Everything seemed to move very slowly. Dominic ran forward to catch Emma's falling figure, and just managed to hold up her head before it hit the ground.

"What have you done?" he screamed, cradling his wife, who had now stopped breathing entirely and whose pulse was fading away quickly.

"Mother!" Anthony and Tess called at the same time, rushing toward their parents.

Emma's eyes were closed and the blood poured from the cut on her neck. Dominic's tears mingled with the blood on his fingers, which were trying to staunch the flow.

Tess threw herself into helping her father, ripping lengths of her skirt to press to the cut, while Anthony turned to the cause for all of their misery.

But Sylphide did not pay attention to the boy as he approached. She did not seem to notice anything, but was standing with her eyes closed and her arms stretched out, as if expecting something large to be placed into them.

"Undo this!" Anthony screamed, grabbing her arm and pulling her to the sand. "I know you can. You must undo this!"

Sylphide opened her eyes, frowning in annoyance at having been interrupted in her meditation.

"I will do nothing. We had arrived at an agreement, Anthony."

"Do you expect me to let you off with that? Help her!" he demanded, grabbing her robes in fistfuls and shaking her.

"Temper, temper, dear boy," Sylphide scolded, brushing his hands away and standing up.

At that moment, Tess began to sob even harder. Emma's heart had stopped beating.

"Save her!" Dominic begged, looking up at Sylphide.

Then, suddenly, something happened which not one of them had expected.

From the water, two figures came striding up. One was taller and slightly older than the other. He had a black beard and was dressed in robes. The other was a young man, soaked to the skin, in a tunic with a royal emblem. Tess instantly recognized the latter, through tear-filled eyes.

"Victor!" she cried out, not leaving her mother's side.

"Miss de Winter," he said, panting from the walk, and, apparently, a long swim.

What nobody else knew was that the older man was also familiar to somebody.

Sylphide paled and nearly fell to the sand again, as she took a step backwards.

"Gods, it can't be!" she whispered to herself.

"Do you fail to recognize your own lover?" the man with the black beard asked her, coming closer.

"Andreas!" she moaned.

"You do recognize me, then, Ida," he said, coming over to her by now and seizing her shoulder. "You have caused such destruction for this family, which, if I am not mistaken, is also your family."

"It is, it is," she mumbled, not daring to look up at him.

Andreas seized her chin and forced her eyes to meet his.

"You thought me dead, as did everybody. What nobody knew was that you had not killed me."

Sylphide stared. "That's not possible."

"Oh? It was Poseidon who sent the wave that took Mycena and me from the shore. She died, of course, but I survived, and hid myself. From men and from gods."

"Why would Poseidon have done such a thing?"

"So that Zeus might have a reason to get rid of you," Andreas said slowly.

Everything clicked then. It had all been a setup.

"And this Mycena?" she asked suspiciously.

"You are still jealous and angry?" he asked, almost amused. "Your brother let slip an extra arrow. If anybody, he is to blame for that brief indiscretion on my part. Of course, you have been even more unfaithful, what with your multiple marriages and even children!"

"But why have you waited so long to return to me?" Sylphide whined.

"I could not have returned on my own. It was your own brother, Eros, who found me, and, with many apologies, helped me to come to this shore and to find you."

"Please!" Victor called from the spot where Emma's body was lying, and where Tess was leaning over her, drowning in tears. "Please, you saved me, kind sir. Help this woman!"

Sylphide then remembered what she had been about to do. The joy of seeing Andreas, whom she thought to be dead, and by her own hand, was overwhelming. Now, the plight of her grand-daughter was swiftly brought back to her mind.

"It is over," she said quietly to the group at her feet. "She is gone."

Before their howls of rage and sorrow could pierce the air, Andreas spoke.

"Are you certain? There must be a death, at the end of this day, but it is not Emma de Winter who must be dead."

Dominic and the others looked up with renewed hope. Andreas continued, turning to them.

"There must be a sacrifice. Somebody must give his or her own life for the lady's."

Without a pause, or a second thought, Victor stood up.

"I will do it."

"Young man, you shou—"

"I will. If I do not, then her daughter will think that I am a coward who could not have done the right thing. She will never look upon me favourably and, since I love her, I cannot live without her favour."

"Victor Everline, I cannot take your life, because you offer it in love," Andreas said to the eager boy. "But, you must also make a sacrifice, of a different kind."

"What is it?" he asked suspiciously.

"There is a woman who owes her own life to the woman who lies there. Your mother."

Victor inhaled deeply, then bit his lip and nodded.

"She would give her life, willingly. Now that my father has died, she would gladly—"

"We will let her decide," Andreas interrupted.

Nobody said anything, confused as they were. Only Tess knew who Victor was, and the other did not understand what was going on in the least, with respect to Andreas.

He, meanwhile, had pressed his palms together and then spread them apart, whispering something into the air. Suddenly, a woman materialized before him. She was about Emma's age, but, unlike Emma, she had a very worn look about her, as if she had worked for many years, and had only recently earned a rest.

"What—?"

She looked around, confused, until she saw Victor.

"Son!" she cried, going over to embrace him. He held her close for a time and then drew back.

"Mother," he said steadily, trying not to let his own fear and sorrow overwhelm him. "Mother, do you recognize this woman?"

He indicated Emma's body.

"It can't be!" his mother cried, after a brief look at her face. "Emma de Winter."

"It is," he affirmed.

"She is… dead?"

"Mother, this man," he indicated Andreas, "Says that she may live again, if a life is offered in exchange for hers."

"Mine, you mean?" she asked, after a pause.

"He has suggested as much."

"No, Victor, I won't let you do this!" Tess cried, jumping up and grabbing his sleeve. "I won't!"

"It's not up to me," he told her, turning around to hold her still, as she was shaking visibly. He did not want her to see how shaken he himself was.

"I will do it," Victor's mother intoned, turning to Andreas. "I will take her place. I owe her that much. I have lived my life and I am tired, but she still has so much to live for. I only ask that she and her husband may take care of my son."

Dominic had also stood up at this point.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"You don't recognize me, Dominic?" she said in response. "I recognize you, though I only saw you once. The years have been kind to you. They have not spared me, as you can see."

Dominic knitted his eyebrows in confusion.

"My name is Maria. I was once the daughter of a duchess and mistress to your wife. When my mother was arrested, I was disgraced and would have died on the streets, had Emma not been kind to me and let me live in a small estate, far from England. There, I worked for many years, trying to scrub away my guilt at what I had done to her. In a strange twist of events which Victor may some day recount to you, but which we have no time for now, I became wife to the prince of Monetto."

Maria had finished her story, and Dominic could see the way the years had worn away her beautiful face, which he remembered vaguely from a ball that had taken place many years ago.

"Will you let me die for her, Dominic? Nothing could spare the years of her childhood that my mother and I stole from her, but I hope that by doing this, a chance I might have asked for years ago, I may give her something to replace those years."

Dominic nodded, after a long silence. "Your son will be like my own."

Maria smiled wearily, then turned to Andreas.

"Send me to my rest, sir, and to my husband," she requested, folding her hands.

Andreas nodded, and, instantly, she had disappeared, her body fading away into the wind, while Emma sat up and coughed.

"What happened?" she rasped, rubbing her throat, as Anthony supported her to sit up fully.

"We will speak of it later," Dominic whispered in her ear, just as Tess went into soft sobs again, and Victor tried to hide the one tear that trickled down his cheek.

Andreas and Sylphide had disappeared.