A/N: Well, this chapter took me a lot longer than I wanted but here it is! We're finally getting to the nitty gritty!

Disclaimer: Nope!

Warning: Slash, Mpreg, Dub-Con, Character Death.

Chapter Twenty One... "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France"

Go to the Palace of Wonders, he said. Stuffed Angel, they said.

Please, evacuate and leave this place to me.

I hissed in furious irritation as I half-waddled, half ran as fast as my rotundas body was able to carry me, being pulled along by my little one through the dark. Well, perhaps dark for him. My vision was as good in the dimness as it was at high noon. The arching door ahead glowed with the light of the outside world and, on Sebastian's order, we raced towards its luminescence. We were birthed into the courtyard quickly. Within mere moments, I was already missing the presence of my mate at my side. The connection between us tugged and pulled like a fragile string latched between our chest plates, always pulling my attention back to him. He had said that it would be like this in the beginning. This constant need to be within sight, the urge to seek reassurance and to always crave the comfort of touch. It was characteristic of our newborn, fledgeling mating bond. Already, I was feeling its effects. We halted in the midst of the courtyard, both panting in exhaustion. I was already worn out from the day and starving to boot. In the rush of preparations to leave, Sebastian and I had not had the chance to hunt and I was regretting not finding the time now. Carrying around a baby wasn't easy work, after all, and my ankles were beginning to throb again.

There was a crowd milling about with the easy lethargy of sheep grazing lazily in a field, including the man that I had so offended earlier in the day. The weather was beautiful and the breeze warm, yet the moment we had caught our breath, I felt it. A sensation that slammed into me with the force of a furious Bludger, the same feeling I experienced when Ash came to visit the manor.

Danger. Fear. Need to protect! Protect my little ones! Mate! Where is my mate?! Run! Danger! Can't fight! Need to run!

At my side, Ciel's breath stuttered in shock.

"Angela..." He whispered though the name was breathed like a curse.

Angela? The supposedly dead Angel? Angel...That fearful feeling...Bloody hell, Ash was a sodding Angel. Puzzle pieces that hadn't seemed remotely connected before were suddenly making sense. Ash, the Queen's butler was an Angel. Ciel had contracted with Demons. The monarch's desire to see the Phantomhive name destroyed was coming into clarity all at once. We needed to get away. Coming to Paris had been a terrible mistake.

"We need to run." I hissed to him and already, he was tugging me away towards a gated off area declared unopened to the public. We had to get out of sight until Sebastian rejoined us. I was in no condition to fight an Angel and Ciel was so terribly fragile, so dreadfully human. We were sitting ducks without the other demon to defend us. The little Earl nodded before he started dragging my weary, wobbling body away from the danger. There was a gated off set of stairs that the two of us ducked behind and ascended quickly, far too eager to be out of sight of the viciously smiling Angel. The stairs led up to a small motorized elevator cart that reminded me vaguely of the underground metros in the London back in my home world.

The door had just been slid shut when the sickly smell of rotting hamburger crawled into my senses. What now? First the bleeding Angel and now...

"Goodness gracious, you're in a hurry." The bloody Queen? She sat towards the back of the tram, looking out over the mulling masses from the safety of the isolated contraption. Her butler was thankfully nowhere in sight but judging from the nauseating smell emitting from Her Majesty, I wasn't sure if we were any safer in the knowledge, "It's been a long time."

I hissed at her threateningly, pushing Ciel behind me in some attempt to protect him. She would not talk to him and she wouldn't hurt him! I would rip her beating heart from her bleeding chest before I let that happen! The boxcar began to ascend to the peak of the Tower, oblivious to the plight of its inhabitants.

"Look at the view from up here." The monarch demanded lightly, casting her attentions back out of the window. One really could see all of Paris from this height. It would have been beautiful if my darkening eyes weren't focusing on a much less pleasant image. There was something strange about the Queen, something unnatural. And that scent, that Merlin-awful stench! What could make such a smell on a living person? It reeked of something putrefied and decomposing, "As she faces the next century, Europe is on the verge of change. However...there's a stain over there. There's stagnation over there." She turned an accusing, pointed finger at myself and Ciel, "There's uncleanliness right here."

I could feel my little one flinch in shock behind me and my hissed threats quickly became full out parsletongue, the warnings and menacings enough to scare off many lesser predators. The Queen, apparently, was far too confident in her butler's protection to give my threats much thought. Bully for her. Idly, I wondered if I could rip her throat out before Ash arrived to stop me.

"The entire slate must be wiped clean." She continued almost as if musing to herself, "There can be no creation without destruction. In order for the new century to be pure, I cleansed the house that has taken on all that is negative in our nation: the house of Phantomhive."

That bint! That slimy, no-good canker sore! I'd show her destruction! I'd bring her whole palace down on her head if I had to! After all, it wouldn't be the first time a dynasty fell. The dreadful woman exited the tram eventually and I practically crushed Ciel into the wall behind me to keep him as far away from her passing presence as possible. All I wanted to do was take my little one and run in the opposite direction. Back to Sebastian, back home. Back to my safe, clean nursery and to the life we had built together. Ciel had other ideas. He followed Her Majesty up the remaining steps as she sang that creepy song. His face however, was filled with his rage. This was the person who had robbed him of his family. This was the person who was responsible for his captivity and even inevitably his contract with Sebastian. This corrupted Queen was at fault for it all and he knew it now. It was all becoming clear but...why? Why defile his parents bodies that way? Why do any of it? Queen Victoria had an answer.

