Disclaimer: none of this franchise is owned by me.
Author's Notes: Not a note I ever wanted to type. But my edits to this chapter were done just after the news broke.
Today, I mourn. Cameron Boyce, you brought to life a character that we all adore in this fandom, and you were just getting started with your dream to make a difference. May we live up to your hopes by making strong, positive changes in our world, in all the diverse ways in which we are capable. Rest in power.
Playlist songs for this chapter: "Fight for Survival" by Klergy, "The Vengeful One" by Disturbed, and "Goooo" by TNGHT.
:: ::
let the shadows fall behind you
::
part 14
::
Darkness in the tunnels. Fog on the sea. Moon slowly sinking toward the horizon. Few lights glow in the city. On the steps leading up to the palace, torches burst into green.
Armor clanks, hysterical cackles break the pre-dawn silence, and a guillotine rises.
:: :: ::
"Tunnels," a princess mutters, steps ahead of Claudine. "After this, I am never going underground again."
It is not virtuous to find joy in another's discomfort. Claudine's lips twitch despite her pious restraint—but when Freddie catches her attention just to roll her eyes, the cracks in that restraint deepen.
Every breath is tense with the possibility of discovery, even though being underground in the city's tunnels is safer than taking the streets above. Yet. They could so easily have been spotted crossing the wall into Auradon. There are so many of them.
Those who risked travel by ship are more exposed. A distraction to draw attention, and fire.
Her prayers are not going to be enough.
Ahead, Carlos stops beside the boy-king, shoulders and breath steady. His calm demeanor is familiar, always concealing his true thoughts. Claudine used to think Carlos' confidence came from his bigger, badder backup. How easily their assumptions were led astray.
Unlike his previous, foreign mannerisms—displaying affection and discomfort equally—the boy-king's set jaw and severe gaze set a different mood. He still allows too much to show in the lines of his body and the angle of his chin: Claudine can read concern there, and fear. In fact, most of these soft Auradon fighters hardly look like they can hold a sword upright.
Their prayers wouldn't be enough, either.
She won't echo her knowledge, with their plan so far underway that escape is impossible. They are nearing the point where their forces will diverge, and Carlos will guide the stronger ones into place.
But she is a blessed anomaly on the Isle. Claudine, like these Auradon weaklings, rarely needed to defend herself. A perk of being on the fringes. Splinters did not take and keep and defend territory. Splinters existed on the edges between territories, on the outskirts of all the conflict. Splinters on the Isle had the freedom to flee. Splinters did not need to hide behind bigger and badder if they were never caught in the first place.
At least—not caught by their peers. Claudine was trapped by worse than them.
("Witch—")
Her eyes seek a distraction from her own memory, and find it in Freddie's graceful flick of one wrist, in the way Gaelle moves ahead of her.
"Here," Carlos says, voice soft, carrying through the mass of tense teenagers who have followed him all the way to an island and back, under the ocean, under their own city. The boy-king nudges forward his chosen second, the kind one. Nakul, the boy Freddie guardedly watches. He starts to climb the rusted access ladder.
He's almost to the top when the grate screeching open echoes—too loudly. Everyone freezes.
A soft whisper from above. "Hurry. They split them up. First group's already leaving the dungeon."
Evie. The blue-haired enchantress herself.
The blue-haired witch will lead half of them to the dungeons. She barely looks well enough to do so—pale face, live-wire eyes. Clearly effected by the magic she had cast, earlier. Claudine watches her with interest—which is why she catches a handoff. Palm to palm, the witch hands Carlos a rock, words soft murmurs in the still morning air.
Secrets and observations. This is a familiar currency.
Breathless minutes later, all have emerged into the palace courtyard, delivery carts blocking their entry, scuffing feet as they separate. The best fighters melt into shadows, clustering with Carlos and Ben. And Evie shows the way to the other side, with barely a glance over her shoulder at Carlos' retreating back.
Claudine, of course, follows Freddie, her always-star, her constant—they go down into the earth again. This time, to the dungeons.
("I will lock you away so that—")
Evie waits when she reaches the cover of a servant's corridor. Blue curls pinned back into battle readiness, the traitor who stayed in Auradon lifts her chin to commanding height. "The royal women were taken. It's too late to stop them. They'll be out there when the battle starts."
