Jack on a neck that moved like it had been broken, and Jack felt fear pound through him. Her youthful size was deceiving, her expression was dead, amused, filled with malice.

Jack scrambled backwards on his palms and then he awkwardly pushed himself up into a standing position. He chanced a glance at Pitch, whose jaw was clenched.

'Jack, Nain Rouge. Nain Rouge, Jack.' The words were gritted out of him, and though he didn't look afraid, Jack could see that he was clearly unhappy that she was here.

'Whatevs,' the Nain Rouge said, voice crackling and far older than anyone who looked that young had a right to sound. The shadows behind her shifted and roiled like smoke rising from a volcano; unsettled and dangerous.

Her opaque eyes, devoid of light, cast around the room until she saw Mora trembling near the shadows by Pitch's bed. Her lips peeled back on a grin that showed teeth far more decayed and disgusting than the Nightmare King's. She stepped deeper into the room, living shadow and moaning Fearlings following her, attached and responding to her whim.

Jack wondered what she could possibly want with Mora.

'I'm mad as hell that I missed you! I thought I got all of them!'

On an invisible command the living shadows surged forwards like a tsunami. Mora was in danger. He had a horrible image of her being surrounded by all that blackness and ran forwards, drawn to action.

'Hey!'

The frost that crackled through his staff shot forward like a bolt of blue lightning. Jack sent out more frost, knowing none of it would last long down here in the oppressive heat of the caves. He sent waves of it out like a battering ram. He only stopped when he was able to block Mora from the shadows with his body. He stared down at the spirit girl before him, teeth bared. He'd be damned if she was going to take Mora away from him. She was the only friend he had that he saw on a regular basis anymore. It was clear from her fear of Sandy, that she didn't want to be assimilated back into any kind of sand again. She was a mare who liked her autonomy, and he respected that.

'Fucking seriously?' she said, baring her teeth back at him. He thought it was a grimace until he realised it was her version of a smile. She looked delighted.

'Leave her alone!'

The Nain Rouge laughed.

'You're a frost spirit!' she crowed. 'I've always wanted to get me some of that.'

Jack didn't fully understand her threat, but he understood that it was a threat. He swept his staff out, pressing forward on one foot. Icicles formed in milliseconds and he hurled them at her. He wasn't going to let some creepy kid mess with him and Mora, regardless of how many shadows she had at her back. He'd kept the shadows at bay before, and he would again.

The Nain Rouge waved the icicles to the side and floated forward on a wave of darkness with preternatural speed. Living shadows coiled around his limbs, burning him where they touched. The ice wasn't keeping them away! He shouted in fear when the darkness crested up around him, far higher than his body, blocking out the rest of the room. He was surrounded by darkness, the black eyes of Fearlings, the hungry gazes of Nightmare Men. When a Nightmare Man seized his staff between amorphous hands, he couldn't hang onto any of his confidence, he was awash with terror.

'Stop!' he shouted, struggling. 'Stop it!'

Through the wall of thick shadows in front of his face, the Nain Rouge swept forwards, the air almost crackling with her reek of decay. He gagged on it. He could only stare wide-eyed as she reached forward with a gristle and soot-coated hand, and pressed her palm and sticky fingers to his throat. As disgusting as it was, he felt a single wash of relief, because she couldn't choke him, he was already dead. He breathed because it was habit, but not because it was a crucial part of what kept him alive. Clearly she didn't know that. Maybe it gave him an advantage.

She pushed her head towards him, curious. Her breath washed over him, a miasma of rot. His throat went into spasm at the odour and he coughed.

Her fingers gripped sudden and hard at his throat. A tunnelling, invasive power blasted through him from her hand, he almost blacked out from the pain. Agony coursed through cells, seared at his lungs. He jerked hard against the imprisoning shadows, so hard that he got an arm free. But he was only able to flail for a second before the shadows had him again.

His eyes rolled up in the back of his head. She was taking something from him. He felt as though she had reached her hand inside of him and was rummaging around in his flesh, grabbing and poking. His teeth ached with a cold he didn't recognise, his head ached.

And then a chill, blue energy poured and coiled from his throat into her hand. He twitched, helpless, unable to voice words or shout, watching as the blue crept up her arm and created absurdly beautiful frost patterns as it went.

All the while she watched, smiled, drank in his pain with her eyes. There was no single hint of humanity anywhere in her. One of his last thoughts before he began to pass out was, Because she was never human to begin with.

He was almost insensate when there was a huge commotion. The shadows suddenly dropped him and withdrew. The Nain Rouge jumped backwards, her fingers released his throat. She was laughing like she'd won a prize.

Jack tried to collect himself, but his legs buckled and he slumped to the ground, gasping around the emptiness she'd left inside him. The hollowness of Jamie dying had extinguished something important. But this was different entirely. It felt like she had taken crucial organs from him, something was wrong.