"I merely wanted to pay what tribute I could to the Phantomhives after they showed me such loyalty." Her voice, to my disgust and his, sounded tearful.

A stiff air current, heavy and almost violent this high up, snatched her mourning veil as if it were just a wisp of cloud and scattered it to the winds. Beneath, was not what any of us expected. The Queen had become young and lovely again, a maiden rather than a dowager. But with that breeze came the alarm bells of my senses screaming on overtime all over again. On the tip of the Tower above, Ash sat, overlooking our confrontation like a lord overseeing his servants. His eyes gazed on my heavy form without even trying to hide his disgust.

"Ahh, the Demon-Witch and his abomination hell-spawn."

The Queen continued her explanation as if her butler weren't looking at me as if trying to decide how best he would like to dismember me.

"The joy of truly becoming one with the one you love, I felt that if I gave the Phantomhives that same joy, it would not be a ghastly death at all."

My mind was shrieking for Sebastian, crying out in fear and alarm for the only one who could protect us. I knew that he heard me. The answering brush of his mind against mine was proof of that. How dreadful for Ciel to finally discover the truth. How horrible to learn that the person he had served loyally and without question all of this time was actually the one he was fighting and railing against. I put myself in front of him, unwilling to allow any enemy to approach my youngling. How could I protect him this way? How could I do anything in his defense if I could barely move? The Elder Wand slipped into my hand silently, hidden against the palm of my hand. I couldn't fight physically, not in the shape I was in but I could do plenty of damage with magic. I was a wizard first, after all.

"Ash, at least let Ciel fall to your blade. The other, you may do as you like with. I know how much you deplore Demons and their primal, unclean existence. This one seems doubly guilty for he's bringing another stain into the world, wouldn't you agree?"

The smarmy Angel smirked menacingly, brandishing his sword before him all too happy to take our lives, "I shall bring thee down to the pit."

He lunged, faster than lightning, but fortunately, Sebastian was faster. Ciel and I were snatched up in the time it took to blink. A feat in itself considering I was as big as a Hippogriff. His presence there around me was a breath of fresh relief. As if I had just emitted an enormous sigh, some of the tension leeching away from me.

He was here. We were going to be okay.

"This may be the end, my young master." Sebastian said impassively, a small smile coloring his face, "Your orders?"

Ciel was at his butler's back but the small boy stood in my arms and suddenly, he seemed like just that. A boy. A boy whom Fate had just ripped the rug out from under. Ciel's world had been turned upside down in a matter of moments and now...he stood shaky and uncertain. Did he order the murder of the Queen that he had lived his life for loyally? Or did he let her go?

"Kill Ash." Came his demand, his voice strong, but only I could see the doubt in his sapphire eye.

"Will that be all, my lord?"

Ciel's body shook in my arms, fear thrumming through his small form. What would he do? It wasn't hard to determine what it was that the butler wanted him to say and, despite his misgivings, the Earl gave him what he wished.

"Kill the Queen!" For a moment, just an instant, I resented my mate for making Ciel say it. I knew that it was necessary but...I hated him a little for putting my little one through this turmoil.

Sebastian's table knives made their way towards the Queen only to be parried by the Angel. The fight was on. It could have been a dance, so graceful were the players. So poised and elegant even while trying to disembowel the other. My mate moved through the air with the grace of his familiar but the damage the two did was not so pretty. Large pieces of the Tower began to fall on the unsuspecting crowd below, Ciel's eye widening in alarm.

"Sebastian, stop!" He cried, nearly lunging from the protective circle of my embrace.

The demon came to a halt in front of us, silverware poised for striking in his skilled grip. He did not look pleased, as if someone had just jerked his toy out from under him.

"Why?"

"We've attracted attention. At this rate, the commotion will only get bigger." It was a frail reason and we all knew it. Already, I could feel Sebastian's end of our connection freezing up once more with his frigid anger. The icy wall was steadily reasserting itself between us. I shuddered with the sensation, my own fear filling my belly. I sank to my knees, the fragile strength within me waning at last. Sebastian didn't seem to notice, so focused on his nemesis but the Earl did. Ciel's hands fluttered over me frantically, one falling to my heavy belly and the other to my pale cheek. It was too much...Too much sensation, too much fear and uncertainty all in a short period.

"Why should we bother ourselves with them, my lord? They're only humans."

"No! We're withdrawing!"

Sebastian turned back to look at the boy with something akin to horrified shock on his handsome expression. His eyes immediately zeroed in on my kneeling, panting figure but when they looked at his master, the crimson depths were ice cold. I let out a moan of pain and the child within me began kicking out fearfully, small star bursts of terror shocking through my brain. Was my baby talking to me over our bond? Not in words, since the child did not understand spoken language, but in its own fledgling emotions.

"Such uncleanliness." Ash said, almost to himself, as he spirited the Queen away quickly on white feathered wings.

The only thing I could register in my exhaustion was the dark iceberg that was the man that I trusted in.