AN: Thank you everyone for being so patient during the past few weeks. Things are still a little hectic around here so it will be a bit longer before I can get back to updating twice a week. Hopefully once a week will be sufficient.

It's been long enough so I don't want to delay you further with this author's note. Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

"What do you mean someone is here?" Sofia croaked out in concern. "A-at the front door?"

"No, thankfully, but I saw someone headed into the barn." Ruby replied.

Sofia's face fell as she looked down at herself, realizing immediately that she had left her chemise and cloak up in the loft alongside Cedric's belongings. Although the items weren't traceable back to the two of them specifically it still showed that there had been someone sleeping in the barn which would cause Ruby nothing but problems if the royal guard found out, particularly if they dug through the sack and found the wand Cedric had confiscated from Grimtrix.

Worry filled her immediately and she reached out to clasp Ruby's hands. "How many guards were there!? Do they usually split up or do they stick together in their search?"

"They always split up but... well..." Ruby wrung her hands together and glanced behind her toward the window. "This didn't look like a guard. It was a single person wearing a cloak."

Ruby needn't say much else at that point; Sofia's blood was already running cold with the realization of who the other woman had likely seen entering the barn. She grasped her friend's shoulders tightly and gave her a gentle shake. "Get to the hidden room in the cellar... take Lily and Cedric with you. Don't come out until one of us comes for you."

Ruby began to breathe rapidly, looking Sofia over in fear. "What's going on? Why do we need to hide!?"

"Just do it, Ruby." Sofia commanded, giving her friend a gentle shove toward the kitchen. She then moved through the house to the window where she peered out in the direction of the barn, though she saw no movement at the moment. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she glanced back to see Baileywick eyeing her curiously. "It has to be Grimtrix. He's been following us."

"Then why aren't you leaving!?" Baileywick scolded. "You can sneak out through the kitchen and-"

"No." Sofia shook her head, returning her gaze out the window. "This isn't the first time he's found us. That tells me he has a trace on Cedric and he's using it to pinpoint our general location. If we leave he'll just keep following."

"So what's your plan?" Baileywick asked, joining her at the window to peer out.

Sofia glanced at the clock on the mantle above Ruby's fireplace. It was early, but not so early that one couldn't expect the royal guard to be up and on their rounds about the village. She returned her attention to the barn, keeping an eye out for any sign of Grimtrix. "Ruby said the royal guard comes here in search of me every day. Around what time does that usually happen?"

"I'm not sure." Baileywick replied, glancing at the young woman. "I'm almost always in the cellar keeping watch over Indigo and Rowyn. I'm typically too concerned about the guards finding the hidden door to note the time they come."

"We'll just have to stall then." Sofia said with a sigh. "Hopefully the guards will come soon."

"Yes, hopefully they will come soon." Grimtrix said with a chuckle as he stepped up behind Sofia and Baileywick with a wide grin. "Then they can find the lovely little present I'm going to leave for them; their beloved princess."

Sofia whipped around in horror to find Grimtrix staring at her with a wicked smirk and Cedric at his side. Her gaze flew to her husband but his head was lowered in shame and she couldn't see his face. "Cedric..."

Cedric raised his eyes enough to reach Sofia's but Grimtrix swiftly grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced his head down so that eye contact was impossible.

"Don't bother pleading with him." Grimtrix said, looking Sofia's distraught face over in pleasure. "I told you that he is mine in every sense of the word. He belongs to me and he is going to return to me as soon as we're done here. Now..." He turned his attention to Cedric and motioned him forward. "Restrain her."

Cedric tensed and looked to Grimtrix in fear. "Grimtrix-"

"You will call me master!" Grimtrix bellowed, striking Cedric across his face with the back of his hand. "And you will obey! I gave you a direct order!"

Sofia winced as Grimtrix struck her husband. It was an unbearable sight but not nearly as unbearable as when Cedric took a reluctant step in her direction. His eyes were downcast but she could see his face and the tears that were streaming down rapidly. "Cedric, wh-what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, Sofia." Cedric managed to whisper. "I... I can't refuse him."

Sofia took a step back but it only left her pressed up against the wall. It was then that Baileywick stepped in front of her, brandishing a small blade he had pulled from his boot. "Baileywick, no! Please don't hurt him!"

"It's him or you, Sofia." Baileywick said, holding the dagger in Cedric's direction. "Believe me, it's not a difficult choice to make."

Cedric looked to Baileywick pleadingly as he advanced toward them both. "Please don't let me hurt her, Baileywick."