Through blurry vision he saw Pitch standing there in front of him, holding the long-sword yet again, somehow keeping the shadows at bay and forcing the Nain Rouge back.

'There's only one of you, this time, and you'll not be strong enough to overcome me even with that cavalry of darkness at your back,' Pitch purred, sounding as easy and confident as he had ever sounded when baiting the Guardians.

Jack coughed, he tried to raise a hand to his burning, sore throat but his arm trembled too much. His fear would not abate even now that he was no longer surrounded by shadow. Something was wrong. He wanted, desperately, suddenly, for Toothiana to be there. She would understand. She would worry and fret and pat him over and make sure everything was okay.

'Whatevs,' the Nain Rouge said, 'You have no fucking idea who I am really, do you? Jesus. Amateurs. Anyway, I'm sure he'll be super impressed that you managed to keep one of those stupid sand horses from me. Not. He doesn't give a shit about you. Or so he likes to think. I only came down here to see if I missed anything. One stupid horse isn't worth it. But him?' she took her gaze off Pitch's sword and looked hungrily at Jack. 'You were worth it.'

The Nain Rouge swept the shadows around her until she was raised up at Pitch's eye level.

'They listen to me now,' she gloated.

Jack watched as Pitch seemed to swell with rage. Suddenly he was only holding the sword with one hand, and the other hand he thrust forwards, fingers apart and shaking. Jack couldn't tell what he was trying to do.

The Nain Rouge laughed again, she moved her arms and the shadows fell behind her quickly.

'See? They're not gonna come back to you. They don't want you. They want us! And they're very fucking happy with me. We're going to be the strongest! It's time for the rise, shadow man. Whatever. I can come back later for that stupid horse.'

She turned to Jack, grinned down at him.

'Cheers for this,' she said, and then made a solid ball of ice and shadow in her hand and threw it at him. Jack was too injured to attempt to get out of the way. His eyes widened as it flew at him, but before it could hit, Pitch's sword rose and fell, shattering it. Jack saw the frost fragment and fall to the ground. The shadows evaporated into nothing. That's my power. She just used my power against me. He felt ill. Nausea swept through him and he swallowed it down and winced. His throat hurt.

Pitch charged furiously towards the Nain Rouge. She turned tail and fled into the black tunnel and then she and the shadows disappeared, an echo of her smug, childish laughter following behind her.

Pitch stood by the doorframe, two hands on the hilt of his sword. And then he lowered it to the ground, the point squeaking on the stone. His shoulders slumped.

He closed the door, turned to face Jack. His lips curled in disgust and Jack felt embarrassed by his weakness. He did not want to be vulnerable like this in front of Pitch! He tried to get up, but he was still too drained. He managed nothing more than a jerky series of movements that kept him anchored to the floor.

Pitch walked forwards and knelt beside him. He put his sword down. From Jack's perspective, little things became more noticeable. He could see more of the gold embroidery on Pitch's robe now, as though the blackness had been rubbed away to reveal more of the pattern underneath. The sword itself looked ancient and powerful, and this close was engraved with the faintest of an alphabet he didn't recognise.

Then he saw Mora's hooves pacing, agitated, in the distance. Relief flooded him that she was okay, that she hadn't been absorbed and destroyed in that darkness. Pitch followed his gaze.

Pitch looked back down at him, speculative. Jack stared back up, and all of the events of the evening ran quickly through his mind and his eyes widened on a jolt.

'You just saved my life!' he gasped in shock. His voice was thready, uneven. Pitch frowned at that. He didn't reply, instead he stood and picked up the sword and took it back to the cabinet. Instead of putting it away, he withdrew a giant sheath and then put both on the table. The sheath made a huge thunking noise as he set it down. Pitch picked up his cup of tea and drained it in a single gulp and then walked back to Jack again, kneeling beside him.

'She would have killed you,' he said, grim.

'Yeah, I got that-I got that impression. What did she do to me?'

'Your frost is a part of you. She took some of it. If I hadn't intervened, she would have taken it all. Your frost, that cold, wintery well of ice; it is what the Man in the Moon gave you, and it is your animating life force. Without it, poof! You would simply cease to be.'

'Well,' Jack said, finally getting his arm under his body and managing, with an extreme amount of effort, to push himself into a crouch. 'Well, that's a lovely thought.'

'Isn't it?' Pitch said, and Jack glowered when he saw the playful smile at the edge of his lips.

Pitch did not offer any assistance as Jack pushed himself up further into a sitting position. He felt like a doll whose strings had been cut. Even now, his insides felt scoured out and scraped up, the back of his eyes burned with tears. He refused to shed them, not now, not in front of Pitch. Something terribly invasive had happened to him. Pitch had explained it so calmly, but it didn't feel like something calm had happened. He hadn't even known he could be injured like that.

