Time had a way of muddying things that used to be clear, taking the obvious and making it hazy. Evie's memories of Father were no different. Normally, he was a distant mirage, the details impossible to conjure up no matter how hard she tried.

But now it was like he was speaking directly in her ear, just as he used to at target practice, steadying her nerves.

Stay calm, Evie. Remember. The battle is lost once you lose your calm— as long as you have it, you'll always be able to think your way out of things. It's your biggest weapon. Not your blade, not your sword. Your brain. But you can't use it if you're not calm.

Calm. She could do this. Calm.

"Clara." Evie spoke quietly, like she would to sooth a skittish horse. "Clara, you don't have to do this."

"I do," Clara whispered back, voice high pitched. "They're watching me."

Out of the corner of her eye, Evie could see the glint of a mirror. Some sort of apparatus, then, set up so that they could- indeed- watch her. "What are you meant to do?"

"Shoot you in the heart and then drag you into that cell." Her voice was barely a whisper, tinged with disbelief.

Mind working quickly, Evie let the world bathe in grey and checked for numbers. One man nearby, another four upstairs, no doubt ready to run off and eliminate Clara's family if she didn't obey. Evie took a deep breath.

"I don't think I can do this," Clara was muttering, almost more to herself. "But oh God, they're so little and they've done no wrong—"

Evie cut her off. "Here's what you need to do."

Clara went silent, whites of her eyes bright and clear.

"Can you aim?"

"Well enough."

"I need you to shoot my arm. Left arm."

They were speaking in whispers that were barely puffs of air now. "Why?"

"Shoot me, and immediately drag me into that room. I'll drape the arm over my chest, there will be enough blood for this low light. Then, when the man comes in to check, I need you to slam the door behind him. Can you do this?"

"But what— what then—"

"Then I overpower him, find out where the children are, and we work from there. I can fetch Jacob—" The way that Clara's face fell was enough to tell Evie everything she needed to know. Her stomach clenched in fear, more visceral than when Clara had pulled out the gun. "They've taken him?"

"I—"

A gruff male voice cut through the silence. "Hurry it along!" The sound seemed to echo in the dark space, no doubt intentionally chosen to confuse where he was coming from. He'd have no way of knowing that such a thing would never stand in a Frye's way.

But those men had all the advantages. They had to work swiftly.

"Arm," Evie said insistently, "quickly. Do it."

Swinging the gun, Clara aimed, braced, took a deep breath— and pulled the trigger.

The last thing Jacob remembered was the stab of something sharp against the side of his neck before the world went dark.

His arms were bound now, he realized, holding him up on a chair, his ankles wound against the legs. As he lifted his head groggily, he gradually made out the form of Lockwood leaning over him, eyes tightened in scrutiny. "Hello, Frye."

Jacob tried to say something but it came out as a groan, his throat dry.

As his vision improved, he saw that they were in an empty office with boarded windows, dimly lit by a few lamps. Oliver was standing against the corner. It was difficult to see him fully in the shadows, but he seemed to be hunched over himself, face contorted, fists tightly clenched.

Lockwood tapped Jacob's cheek. "Tell me where the Shroud is."

Jacob lolled his head and spat at her.

In a snap, Lockwood's cane flashed out and made contact with his ankle. The pain was immediate and excruciating, the old wound breaking at the weight. He tried to retaliate, break free of his bonds and protect himself, but everything felt sluggish and heavy, the ropes too tight and his strength too sapped.

Oliver's voice rolled through the silence. "Wait, you said that you wouldn't hurt him to do this, that the sedative would be enough—"

"Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, dear," Lockwood replied, before she raised the cane again, this time bringing it down across Jacob's face.

His vision blacked out for a second, but he could still hear Oliver's shaky outrage. "This wasn't the deal!"

"I don't know what you expected. What, that he would just roll over and tell us?"

"But you said that's why we were holding Evie! And that they could both go, afterwards!"

Evie? What? What did he mean, Jacob couldn't follow what was happening—

"Hush, dear boy. Your mind is still corrupted by everything this man has taught you." Lockwood's tone became low, almost purring. "The ends justify the means, so remember what we're here for. Now." The voice became louder, like she was closer to Jacob again. "Tell me where the Shroud is."

The ride to the Assassin warehouse was an agony of pain every time she went over a jolt in the carriage, but Evie gritted her teeth and endured it. Clara's hands were clenched tightly on the reins, her face still a little pale from having to fashion a makeshift tourniquet for Evie's arm with her scarf.

They'd done well, all things considered. The Templar had predictably dropped his guard and lumbered inside the cell, only to meet the sharp end of Evie's blade; the remaining men had been easy to dispatch with a bomb. It would take more than five Templars to take out her. Clara's nieces and nephews were being held outside of London and would be safe for now, if they could get to the leader first.

Each of her breaths was a prayer that the novices would be at the base, that they would be able to assist her, that they could work together and swarm the Templars. They would need numbers, to do this right.