Sofia stared at her husband as he continued toward them, clearly opposed to doing what Grimtrix demanded but unable to disobey. Realization struck her in that instant and her eyes flew from Cedric to the man manipulating him from the other side of the room. "An encroachment charm!"

"Oh, aren't you clever..." Grimtrix retorted with a chuckle. "Not nearly as fun of a charm to toy with as yours, I suppose, but it gets the job done nicely. Certainly has its merits as far as obedience goes, anyhow."

Sofia narrowed her glare on Grimtrix, knowing full well there was little she could do to stop the encroachment charm and its effects. She hadn't been able to rid herself of her own. She doubted she would be able to rid Cedric of his and she certainly would be defenseless to do anything about it at the moment. "So you'll have him restrain me and then what? Have him kill me?"

"Actually I'll be the one doing the killing." Grimtrix replied with a smile. "But first we're going to have a little... fun."

"Master, please no!" Cedric cried out, turning to look back at the man with a tearful gaze. "You don't have to hurt her and you don't have to kill her! Please, Master... please just let her go!"

"Cease your mewling, Icarus!" Grimtrix shouted furiously. "I don't know why you're so beholden to the cunt! You mean absolutely nothing to her!"

"Th-that's not true." Cedric said, fighting back his feelings of despair and fear to face the man bravely. "She loves me and I-"

"Is that what she told you?" Grimtrix interrupted with a snort. "Oh Icarus, you really are such a fucking idiot. She doesn't love you! Who do you think it was that stripped you of your memories and sent you off into the world?"

Cedric went rigid at Grimtrix's words. He turned slowly to face Sofia, pain striking him to his very core as their eyes met. "I-is that true, Sofia? Are you the one who removed my memory?"

Sofia stared at Cedric, tears filling up in her eyes to match his own tearful stare. "Cedric, I... I didn't have any other choice! With the way things were-"

"She had a choice! She chose to discard you like a piece of garbage! I'm the one who took you in! I fed you, I clothed you, I kept a roof over your head! I gave you a purpose in this world when she left you to the wolves!" Grimtrix said through clenched teeth. "Even now, she only wants you around because she needs something from you. As soon as you fulfill that purpose she'll discard you again. Whatever pretty little lies she's fed you about some fantastical world where the two of you will live happily ever after, it isn't going to happen. Your marital bonds mean nothing to her. They never have."

Cedric felt as though the air had been knocked out of him at Grimtrix's declaration. His eyes widened over Sofia in disbelief as he took a staggering step backward. "O-our... marital bonds?"

Sofia's heart sank as she saw the look of horror come across Cedric's features when realization hit him. She pushed past Baileywick on instinct and reached out for her husband, though the former castle steward caught her and held her back. "Cedric, I-I'm so sorry! I never meant for-"

"What the fuck is all this shouting about!?" Lucinda roared angrily as she teleported herself into the living room from her bed. It took a moment for her blurry vision to focus but when it did her blood boiled at what she saw. Her eyes locked on Cedric's and she pointed her wand at him without hesitation. "You!"

"Lucinda, don't!" Sofia cried, yanking from Baileywick's hold to block the path of the witch's wand.

"Get out of my way, Sofia." Lucinda said coldly, keeping her wand steady in Cedric's direction. "This has been a long time coming. Honestly, I should have done it the first time you brought the fucker here."

Baileywick's eyes darted from the women in front of him to the two sorcerers distracted by the conflict. He wasn't going to hesitate to take advantage of the confusion that Lucinda's appearance in the room provided. With everyone's attention on the disgruntled witch it was a fairly easy task to step up behind Cedric and strike the younger man in the back of the head, incapacitating him and rendering him harmless. He then turned his sights on Grimtrix, though the other man was immediately on the defensive with a wand in hand, pointed at Sofia.

"Take another step and I'll fill her so full of lightning she'll cook from the inside out." Grimtrix warned, smirking widely. "Just like those other two bitches."

"What the fuck did you just say!?" Lucinda snapped, turning her wand toward the ominous man threatening her once good friend. "What other two?"

Sofia's eyes widened in horror as she realized Grimtrix had come in through the kitchen where she had sent Ruby to gather Lily and Cedric. She stumbled backward into Baileywick just as he reached out to catch her. "Ruby and Lily... n-no!"

"The little blonde one never saw it coming." Grimtrix said with a chuckle as Sofia began to take short, panicked breaths. "But you should have seen the look on the other one's face. It was delicious."