To reassure himself, he sent out a wisp of frost on his fingers. And the frost came, it answered him, but he could already feel it. There was less in the well of energy he'd always had to draw from. Less resonating power answered him when he called on it.

'Wait,' he said, turning to Pitch. 'Shouldn't it have killed you? Aren't the shadows an animating part of your...whatever?'

Pitch frowned.

'No. They never were. What happened to me sundered me from an army. What happened to you has sundered you from a part of your life-force. Can you stand?'

'I don't...' He looked down at himself, then scowled at Pitch. 'A little help maybe?'

The answering expression he got was almost bewildered. Jack guessed that maybe not many people asked for his help. It seemed to take Pitch a moment to organise his limbs, and then strong hands moved under his arms. As Pitch stood up, Jack was raised into a standing position. The hands withdrew almost immediately, and Jack's knees started to buckle again.

'Ah, whoops,' Pitch muttered, returning his hands and stabilising Jack, leaving a palm between his shoulder blades and another bracing his upper arm. Jack felt ashamed of his weakness, that of all the people to see him like this, it was someone who generally fit the definition of arch-nemesis. Though, Jack thought, maybe not so much anymore.

'Whatever that sword is made of, it worked. I can't believe you, of all people, got the shadows to back off.'

'Yes, even I cannot escape that irony right now. Thanks for the reminder,' Pitch said, sour.

'Anytime,' Jack muttered.

And then he became aware of the warmth of Pitch's palm through his hoodie, which was dry and oddly soothing. The hand gripping his forearm to keep him forcibly upright if necessary wasn't painful, not clawed fingers digging in, but softly enclosing. It scared him that he liked it so much. He shivered and hoped that Pitch would attribute it to the aftermath of the attack.

'You saved my life,' Jack said again, feeling dazed and stupid.

'Please, I just didn't want to give her the satisfaction. She's a bratty little monster.' But the words didn't ring entirely true. Jack raised his eyebrows in wonder, but couldn't think to say anything as a wave of fatigue washed over him.

'We should leave,' Pitch said softly. 'This place isn't good for you. It's not safe for Mora. And I clearly cannot continue to live here. You should inform your dear fellow Guardians that the Unseelie Court have the power to remove their animating forces. That little urchin could – I think – easily suck any one of you dry. And as much as I would love to see that happen, I'm not sure I would love to see it happen at the hands of those particular folk.'

'You have to come with me,' Jack said, 'you'll describe it better.'

'When, exactly, will I describe it better? Before or after the Guardians have locked me up in a prison and left me to rot?'

'I was thinking hopefully before,' Jack said, shifting his feet until he felt a bit more stable. Pitch hesitantly removed the palm at Jack's back, and then his arm, and when Jack was able to stand on his own, Pitch stepped back. Jack almost missed the warmth.

He watched as Pitch bent down to pick his staff. The action still sent a thrill of fear through him. He would never forget how it felt to have Pitch simply snap it in two. But instead Pitch came back and handed it to him, and Jack used it as a third limb for extra balance, feeling more like himself.

Mora sidled up to him from the side, gentle and – if Jack could guess – almost grateful that she hadn't been taken by that creature. He was so glad she was alright. As she got closer, he felt the tingling of fear that she could cause. He reached out his arm for her warm, sandy head, and she tucked it under, pressing against his rib-cage.

The fear welled stronger, and the resilience that he could usually pull from to get through it had deserted him. He made a strangled noise and began to buckle once more. Mora stepped quickly backwards as Pitch's long arms shot out and steadied him again.

'Perhaps not right now, sweetling,' Pitch said gently to Mora. He looked down his aquiline nose at Jack in exasperation. He stepped back again and Jack stayed standing. And then Jack tried walking a few steps and found it wasn't quite as bad as he thought it would be. If he used his staff as a sort of crutch, it was fine.

'You have to come. You're in this, whether you like it or not,' Jack said, stubbornly, ignoring how his voice went reedy on certain words.

Pitch shook his head and walked away.

'I think not.'

A rush of anger filled Jack and it galvanised him. He was tired of this. If he hadn't come here, maybe none of this would have happened. He'd be depressed, sure, but depression wasn't his power being sucked out through his throat. He swallowed down a sob of outrage and turned away.

'Fine! You know what? Fine. I'll do it myself.'

He managed six or seven very sturdy steps before his strength gave way again and he fell to his knees. The stone hit his kneecaps hard and he bit his tongue in his rush to stop crying out in pain.

This is day has been the worst.

When his vision cleared, Pitch was standing over him yet again.

'I guess I am coming with you after all,' he said, clearly unhappy at the prospect. 'Honestly, the things I get myself into.'