A couple of the little princesses go teary-eyed, the ones that Claudine knows by their parents' enemies. The Horned King, Ursula. But the bitchiest and sternest, that Audrey, is the one to push back. "We're supposed to get them all out—"
"Everyone else who is still in the dungeons, we will," Evie replies, unflinching. "And that means a lot of princes and knights and warriors. We'll have their help once we free them. Just remember—if there are guards, we'll have to split up again."
A flexible part: the split would be decided when they knew who was guarding the prisoners.
The ruffled rustle back into line. Claudine eyes the rest, those children whose parents fought Clayton, Hans, Mother Gothel, the Queen of Hearts. Yes, they are more fighters than their companions. They'll punch back when they must.
She does not look back as they head into the palace, though too many of the Auradon teenagers do.
Sentimental. Weakness.
The path is unknown. She does not mind being led into dark and dangerous places. As long as Freddie leads the way, Claudine's feet naturally fall into the footsteps left behind by her only true companion.
("Magic and madness—heaven and hell are all that must matter to—")
Closer and closer, they come—and her mind's musings leave her when there are voices ahead. She meets Freddie's eyes as they try to guess. Her breath comes in a sharply when unidentifiable murmurs become clear.
"—for even prisoners deserve their last rites."
"An' that's what I could give 'em myself."
"Your heathen rituals have no place—"
"Gentlemen. We don't actually care about the prisoners. Remember?" Exasperated, Clayton breaks up the bickering between the two most fanatically religious zealots of the Isle.
Voices that Claudine neither anticipated nor is surprised to hear. Did her always-star guess…?
They never could stop themselves, her father and Freddie's. Each certain of their own virtue and rights. Each certain that the other was wrong. How silly, to hear them bicker over a cell of prisoners about to be executed. How surprising, that they have not yet killed each other permanently. How pathetic, that their arguments continue even now.
"Besides, we have—what the blazes…?"
Tinny and faint, Harriet's voice purrs, "Ahoy, there."
They must have brought down a television to witness the executions. Increase their prisoners' torment. Entertain themselves.
Freddie's arms are tense with recoiled strength. Evie has her hand held up, gesturing for them to pause, but the little henchmen's children are ready and raring to go. The Auradonians nearly vibrate with tension, their own desires conflicting with fear.
Evie turns on her heel just a fraction, eyes meeting Claudine's, and—oh, yes.
The advantage of being a Splinter. Being able to run.
Freddie's hand grasps her forearm to stop her. Claudine meets those beautiful, worry-dark eyes, and murmurs, "Grant me grace and peace." The fragment of her favored prayer softens Freddie's eyes. Their fingers brush as Freddie releases her arm.
"Felix, you, too," Evie says.
Evie leads Claudine and the boy from the narrow staircase and those lurking in the shadows. They head back into the dim light, to another path.
Their footsteps rush in time—the video will only play for so long.
Three men. Others might have been silent, down there. Unlikely and possible. And at some point, they will try to leave. They will want to flee, or to fight, or to carry out their revenge upon their captives. The rescue attempt must be made before the video no longer holds their attention.
Her breath is coming much faster as the trio emerges from the servant corridors into a wider, grander hallway. They are close to a less opulent doorway when the gathering outside reaches a fever pitch and there is an inhuman roar. And, echoing up the steps that they have only just reached, her father's screech of fury.
A familiar shiver trickles down her spine.
(Hell is the sound of her father's voice.)
There is no turning back, not now. Rounding past Evie and the boy, Claudine murmurs, "I can give the others the best distraction alone."
"We can—"
"Freddie and those princes can fight," Claudine reminds Evie. "We still need to be prepared for whoever comes back for the rest of the prisoners." The witch's grimace acknowledges this truth. "It'll probably be your mother. The enchantments, after all."
"You're stronger than your father," Evie replies. And, well.
She was told enough, growing up: her fate always was to descend into the Pit.
Without further muddying of the waters, Claudine lightly skips down the steps, rolling on a new layer of defense. Sinful lying masks of pretense have helped her survive her father's wrath before, and they will do so again now.
She waits, there, in the shadows, while the video distraction plays itself out. There will be a moment that they reveal what they intend to do next, and that's when to interrupt.
("Never make me halt my prayers—")
Memories are sharper when he's close. Shadows, a comforting embrace. Breathe. Wait for—
Down below, rising up, the Judge Frollo snarls, "We stay here! They'll want to get to the prisoners, imbecile."