The Templars hadn't intended for Clara to know their location— she'd woken up blindfolded, before being given her instructions— but they hadn't counted on Clara knowing every inch of the city inside and out. The smell of damp mould, a patch of sky and a steeple spotted through a rotting hole in the wood was enough for her to lead them back to where she had been held. Where Jacob was presumably being held.

If they got there in time.

Clara leapt off the carriage when they arrived at Jacob's makeshift headquarters, pounding the door of the warehouse until it swung inwards, revealing an alert Lottie. "What— Clara? Evie? Oh my God, Evie, your arm!"

"No time," Evie rasped, pushing past her and squinting into the cavernous space of the hideout, trying to see who was around. "we have to go. We have to go, now. The Templars have Jacob."

"What—" Lottie looked baffled. "How— we got a note from Oliver saying that Jacob wanted us to stay put here, with no exceptions."

Evie's stomach sank. A two-fold betrayal, then. "Oliver is in Lockwood— the Grandmaster's— pocket."

"What?"

"Get the others. We need to go to the east side of the docks; they're going to kill Jacob."

Lottie became a blur of movement, sprinting along the wall and grabbing weapons as she yelled for Roy and Alfred. Evie hesitated when Jane and Emmett came running too; perhaps they were too young? But they had acquitted themselves well at the gang war, and being an Assassin was always a case of trial by fire.

Lockwood kept asking, but if Jack's old efforts hadn't broken Jacob, he was quite sure that he could withstand a bit of battering from a Templar woman and her stupid long stick.

Oliver, meanwhile, seemed to be having some sort of crisis. He was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, and if Jacob had been in a clearer state of mind, he knew that he might've been able to capitalize on it. But all he could do was grit his teeth and keep his mouth shut. The shroud had to stay below Buckingham, there was no question of that.

He barely registered the commotion when it started outside, bangs and yelling followed by a small explosion, but he did notice when Lockwood stopped hitting him.

"Shit," she hissed. "Oliver, you said you would keep the others away from here."

"But— I did—"

There was two seconds of Lockwood desperately trying to bar the door and cram it shut before it swung open with a bang, practically throwing her back with its force. She responded by rolling and staggering to her feet, getting behind Jacob's chair and putting her cane along his neck, holding until it was hard to breathe.

What— what was happening—

Evie's face swam into view in the doorway. Oh, thank goodness, his brain supplied, relieved even though he distantly was aware that he should be panicking for her safety. She would fix things. Evie always fixed things. She was good at that. His beautiful Evie.

"Oliver," Evie said insistently, braced against the door. "This is a mistake. I know what you want, and she can't give it to you."

Everything was changing, everyone moving at once. Lockwood was shrieking something about everyone shutting up, but Oliver had drawn his gun and was shakily pointing it at Evie, all of his attention trained on her. "That's not true. That's not true, she can help me, she said—"

"Think about it." Evie's voice was resolute, almost desperate. "If she wanted information on the shroud at all, she would've taken me, I know much more than Jacob does. You know that. But she couldn't, because I know the truth and I would've said so right at the start— the shroud can't bring Connie back."

Oliver's agony was at the forefront now. "You don't know that."

"I do," Evie insisted. "I'm the world's foremost expert on it, of course I do. Every record of the shroud being used was on a whole body that was only recently dead, never more than a week. And even when they did come back, they weren't the same. She wouldn't be Connie, Oliver, believe me. She would be a half-figure trapped between worlds, never able to fully be in either."

"But…" Oliver's hand was shaking badly now. "If it wouldn't work, then why did I do all of this? What was it for?"

"She tricked you," Evie said urgently, eyes flickering back and forth between Oliver and Lockwood, as if trying to assess the situation for Jacob's safety. The woman was still screeching, but Jacob was mostly focused on the roiling mess in his head, trying to understand how everything had gotten to here. "You don't have to do this."

"It's too late, I've made so many mistakes, it's too late now—"

"No." Jacob had croaked out the word almost on instinct. His talking was apparently arresting enough that the whole room went quiet for a moment, snapping their eyes to him.

This, this he could say. He knew this deeply enough that it was in his bones, enough that no drugs could obscure it.

"It's never too late," he managed, even past the cane that Lockwood was pressing ever tighter against his neck. "I offered Jack a chance and he proved me wrong. Be better than him, Oliver, I've still got your back, I always will. It's never too late—"

Lockwood practically shouted over him. "Oliver! Don't listen to him, this attitude is what got Connie killed in the first place, remember that you were doing this for her! Take your revenge!"

At the mention of Connie, Oliver's face suddenly clenched in pain like he had been physically stabbed. Swinging his arm around in a swift movement, he aimed his gun at Jacob.

The crack of the gun shot out and Jacob braced for pain, closing his eyes, praying only that Evie would make it alive—

But the pain never came.