Lucinda narrowed her gaze on the man before her and stepped toward him furiously until he turned his wand on her. "You killed my friends..."

"And likely half of your coven." Grimtrix replied, a devilish smile spreading across his face as he taunted the young witch.

Lucinda puffed up at the man's words, an entirely new sense of rage filling her. Her grip on her wand tightened and she bared her teeth at Grimtrix. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?"

"Surely you don't think someone as pathetic as Cedric could single-handedly take out an entire army of skilled witches and warlocks. Quite the opposite in fact, the sniveling coward was absolutely useless the moment his raven was killed. He left all of the work to me and one of our cohorts while he holed up in his tower and blubbered like an imbecile over the fucking bird." Grimtrix paused to glance down at Cedric's motionless form with a scowl. "Now that you've reminded me of it I'll have to punish him for that as well."

"If anyone around here is going to be punished, it's you." Lucinda growled through gritted teeth.

A scoff fell from Grimtrix's lips as he cocked an eyebrow at the witch before him. "Don't make me laugh witchling. If it was so easy for me to kill half an army of your superiors just imagine how easy it's going to be for me to kill you."

"You don't pose as much of a threat as you think you do with your specialty wands." Lucinda replied. "Mortis infensus!"

"Warchod..." Grimtrix muttered, holding up his hand to block what would have been an otherwise deadly attack from the young witch. He looked her over with a smirk as a stunned expression crossed her face. "I should mention that I don't necessarily need the wands."

Lucinda stared hard at Grimtrix, the smug look on the sorcerer's face only infuriating her more. Her eyes darted to the others in the room; Sofia nearly hysterical over the loss of their friends and Baileywick doing his best to simultaneously console her and protect her. Cedric lay sprawled on the floor, an easy target. A smile flitted across the witch's face as she pointed her wand back at Cedric, though her eyes focused on Grimtrix. "I assume you're the one who's had him all this time that he's been gone. Your little pet... you've come an awfully long way just to retrieve him. You definitely don't seem like a man of principles so that tells me that you need him for something."

Grimtrix eyed the woman warily but he quickly forced a smile and shrugged. "You're trying to distract me. It won't work. Your precious princess is who I'm really after."

"No, I don't think so." Lucinda said as she took a step closer to Cedric. "If Sofia was all you're after you would have killed her the second she came to claim this pathetic waste of flesh." She paused to nudge Cedric's form with her foot and continued to smile widely at Grimtrix. "You wouldn't waste your time chasing her down all this way when you already had her defenseless at your doorstep. You're after him and it seems to me that you need him alive. Maybe I should render him useless to you."

Sofia tensed in Baileywick's arms as she heard Lucinda's threat. She whipped around to see the witch standing over Cedric with her wand pointed dangerously close to the man's head. "Lucinda! Please don't!"

"Shut up, Sofia!" Lucinda barked, though her eyes never left Grimtrix's face. She continued speaking to the sorcerer, ignoring the new sobs that were barreling out of Sofia's mouth. "I've hated this man for so long, I've wanted nothing more than his corpse at my feet. After my mother was slaughtered during the uprising I swore that I would take revenge on the bastard responsible. Then my once good friend married the man I wanted to kill and that only complicated things for me, especially after she bore his children... but things couldn't be any clearer than they are in this moment. I will get my revenge."

The witch stared hard at Grimtrix as he stood with his hand outstretched, clearly confident that he would be able to block whatever spell she cast. Indeed, hexes and death curses were typically slower to leave a wand given the heaviness of their nature but she had every bit of faith that her spell would reach Cedric first no matter how swift Grimtrix thought he was. "Oblivio recantum."

Sofia stared wide eyed as the words left Lucinda's lips and the jolt of power struck Cedric in the temple just before Grimtrix could shield against the spell. "L-Lucinda, you..."

"Don't say I never did you any favors." Lucinda said, casting a grin over her shoulder at Sofia. "Time for you to go now. I've got this under control."

"Lucinda, wait!" Sofia cried out, but she was too late to stop the wave of the witch's wand. As quickly as she could blink she found herself in the middle of the woods, still in Baileywick's arms with her husband on the ground in front of them. She felt Baileywick's hold on her ease away and she fell to her knees, tears pouring down her face. "She... she just-"

"She just did the most selfless thing imaginable." Baileywick interjected, kneeling to place his hand on Sofia's shoulder. "And we shouldn't let it be for nothing. We need to go..."