That.
"Don't take that tone with me—"
"You don't have a plan—"
"No," she cuts in, jumping lightly to the last step. "But we do."
(Speak of the devil and he shall appear.)
The villains freeze, eyes wide on her. The key on Clayton's belt shines dimly in the dungeon light. A fuzzy gray screen glows behind them. She ignores the unfamiliar figures behind their bars—it would cost her too much to notice them.
"What's the matter?" she asks. "Did you think I was gone, with mother?"
"Hell-spawn," her father spits at her, face reddened in rage. "You must have struck a deal with a devil—you were too weak to survive without one."
"No." She tilts her head. "I was just strong enough to survive you."
Dr. Facilier's lips curl into a wicked grin. "Oh, that's not all. I can sense it. Seems that my own little one inherited some abilities after all."
("Stench of death, grime of decay, rainwater seawater, wash it away—")
Clayton rolls his eyes and Judge Frollo's face darkens further and Claudine reminds herself that these words are nothing. And, trembling like a leaf in her thin black rags, remnants of her father's robes all she was ever given to wear—
She laughs.
"No, she has her own abilities," she tells the twisted priests and dishonorable hunter. "Her own goddesses. And they are on our side."
They snap.
Claudine braces her feet as the Judge barrels towards her, cursing her existence, cursing her filthy mouth, and Dr. Facilier's arms start to swirl and glow with his borrowed powers. Clayton disappears from her sight as she lifts her arms to shield her face—
The Judge howls and collapses.
Surprised, Claudine looks up to see Nakul's panting form skitter to a halt in front of her, sword still clutched in his hands, red smeared along the edge.
"Your timing," she says, stepping just behind the prince. "Could use a little work."
"Hey, we're here," he grins, twisting around to keep his focus entirely on the Judge at their feet. Behind him, Freddie hurls her rage at the wicked Doctor, countering every one of his charms with the raw green power flowing through her own body.
"Still think I'm nothing?" Freddie demands, crushing every hastily-cast hex he throws at her feet.
"Freddie, sweetheart—"
"Sweetheart!" Her arms, once ringed with jade green, begin to flicker an electric blue. "You wanna try that one now—"
"Please—"
"You stabbed me. In the back!"
Clayton tumbles between the two of them, chased by a sword-swinging Kristian. "A little help, Doctor!" Kristian beats him away from that back entrance: the hunter must have tried to flee.
Aria, making a grab for the key ring on Clayton's belt, is foiled instantly as he sneers and throws a heavy fist into her cheek. She cries out as her head hits the wall and slumps down to the ground. At her side in an instant, Janet checks the girl and Claudine turns—
Judge Frollo, at her feet, pleading with Nakul's sword pointed directly at his throat. "Spare me…I do the Lord's work… Spare me."
Sword steady, Nakul glances at her. "What's your plan for him?"
She blinks. The little prince would ask her, spawn of the villain?
"Do not hand me over to that unholy witch—"
She looks away. "He's not mine." And she's not his. She will never be his.
From the top of the main steps, a shriek echoes down. "Ungrateful, traitorous little bitch—"
"Nakul! Kristian!" calls the prince with Evie.
The boys falter: Nakul's sword drifts an inch away, and Kristian's lunging hand passes by the key dangling on Clayton's belt.
Doctor Facilier cackles, "Not for you!" Green energy crackles, warps, and twists around Kristian's leg. There's an awful crunch. The prince shouts in pain.
Nakul flinches.
Judge Frollo seizes his chance. Surging to his feet, knocking the blade away, he lunges—but not at the prince.
Claudine does what she's always done best. She runs.
"Go to Evie," she shouts at Nakul, dodging around Audrey. The princess swings her sword with a heavy hand and trips the Judge in his pursuit. She distracts him, spewing venomous words in his face, managing to sound more like an Isle brat than a purebred princess.
In Claudine's haste, she darts under Clayton's wrathful blade, distracting him the instant Janet uses the wall to propel more force into her wild swings of an unlit torch. This makes up for her lack of expertise, and lack of backup.
A weapon, there has to be—
("Grant me grace and strength—")
There's nothing in easy reach to grab, because Claudine cannot—will not—stop. Audrey's blocking falters when Judge Frollo twists her wrist, taking her blade, tossing the princess to the ground. Her best defense is to stay out of reach—
Twisting around Ally—the only other one who is in the dungeon, actually, which makes her wonder where the last girl, Eileen, went—Claudine almost makes it to the back stairs. Ally screams, and—
The Judge's hand around her throat. Yanks. Twists.