When he blinked his eyes open and craned around, he saw that Lockwood was standing with her gaze trained on her stomach, hand unconsciously reaching up as a red bloom spread against her coat. Her throat worked as she swallowed, face open with disbelief. "Wha…" She staggered a few steps backwards, cane falling to the ground, eyes going glassy as she slumped towards the wall.

Before he could feel any real emotion, there was another blur of movement as Evie yelled out a sound of dismay. Oliver was in the process of shutting his eyes tightly and raising the gun again, this time to the side of his own head, hand much steadier in the face of his own self-immolation than it had been all afternoon. Before he could pull the trigger, Evie collided with him and they clattered to the ground in a heap as she used her weight to pin him down, frantically shoving the gun away with her uninjured arm and getting blood everywhere in the process.

Damn it all, he had to get free of these restraints, he had to help—

Clara was the last person who he expected to see in this situation, but she darted into the room all the same, knife held firmly in her hand. She took the scene in with wide eyes before her gaze settled on Lockwood. "Meredith? What in the blazes? I went to rallies with her—"

Evie tried to explain while still half wrestling with Oliver. "She was the Templar leader, Clara. Please, free Jacob, see if he's all right?"

Clara's hands were on him, then, quickly undoing his bonds and helping him stand, her wide eyes peering into his face. On wobbly legs and with her help, Jacob worked towards his sister and his novice. Evie was half-sitting, clutching her arm— why was it in a sling? He would have to help her— but Oliver was sobbing freely now against the floor, his whole body shaking with each gasp. As he got closer, he could see the way that Oliver's clothes were soaking through with Evie's blood, clinging tightly to ribs that showed through the fabric. He had been hiding it well with baggy coats, but Oliver was gaunt, more wasted away than Jacob could ever remember seeing him.

"Oliver," Jacob said gently, kneeling beside him, slowly so as to not make the pounding in his head any worse.

Muddled as they were by sobs, Oliver's words were barely audible. "I've done nothing but make mistakes since she died, just let me go, I just want to be with her, I thought it was worth anything if I could bring her back but what would she think of me—"

It was Evie who spoke now, her voice tired but firm. "She would be proud of you. In the end, you did the right thing. She would want you to live."

"How can you not want to kill me?"

"Oh, Oliver," Jacob managed, more a sigh than a sound, his attempted chuckle barely a shadow. "I'm furious with you and I intend to give you a hundred painful drills once you're back on your feet. But you can't die, not now." If there was one thing that Jacob knew, it was fucking up and wanting desperately to be able to fix everything even as a solution felt unbearably out of reach.

Oliver's sobs were subsiding but he was still struggling to breathe, shoulders heaving with each ragged sound. "But why?"

"I don't measure a man by how he's been for 4 months when I've known him for more than a decade. You're one of us, and we need you. We all do." We love you. The words were too awkward to say; they were men, after all, and he needed a few more pints in him before he could be that direct. But as he wearily smoothed Oliver's over-long hair away from his brow, he was sure the boy understood. "We always will."

It was a cool morning, the spring wind even sweeping away most of the smell of London, the sun still only a glimmer on the horizon.

They were in a park on the edge of London, standing on the banks of a large pond. Evie kept her good arm firmly tucked in Jacob's, his side reassuringly warm and grounding. Her wound was still sore, but tolerably so, the healing gradual but steady. Jacob was back to using his cane, but his constant whining had her convinced that he wasn't that terribly poorly. No one who was truly broken had the energy to moan about it that constantly.

Slowly, the novices arrived in turn, each looking solemn. This excursion had been Jacob's idea. She approved wholeheartedly.

Once they were all assembled, Jacob cleared his throat. "We should've done this ages ago," he said evenly, lowering his gaze a little. "Without bodies to bury and as we struggled to take back London, it fell to the wayside, but that was a mistake. This should have been the most important thing. We were a family— we are a family— and we mourn their loss." Stepping forward, he gently lit his candle and placed it in one of the paper boats that Jane had painstakingly made the day before. "For Edna." In a gentle motion, he set the boat in the water, where the waves from the wind began to gently convey it away. Standing again, he nodded to Lottie.

Just as solemn, Lottie held out a candle so that Alfred could light it, and they stepped forward together to set it in another boat. "For Hattie."

Roy and Walter were next, taking a few tries to get the wick to light. "For Ruth."

Last of all, everyone turned to Oliver, still sallow and with dark circles under his eyes. With hands that trembled slightly, he lit his candle and set it in the boat that Jane held aloft, Emmett's hand on her shoulder. "For Connie," he said quietly, a whisper as the last boat went on the water.

As the four paper boats drifted off into the distance, candles winking in the growing daylight, the novices all crowded around Oliver, embracing him silently.

He had done wrong, yes. But who among them had not? He was broken. But so were they all.

And together, they could heal.

At a slight distance, Evie slid her hand down to twine her fingers with Jacob's, giving them a light squeeze. Together, yes. They would heal.

Author's Note: One more chapter- a short and sweet epilogue- before this wraps! I can't quite believe that it's almost over. :)