Andrea moved from the cavern where she was holding Hansel. She practically floated over the rocky floor of the winding tunnels keeping in step with Katja until they entered the next room in the coven's lair. "What is it now?" she snapped.

Katja flinched at the venom in Andrea's voice. The grand witch had a well earned reputation and the thought of gracing her bad books sent even the most harden devil cowering in the corner. "The other witch hunters have returned to the town." Katja swallowed the lump in her throat down. "They're looking for you and that one." She raised a trembling finger towards the room they just exited.

Anger flashed over Andrea's features briefly to be replaced by a devilish grin. "Let's not disappoint them then."

Katja watched with an odd fascination as Andrea pulled her knife from her pocket and began to make little cuts in her arms and legs; taking care to wipe as much blood on her clothes as possible when she was finished. "Stay here and watch him. I'm going to go and kill two birds with one stone," commanded Andrea as she marched out of the cave and straight back to Sage.

Gretel pulled a water skin out of her bag and took a drink. They had spent all day searching the forest and found no trace of Hansel. She tried not to let the day's disappointment crush what little hope she had; there was still so much ground to cover and there had to be some sign somewhere.

"Late, we should go back to the village," suggested Edward as he made his way over to the fallen tree Gretel had sat down on. They had all been pushing themselves so hard to find Hansel.

She looked at the low position of the sun; the last rays of light were still cascading down into the valley. "There's still time, we could just check over that ridge there and..."

The troll shook his head. "Dark before we get back to Sage. Too dangerous to stay." He didn't have to words to offer the comfort and support that seemed so easy for humans to convey, but what his speech couldn't get across his soft brown eyes could. Getting themselves killed wouldn't help Hansel and Edward wasn't going to break his promise to keep her safe, as much as he wanted the other hunter with them.

"He's out there all alone Edward." They had spent a life time hating their parents for abandoning them, when it was their devotion to their children that kept the siblings safe and gotten their parents killed. What if a similar misunderstanding cost her Hansel as well?

Edward placed a large hand on Gretel's back and pulled her into a hug. It seemed like the appropriate action; he'd seen his companions embrace whenever they needed reassurance. "We'll find him," promised the gravelly voice.

Gretel snuggled into the large wall of warmth. She had to dig deep but eventually she found her inner strength. She didn't realize how much she depended on her brother to be strong, how much his strength allowed her to be a force to be reckoned with.

"Let's go back to the tavern and look over everything again. We're missing something; maybe with some sleep we'll be able to figure it out." The pair got to their tired feet and made their way back to the stream to collect Ben. The youngest hunter solemnly reported finding no leads from his search and the three of them walked back towards town united in failure.

Gretel hunched her shoulders and turned her back to the joyous sounds of the other patrons in the tavern. It was just a couple nights ago that her brother had probably given his life to save these people and already they had forgotten his sacrifice. One of the men staggered into their table as he made his way back from the bar. Drops of amber tumbled from his glass and splattered across the map the hunters had spread out on their table. Gretel's rage grew as she watched the paper warp and the ink spider web across the page as the liquid meandered over the surface. With a tremendous shove she pushed the drunk away. The man stumbled to the ground and the room went silent; all eyes shifted towards the group of outsiders in their midst. Gretel's icy glare caused everyone to become very interested in their drinks. She smoothed out her shirt and sat back down ignoring the whispers spreading throughout the tavern.

"Are you alright?" asked Ben. It was the most on edge he had ever seen his companion and it was frightening; she was more relaxed in the face of certain death than she was now.

"I'm fine," she snapped as she sopped up the mess. "Keep looking, we're missing something."

The pair had been looking over the reports and plotting out the locations of the missing travellers for the last few hours and still nothing new had revealed itself. Edward had opted to stay on the outskirts of town and keep an eye out for the possible return of any of the witches. He wasn't going to be much help reading reports anyways, and Gretel was convinced he did it more to make her feel as though someone was still searching for Hansel while she sat comfortably in town.

Ben rubbed his eyes. All the words were turning into one and the dots on the map were transforming into dizzying swirls. "All the disappearances are within a mile of where we were originally searching before."

"Right, but the trail we found from Hansel's disappearance took us in the opposite direction," added Gretel.

"Maybe after she dragged him out to the meadow she headed back that way?" It was a stretch; a rather unnecessarily long route for the witch to take, especially with a prisoner, but it made as much sense as anything else.

"Even if we split the difference between those two points," started Gretel as she traced the route out on the map, "that's a long way for her to take her victims. Witches don't hunt right in their backyard but they don't make frequent long treks like that. There has to be something special about his area, something that's drawing them there..."

The door to the inn burst open and the locals flocked to the intrusion. The two hunters peered through the crowd trying to catch a glimpse at what or who had caused the commotion. As the gasps and mumbles grew silent the crowd parted to let two of the men in the crowd pass, carrying a bloody and tousled looking Andrea.

Gretel's eyes narrowed as she took in the council woman's rough appearance. She dug her fingernails into the table as her anger began to simmer. Her instincts screamed that something wasn't right but her heart was clouded with the question of where was Hansel? If the last time anyone had seen the two of them was together, why wasn't he here now?

The gathered townspeople shuffled out of the witch hunter's way as she stormed over to the injured woman. Getting uncomfortably close in Andrea's face she growled, "Where's my brother?"

Andrea stared into Gretel's dark eyes and swallowed hard. Preparing for her performance, she subtly jabbed a finger into one of her wounds until tears pricked her eyes and her lip trembled. "The witch came back," cried Andrea, "she attacked us in the tavern and Hansel chased after her. He needed help so I followed him out into the woods but she was too powerful for us and she wasn't alone. It was horrible, there were so many and..."

The council woman flinched and let out a startled gasp as Gretel grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. The threat of unspoken violence was clear as Gretel spoke very slowly, pronouncing ever syllable, "What happened to Hansel?!"

"They took him, took us. It was a small village in the forest near the river." Andrea's fragile voice carried over the silence that had settled over everything.

"Show me where!" demanded Gretel. Her steel grip tightened around Andrea's arm as she dragged the council woman over to the table that her and Ben had their maps strewn across. A blood covered finger hesitantly pointed to the map.

"There, I think. He made it possible for me to escape. They were going to kill me and he stopped them. I don't think they let him live..." confessed Andrea; tears rolled down her rosy checks and the inn keepers wife pushed her way between the two women to tend to Andrea's wounds.

"He's alive." She silently preyed that Hansel wouldn't make her a liar, that she would find him, a little worse for wear but alive. "Get your things Ben, we have witches to kill!"