Prayers are not enough.
Her eyes fill with tears. Pain. And, slowly, she realizes—she cannot breathe. Through this misty veil hovers the twisted torturer's face. The man used to be father, a title so burning that ignoring it feels like blasphemy.
Tight grip. Crazed glint in his eyes as he lifts that stolen sword. Her nerveless fingers claw at his, as her lungs start to ache—
Electric blue.
:: :: ::
"Be ready," Evie murmurs, risking their thin enchanted cover with a final warning.
Felix's head twitches a nod, already briefed on the nature of her hiding spell. As long as there are shadows and they are still, they have the advantage of surprise.
In her hands, Evie clutches her mirror. She risks a glance down, in between scanning the halls. Pops in on Mal (flying), on Carlos (stalking), on Jay (encircled…?). Watching their backs in the only way she can, knowing she can't do anything to change their situations. Holding her own ground.
It's when she has on Jay that she realizes a blur of movement, one that her mirror slides away from by design, must mean—
She whispers, "She's coming. Alone."
"Who?"
"…The Evil Queen."
Uncomfortable silence falls.
With the gangs, there's so little waiting. Never knowing when an attack will come meant that Evie was always ready to fight. But this? This is worse. She knows who is coming, knows the power, knows—
She's still not strong enough. Not against that magic.
If only she'd been able to soak up some of that Isle barrier's remnants. She might have stood a chance. Instead, she's stuck with a fragment of a mirror and a half-trained prince. At least their parents' talismans are real and Grimhilde's not fully powered.
Evie asked Felix to come with her because according to Carlos, he's one of the better fighters and kept his level-headed demeanor on the Isle. She wanted that beside her here, where they need to hold off any help that may come. Despite the fact that he might be thinking about Grimhilde as her mother. That can't be helped.
Evie expected this villain to come. Thought that this was exactly the situation she would need to face.
Minutes tick by, lengthening, once the ruckus down below starts. Claudine, of course. The Splinter girl excels at lingering just on the fringes, while being able to spark conflict with little more than an off-hand remark.
"Weapons work."
Evie blinks. Felix still scans the hallway, and his eyes flicker to meet hers. "Against her," he adds, voice low under his breath. "The dwarves defeated her with a rock. I have a sword."
His goal is unclear. Whether he knew she did not count his sword in her mental calculations, or wanted to remind her that he wasn't helpless, or— She's not sure. What he wants her to know. What he wants from her.
She narrows her eyes at him, raising a single eyebrow. This look used to get even Carlos to spill what he'd held back.
He meets her gaze without flinching. "She can't defend as well against weapons. I can fight her."
Ah. Her fists clench. "You think I'll betray you. Betray everyone." Not surprising. She'd done it to these villains, after all.
But Felix only offers a tiny twitching smile. "No. I'm saying you don't have to face her alone."
… Well. How perfectly Auradon of him.
And not a moment later, a coldly furious witch rounds the corner and Evie's frozen beneath her cover. For an instant, Grimhilde's rage is too terrifying. For a heartbeat, Evie wants to curl away into the stairwell, head bowed subserviently, ready to take whatever punishment—
Then her heart beats again. Her hands relax into fight-readiness, but rather than a blade slipping from her sleeve into her palm, her fingers clutch the edges of her mirror.
Felix is right. In a power-struggle match of magic versus magic, she'll lose. But, if she instead aids the brute strength of a weapon-wielding fighter with those sly tricks she's been using all this time to hide her traitorous self…
From the corner of her mouth, Evie whispers, "I'll cover you. I won't move."
This passes underneath the stomping feet and huffing breath of the Evil Queen as she stalks ever-nearer. Felix does not have the time to acknowledge Evie's words with more than a nod. His hand, still resting on the hilt of his sword, flexes.
"Draw," she says, and angles the mirror to extend his protection as he shifts his stance.
Shadows spill into the corridor, reflecting as she murmurs rhymes in his defense. "Mirror, mirror, deep and black, reflecting only sunlight's lack…"
Grimhilde slows to a stop, eyes peering through the sudden gloom, lips twisting into a sneer. "Oh, you foolish child," she says, hands curling into fists.
