Left alone again, Laurie panicked at first. She struggled with the hourglass, trying to turn it back, just to stop the draining sensation. She wasn't able to budge it, which frightened her even more after seeing the witch spin it with one hand. She looked at her weak reflection in the glass dome. She could barely recognize herself. What was she becoming?

Did it really matter if she didn't get the whip? She didn't even remember where she was supposed to be from, so why all the urgency to get back to it? Why had she endangered her friends by taking them on this stupid quest? Poor Griffin especially. Had the Twilight witch really rejected him because he wasn't enough of a monster? No wonder the poor thing was such a wreck. She almost wished he was there so she could hug him. His feathers were sleek and warm, she knew, brown fading to gold where they melted into his fur. The scars swirled over his back like jungle cat markings, ridged and rippling in the smoothness. They hadn't made him any less beautiful, she thought.

She had another flash of a memory that wasn't hers. It wasn't as vivid as the one with the little man's guts being spun out like taffy, but more tactile. She could feel Griffin's fur and feathers against her own body, felt suddenly weightless with the forest far below her. The steady pump of his wings on each side of her matched the rhythm inside her. His lion claws gripped the back of her calves, claws jabbing through the boots. The owl talons were gentler, but still drawing blood. The warm slide of his beak across her throat was just a reminder that he could snap her head off, like shears through a flower stem, but he wouldn't. Not to her. Her fingers ran through the feathers and pelt, their bodies straining to fit just a little bit closer with nothing above but the stairs and nothing else to touch them but the wind.

Laurie snapped out of it and realized she had fogged up the surface of the hourglass. Where the hell had THAT come from?? She had been able to feel everything, had been able to smell him. Was that what the witch and the Griffin had been? Lovers, coupling on the wing between the sky and the forest, the two halves of him? It was one of the most bizarre and romantic things she could think of. Her own body was still throbbing from just that glimpse of it. To have had that and then have her turn on him? Poor Griffin. No one deserved that.

She staggered away from the hourglass. It felt too warm now and she leaned against the fabric-covered wall to get a hold of herself. The Metal Man would laugh at her, she thought. Or be angry. She had been in easy striking range of the witch and hadn't gone straight for her throat. Laurie wondered why she cared what the soldier might think. She wondered what he had been like before, what kind of woman his first love had been, that losing her had left such a black hole in him. The witch had wanted him, she realized, wanted him and couldn't have him. Or maybe just the fact that he hadn't been interested had been enough to snap the crazy redhead.

The Twilight Witch had killed that woman, whoever she was, probably in a horrible way, probably left her for the Metal Man to find, like an evil cat with a grudge. Imagining that made Laurie's stomach clench and the lingering heat from the vision twisted into nausea. She was sure, suddenly, hideously sure that the witch had skinned the other woman, stripping her of her beauty and wearing it like another tight leather suit. Skin deep, she could've purred.

The Metal Man hadn't been metal then. He had worn armor over a body of flesh and blood, but then he found his flayed beloved, and the armor hadn't kept his heart from breaking.

The witch had come to him then, looking like the dead girl and laughing at him for being so stricken. His mind was in as many pieces as his heart by then. He had reached for her, shaken, torn between terrible relief and even worse certainty. He had looked into her eyes and he had known.

He had attacked her, shocking her. Her bones had broken against the edge of a table and her stolen skin was grated off as he ground her face into the surface.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" he had snarled, pulling off his belt. The strap hit her twice before he wound it around his fist and the buckle had laid her jaw open. When it went around her throat, she had finally been afraid enough for her own life to lash out with her power, tearing the heart out of him.

It hadn't been enough. He didn't die. She got away from him that time, and he went back to work with a zeal and lack of self-preservation that whittled his body away piece by piece. His armor had become his new body and he had been waiting in the orchard when she had come to get apples.

Witchcraft needs apples. Everyone knew that. He had been waiting at that one orchard and eventually, as he knew she would, she had come. It taken almost all of her power to stop him from killing her. She had only meant to lock his arms up, stop the killing blow, but he had frightened her again, and she had overdone it. The rage came later. How dare he? How could she possibly be made to feel anything for him, especially fear? He was nothing! He had wasted his chances. She had left him there, telling herself it was because he wasn't worth any more attention and refusing to admit that she barely had enough strength to crawl away from him.

"That bitch," Laurie hissed alone in the dark. Or so she thought.

"Language," admonished a familiar growl. Scarecrow was squirming through a barred window that she was sure hadn't been there before.

"You're here!" She scrambled to her feet, then stopped. "Wait. Are you here? This isn't going to be something else weird and sexy where I can smell the straw and feel the texture of burlap on my tongue is it?"

He froze in place, half in, half out. His expression bled into three distinct circles, each a different size. (O.o)

"I…" He struggled for words. "Don't… think so?" It was probably one of the most endearing things she had ever seen.

"Just to be sure then," she said, and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He made a helplessly embarrassed little noise, and she could actually smell the sunny sweetness of the mown hay he was stuffed with. The burlap tasted pretty much like she had expected, but it quivered under her lips, and unless she was very mistaken, one of his floppy arms had wrapped around her waist.

"Is she there?" Griffin's voice called from outside and below. "Is she all right?"

"Yes!" She pulled free to call out the window. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" Even if all she could see was the yellow eyes down in the darkness.

"Hard to sneak out with you two yelling like jays," Scarecrow hissed. "Hush. Meet us at the east tower with the stairs." The yellow eyes nodded and disappeared. Scarecrow took her hand and pulled her away from the window. The dark opened for him, into hallways and staircases where she had only found walls.

"How do you do that?" she said, remembering to whisper.

"Don't know," he mumbled. "Maybe am something she made. Don't want to be!" he added quickly. "Hate her for hurting you and Griffin! But… Don't remember what I was before. Could've been anything. Might be anything again. Maybe can make me do bad things if she wants. Maybe already did and that's why mind is gone. Afraid of that sometimes."

"It was brave of you to come," she whispered. "So brave to know that and risk it anyway."

"But not very smart, you have to admit," drawled the Twilight witch, and the lights came on.