Sofia shook her head as she stared off into the distance. "She's going to die. Grimtrix is going to kill her just like he killed the others."

"You don't know that... she may very well best him." Baileywick offered, tugging at Sofia to pull her up. "Whatever the outcome, don't think that she isn't ready to accept it. She knows what she's doing."

Sofia continued to stare off as Baileywick pulled her to her feet. She felt unable to process everything that had just occurred within the past thirty minutes. When she had first opened her eyes for the day everything seemed like it was well on its way to being right for the first time in years and now two of her friends had lost their lives and a third was likely in the midst of a battle for her own. "I-I can't allow her to do this. I can't let her give her life for my sake. You have to take me back!"

"I'm not going to do that." Baileywick replied with a shake of his head. "Lucinda made her decision to stay behind and fight. She could have come with us if she wanted to... but you heard just as well as I did what she said to that man. She wants revenge on the one who killed her mother and clearly Cedric isn't the one that she blames for that anymore."

Sofia turned her gaze to her husband's still motionless form, even more tears streaming down her face now. "She reversed the enchantment... wh-when he wakes up he'll remember everything."

"Which is why we need to take advantage of this chance Lucinda has given us." Baileywick said softly.

Sofia watched as Baileywick stepped over to Cedric and hoisted the man up over his shoulder. He then gestured for her to follow him. It took every last ounce of strength she had to set her feet into motion but she managed. He seemed to know precisely where he was going as she followed along through the heavily wooded area. Eventually they came upon what appeared to be an old, abandoned cottage seated amidst the trees. There didn't appear to be any clear path to or from the structure which showed that it had been undisturbed for at least some time.

She watched as Baileywick entered the cottage without hesitation and placed her husband rather roughly onto the floor. She stepped into the structure cautiously, looking around at the singular room in questioning. "What is this place?"

"This is the cottage where I first brought you when I took you out of the castle and introduced you to the resistance." Baileywick answered. "I suppose it looks a bit different in the daylight, not to mention it hasn't seen use in some time. After Cedric was taken out of power the resistance abandoned it... though we retained ownership of it for emergency situations such as this. Honestly, I'm impressed Lucinda managed to remember this place. She always seemed to sleep through any discussions about escape plans and emergency protocol."

Sofia let out a heavy sigh and dropped to the ground beside Cedric. "I still cant believe she helped us escape..."

Baileywick knelt in front of the young woman and placed his hand on her shoulder. "Sofia, you should know that whatever front Lucinda put up, she still cherished your friendship dearly. Thinking that you married the man who killed her mother was an incredibly painful concept for her. I can't imagine the amount of relief she must have felt when Grimtrix revealed himself as the culprit."

Sofia stared down at Cedric's unconscious form as tears once again began trickling down her cheeks. "I hope that I can thank her one day."

"She's resilient. You just might be able to." Baileywick said as he stood back up. He gave Sofia's head a gentle pat and cast her a sad smile. "Sweetheart, I have to go back to the farmhouse. Indigo and Jade are still in the cellar tending to Rowyn and even though I don't think Grimtrix will find them, they'll need my assistance."

"Y-you can't!" Sofia cried out, reaching to pull Baileywick back down. "Grimtrix will only hurt you too! I can't lose anyone else, Baileywick! Please don't go!"

"Someone has to be there to look after Indigo. Jade can't do that on her own. Besides, I'm certain that Grimtrix will be gone by the time I arrive." Baileywick replied. He then produced the dagger he had brandished earlier and placed it into Sofia's hand as he glanced at her husband. "I want you to have this for protection, just in case."

Sofia caught Baileywick's glimpse at Cedric and she immediately shook her head. "Cedric would never... y-you need it more than I do."

"You need something to arm yourself." Baileywick said, taking a step back so that Sofia could not hand the dagger back. He then turned to the door and averted his gaze from the young woman. "I have to go..."

Sofia placed the dagger aside and forced herself to her feet despite that she felt she had no strength left. She threw her arms around Baileywick and held to him tightly. "Please be safe!"

"I'll try my best." Baileywick said, offering a smile as he brushed away her tears. "Take care of yourself, Sofia."

Sofia closed her eyes as Baileywick pressed a kiss to the top of her head and pulled from her embrace. She then listened in sorrow as his footsteps led him out of the cottage and through the brush into the distance.

More sobs began to overwhelm her body. She dropped back down to the ground and draped herself over Cedric, clinging to his motionless form as she wept until her exhaustion became too much to bear and sleep eventually took her.