"Extend your image through this hall, protecting prince who stands so tall…"
Felix lunges forward, striking a blow. Grimhilde shouts in pain, wheeling away, one palm out as her eyes—sightless in the shadows—wildly scan the corridor. Felix paces away from her, silently, able to see clearly as she lashes out. A lightning bolt crashes through a window and strikes the ground—right where he was when he swung his sword.
"Mirror, mirror, deep and black, reflecting only sunlight's lack…"
He moves faster toward her wounded side, circling nearer, and backs away immediately when her hand curls the same way it did before. Sure enough, a second bolt of lightning strikes. Grimhilde hisses in frustration.
"Shield and sword, you cover true, keep us hidden from one you knew…"
A small, jeweled knife slips into one of the Queen's hands, and the blade glistens uncannily. She holds it steady, despite the apparent pain in her shoulder.
Felix swings at her again. Grimhilde shrieks in pain as her arm is cut.
Evie keeps her chant, sub-vocal, singing through her veins. Her spell is woven fast, not fighting toe-to-toe with greater power and so holding—
Until Grimhilde turns again—
Too late, Evie flinches as a wicked smile and raised palm tip toward an open window. A fragment of mirror in the palm of the Evil Queen's hand glimmers in sudden moonlight.
"Mirror, mirror, time to shine through this spell from what was mine!"
Evie's spell shatters with a faint buzz against her fingertips.
Grimhilde's eyes alight on her daughter with furious, hungry intent. "Ungrateful, traitorous little bitch—"
Felix lunges forward with a distracting shout. "Nakul! Kristian!" He slashes the shard from Grimhilde's hand. She's able to strike back with another lightning bolt, and his sword goes flying from his hands, smoking slightly. Stalemate.
But Felix has given Evie a tiny sliver of time. Just enough.
"Mirror, mirror, just reflect, each foul spell cast direct—"
"You are mine!"
:: :: ::
Stabbed in the back and nothing feels right anymore.
Freddie hasn't said it aloud but there's something wrong in the pit of her belly, growing more wrong every day. Something like an oozing shadow, lurking around her spine. Something like raw, unfettered power, supercharged by the broken barrier and leaving her body out to rot, a stinking carcass of suppressed potential.
Death warmed over. Invasive, foreign: (–warmed right back up by your friends—)
Freddie has to ignore Them. A lot.
(—you call this ignoring us? how human of you—)
Healing's not for free, after all.
The elder Facilier's not the only one with friends on the other side…not anymore. She can't bring any others back, not to fight, but the bluff in their filmed distraction wasn't entirely a lie. She was allowed to help her Claudine, after all.
Her father's eyes make sense now. If her gang had looked more closely, Freddie thinks they would have noticed. If Claudine, the one who shines like a moon, orbiting and pulling at her tides, had asked, Freddie would have answered. But they didn't, and so she came with them. To carry out the task given as she burst back into aching life.
(—usurper of the recently dead, we are more than you—)
And so, underground and bursting with raw potential, Freddie zaps his magic away with green lashings of her own. She tries to pretend that there is nothing blue sparking across her fingertips.
(—can't ignore us, girl, it's our power we're using—)
Faint to her ears, companions cry out or shout or summon their strength. The wild-man's daughter sends her father's enemy toppling right in the middle of her own fight. Freddie dodges those surging green flecks of pure power.
Facilier scoffs. "We both have power granted from the Other Side. And they don't fight each other. Give it up, girl."
"Never," she spits, back crashing against the brick as she attempts to brace against his ethereal shove.
(—we're more than you think, fallen bokor—)
Facilier's mouth opens again, a scream across the room mimicking the movement of his jaw, and—
(—look, your moon, she who pulls—)
Behind him. Judge Frollo. Has his hands. On Claudine.
(—your bright one—)
Freddie howls, and with it the yawning chasm in her belly deepens, ripples, widens. Her dreadlocks spin in a frenzy, into her eyes, as she swings her arms forward.
There's some ancient swelling in her magic's direction. Push. Pull.
(—deep waters lightless pressure surging tides rolling histories unfurling—)
For a moment, a breathless moment, all is blue.
:: :: ::
The hunter is unconscious and Janet breathes. Her father's enemy. Brought down. By a girl with a stick. Oh, Clayton won't live that one down, and she'll make sure of it. Especially after he so cruelly and easily knocked Aria out.
Then she's on her knees, clumsy fingers skittering over the keys latched to his belt. Hands shaking, she fights with the clasp. Before he wakes. She has to get them—
Audrey appears at her back, spitting mad. "Pathetic whimpering coward! Eileen will get caught, and I don't care, she fucking ran—"
"Language, my lady," Janet mumbles, a line engrained to memories of teachers catching her friends on the lawn—
"Excuse me?" Audrey shrieks.
Janet blinks. Did she…? Hysterical laugher tumbles out as the keys fall to the floor. Her hands close around them—
Blue flashes.
For a moment, she's overcome with fear. She doesn't want to be hurt by a key just like Evie. But—she keeps breathing regularly and she can feel stone digging into her knees, so—
Janet looks up.
The Isle girl Freddie is wreathed in blue like fire—no, like water—no. Both, neither. More. Hair rising, hands clawed, stretching out one hand towards Doctor Facilier's cowering, cringing form, her mouth opening and—
The Doctor is shoved away. Freddie lunges, the motion jerky, wrong. Her expression twists beyond normal capacity. Clawed hands clutch—
Judge Frollo snarls as he is separated from his daughter by those hands. But seeing her, he screams.
A voice like roaring ocean waves: "You. Never touch her. Again."
The Judge does not stop screaming. Not as blue leaps and swirls up his robes. Not as a vortex, otherworldly, green, rips the air jaggedly, releasing screams that echo from some other world. Not as cords of energy lash out and grip him. Not as his feet begin to slide across the stone floor, being sucked in, limb by limb—
"Freddie!"
With a rough, croaking voice, Claudine reaches through that electric blue to clasp her companion's hand, turning her body so that her face is visible.
Eyes glowing with power, consumed by whatever speaks through her, not-Freddie turns her attention to the skeletal girl standing at her side. "He does not belong here. He was dead. He was not ours—but he is now."
Claudine pleads. "Let Freddie go. Let him go."
Wailing voices of the mournful dead echo out of the abyss. Not-Freddie, voice like a heavy thunderstorm, replies, "It would be best to return his soul to rest. Even your God would agree."
"Then that's up to Him," Claudine says, shaking her head. "The Holy Book says to turn the other cheek." She twines their fingers together and holds their linked hands up, between them. "He will take the Judge. Not you. Not Freddie."
Not-Freddie sighs, a whistling wind on the bluffs of a cliff. The Judge continues to scream.
Janet clutches the keys to her chest. Audrey's hand is bruising her shoulder.
Not-Freddie jerks like a marionette doll and the Judge collapses to the floor. He crumples into a ball, shivering, clutching at the stone floor.
Those other-worldly eyes focus on the Doctor, who whimpers against the wall. "You."
Doctor Facilier begs. "Please, please—"
"You killed this girl," the ocean's roar fills the dungeon. "Not at our will. She was our devotee, and you sent her to us before her time. She serves us, now. But you do not. You have not for some time."
"No, no, no, I do, I will—"
A voice like the roaring surf: "Spirits, ride that body no further, or face our wrath."
Doctor Facilier cries, "No, I'll do anything you want—"
"Away!" Freddie's arm flips and he slides against the stone, slides toward that jagged rip in the air. He screams as green mists its way out of his pores, seeping back into the same-colored void, until at last… he stops screaming. When Facilier falls, breathing raggedly just like the Judge, all that is left are the echoes of a thousand whispering, cackling voices.
The hole in reality closes in fits and starts. Unlike the clean slashing when it opened, it closes like a fast-healing wound, and the closer it comes to sealing the less Freddie glows. Until, finally, both the rip and the glow are gone.
Two fanatical men lie motionless. The hunter is unconscious.
Janet never wants to see the Other Side again.
The Isle girl, terrifying power released, sways. The puppet strings are cut and she collapses to the stone.
Claudine cries out, catching her upper body, following its weight down to the floor. The livid marks on Claudine's throat are already beginning to bruise as she strains to hold up her companion. "Freddie!" Claudine adjusts her grip, the unconscious girl's head lolling back over her arm. Blood runs from her nose. "Freddie!"
Her eyes stay closed.
Claudine cups Freddie's still, fine-boned face with one palm. "Please, Freddie. I'm fine. And we got the keys, and the others, they're still fighting and they need us. We have to be there."
That's what makes Janet move, finally.
She grips the keys more tightly in her hand and picks herself up. Her knee twinges when she turns her back to the lost, scared girl not much younger than Janet herself.
A fight is still going in the corridor above, faint clashes echoing down the stairs to these cells. Claudine's begging is the only sound below. "You have to be here," she says, voice cracking. "They can't hurt us anymore. We're finally free."
"We are," Janet murmurs as she fumbles with the keys. On the other side of a faintly-shimmering spell bubble, her father's eyes peer at her so intensely that her battered heart is warming and cracking at the same time.
Why does she get this unconditional love, and others…Claudine, and Freddie, and so many more…don't?
The cell doors creak when they open.
:: :: ::
Lightning shatters an entire stone in the archway. A paving stone at her feet. Blows out one of the windows. And each time, Evie remains just a bare step ahead of Grimhilde's wrath.
Felix and Evie move jerkily around each other, each distracting the evil witch for each other, but the cooperation is not seamless. As is evident by the damage being done to the hall around them. And the fact that Evie has been unable to cast another complete spell, reduced to dodging and chanting out partials.
"I'm stronger than you," Grimhilde cackles. "And need far less of those couplets!"
Evie grimly redirects another lightning bolt with the mirror clasped in her hands. The spell she cast holds, but the Evil Queen is stronger, and she's not sure for how much longer that will be true—
Emerging at a run straight from the shadows, Nakul leaps up behind Grimhilde and trips her, sliding into a shoulder-to-shoulder stance beside Felix. As the Evil Queen falters and flails to regain her balance, Evie turns the mirror in her hands, twisting back and forth, catching the motion in the glass.
"Mirror, mirror, in my hands, catch the motion of these lands…"
Grimhilde snarls her frustration, knees buckling as though an earthquake rolled under her feet.
"Twist and turn beneath her feet, let her know no safe retreat!"
The Evil Queen continues to wobble, growing increasingly irate. A wildly-flung lightning bolt causes the boys to retreat, weapons still angled and ready. Evie catches her breath, still twisting and turning the mirror. There must be something else. Not much time—
Grimhilde crumples to the floor, panting.
"What's below?" Felix says, eyes never leaving their adversary.
"Not good. Kristian's injured. Aria's knocked out. And I think—"
An utterly unearthly sound ricochets up the stairs. A thousand wailing, mournful moans…a sound like ocean waves…
"Freddie's doing something," Nakul concludes. Stepping slightly closer to the motionless witch, he adds, "Eileen ran. Not sure where to."
Not good. Evie must figure out how to bind Grimhilde. It's already been too long that she's remained panting, palms to the floor, in front of them.
"She didn't come up this way," Felix replies. "Maybe—"
A buzz tingles up Evie's fingers. Broken spell.
She flinches, shouts, "Nakul—!"
Too late. The prince shouts, sword clattering out of his hand, clutching his knee. Blood seeps from the thin slice, dripping down the eerily-glistening blade clutched in Grimhilde's hand. Her triumphant snarl alights on her face as she rises—
Nakul crumples to his undamaged side, hand slipping away from the gash. Evie is already rushing towards him as his eyes roll back in his head and close. His skin takes on an unnatural pallor.
Felix has lunged forward, sword parrying the tainted blade away, slicing into Grimhilde's hand at the same time. She hisses in pain, cursing him.
Another spike of lightning.
Evie places herself between her mother and their downed companion. Her fingers curl around the mirror. She mutters the same reflection spell into it, just in time to redirect yet more lightning into another cracking stone.
Nakul lies in a deathless sleep at her feet. She recognizes it, from the book, from Grimhilde's description, from the way the jeweled blade glimmers in the early morning light and her memory reminds her that this blade was made a week ago. She wasn't powerful enough to undo the enchantment, wasn't powerful enough to unlock the cells, wasn't powerful enough keep the Evil Queen trapped.
And now this kind young prince suffers the same curse as her half-sister.
Her arms quiver. Though the mirror amplifies her magic, she's starting to run low on internal power. And there is no magical battery to help her recharge. Once she's done…
(No. Failure is not an option.)
She was ready to spread her wings and sacrifice herself to ensure that this battle would be won. This has not changed.
(Do it for her family. For her found, beloved, self-chosen family—)
"Traitorous little—"
Her lips curl into a snarl as she stands, ready to send the next lightning bolt blazing back into its caster.
Rising from below, running feet sound on the stairs.