For a long moment, I can't actually process what I'm seeing. I haven't seen Cait for months and when I saw her last she had her Cheshire smile on. The one that says she's looking forward to the mischief she's about to commit, not that she would tell me what that mischief was.

Emaciated, dirty, and lacking any expression except resigned apathy, I almost don't recognise her.

She stares at me blankly for a moment, then there's a spark of recognition in her eye, and I finally can sort her scent from the miasma of everything else down here. Her expression doesn't change, she simply lays her head back down where it had been and ignores us as only a cat can.

That's Cait.

That's Cait.

That's Cait!

Apparently what I'd taken as goth makeup is actually just her natural coloring.

The thought is completely inane, but it's the first thing to go through my head.

Then my brain catches up with what's going on, and I process what's actually happening. Cait is Iron Blooded. Which really shouldn't be a surprise. How else would a fae manage to survive in modern society for as long as Cait has? How else would she have gotten the Lady of the Lake to make a house call... Not to mention why Vivain was so pissed when she heard that Cait had gone missing.

Cait is Iron Blooded.

This is why she refused to return to England.

This is why she stayed in the mortal world when she finished her duty as a Changeling.

Áillen was hunting her.

Áillen wants me to steal the Iron Blooded trait and give it to him.

That would kill Cait.

He wants me to kill Cait.

My entire body locks up. Can I kill my way through the entire castle, get to the fire bastard's throne room and murder his ass?

Of course! How hard can it be?

Just an army of fae knights and other warriors in an ever changing castle that they can navigate and I can't. Simplicity itself!

I can feel my wings trying to manifest and mantle, and suppressing this new anger instinct manages to make me start thinking again. I'm outnumbered, outpowered, just... out classed. And god damn, do I hate that even after everything I've done, that's still the case so consistently.

I really need to get out of here.

More than the likely suicidal result of trying to kill everything in this place without a lot of planning and prep time, my first priority needs to be rescuing Cait.

Vengeance can wait until Cait is safe and can help.

That thought lets me get my body to relax. Suddenly, I'm very glad that my armor is so concealing, and that I don't have any powers that react to my emotional state. With my back to Maefael and his knights, I doubt they saw anything of my reaction. Assuming that I haven't been sitting here in silence for a suspiciously long time.

I sigh, "You're going to have to get her healthier as well." I tell the knights like it's the most natural thing in the world.

There's no reply for a long moment before the armored dead man in chief demands, "Why?"

I take a moment to school my face back into the expressionless blank mask I've been maintaining since the knights showed up, and turn to face them.

"Because we're taking her immunity. The healthier she is the stronger the power taken will be. As things stand now it would probably be more 'resistance' than actual immunity. I'm not sure how much resistance either."

Maefael nods slowly working through the logic of the bullshit I just spouted. He seems to buy it though, "I will inform my Lord." He says slowly.

I spot the tiniest quirk of the lips from Cait, of course she'd spot what I'm trying to do, before I stand and turn back to the knights, "That's all I can do for the moment. I'll head back to my room and get started. When you get her set up wherever this is going to happen, let me know and I'll start work there."

I've got a few things to make before the next time they leave me in a room with Cait.

###

The cell they've found to keep Cait in, and for me to work in, is rather larger than I had been expecting. The fact that something had been removed from the center of the room, indicated by the slight discoloration there, and that they are still removing racks of unpleasant looking tools from the walls when they show me in, makes me think that this room had been used for something far more unpleasant in the past.

I really hope that Cait's never been in this room before.

After making a show of looking around, I turn back to the knights that escorted me here, and nod, "This'll work perfectly." I turn back to look at the Burner's soldiers, and again have to suppress the urge to take Sclamhaire and just start stabbing, "The... subject?" I can't quite bring myself to call Cait a sacrifice even when I know I'm lying.

The knights nod, and turn back down the hallway. Moments later, after the last of the servants clearing the room left, two knights dragged Cait in. She already looks better than she did last night. Which strikes me as odd, but I'm not complaining.

"Where do you want her?" One of the guards carrying Cait asks, jerking her roughly. As though I need some indication of who he's talking about.

I womanfully refrain telekinetically smearing him on a wall, "In the center of the room."

They nod, and drag Cait past me, giving me a better look at her. From the looks of things Cait has given them some trouble in the past. Even here in the dungeon, surrounded by guards and weakened by whatever they've done to keep her controllable, she's tightly bound. Her legs are bound together by solid bands of silvery fae metal at the ankle and knee. Her arms are pinned behind her back and similarly bound at the wrist and elbow. They've got a collar on her as well radiating the mana of some serious enchantments. It's not attached to anything, though it has places where it could be.

I'd say I'm surprised they left her as much mobility as they did, but these are fae. They're probably hoping that she'll try to escape by hopping or crawling, just so they can laugh at her. It seems like the kind of thing that the needlessly cruel fuckers would do.

Once the guards have dropped her where I indicated, I shoo the lot of them out, "I need to concentrate to work. I wouldn't have her," I wave a hand at Cait, "in here if I didn't need her for reference. On that note I'm also going to silence the room."

The knight who led me down here looks at me suspiciously, "Why?"

I look at him incredulously, "That." I point towards the door to the cell, outside of which is the same narrow passage that I was led down yesterday. It's still filled with the screams and moans of everybody the Burner has locked away for torment, "Look, I'm not stopping you from looking inside, I'm just going to put some tags on the bars that will keep sound from passing through them. It'll let me concentrate."

After a moment of hemming and hawing, not that any fae would use such a term, or admit to uncertainty, the guards decide that I probably can't cause much trouble. Not to mention that I am working for their Lord on something that only I can do, and they know nothing about. Who knows what I need?

I'm sort of tempted to start demanding ridiculous things. Like mortal take out food, or stuffed animals, or hell, real animals, just to see if I can get them to give them to me. But I'm not really willing to risk Cait's life, even tangentially, for my own amusement. So I let the idea go, unrealised.

Once the guards are through the door and the bars are back, I move to them and start sticking paper Script tags to them. I have three, and they're what I had made last night when I returned to my rooms. Two of the tags are exactly what I'd said they are, simple barrier tags to block out sound. The third, though, is an analysis Script, sympathetically linked to another tag stuck to the back of my neck, hidden by my hood.

The bars on the cells have confused me since I first saw them. Solid bars anchored in the top of the cell doors and the floor. No way to move them, no way to get past them. Clearly it's possible, but I've never seen them do whatever it is they do to make that happen. Even just now they managed to put the bars back at some point when I wasn't paying attention. Which is impressive since I'm reasonably certain that I never looked away from them.

So this analysis tag should tell me what the bars are, and how they work. The sympathetic link will let me do that without being obvious about it.

Everything in place I sing the tags to life. The two on either side first, and then the one in the middle. Huge amounts of information streams through my mind. So much I don't even try to track all of it. There are only a few bits of information I need. How do I open this door? Failing that, what the hell are these bars?

I can't find the procedure for opening the door, but moments later I find what the bars are, and everything makes much more sense.

I turn quickly from the bars back to the center of the room, just in time to keep the guards from seeing me crack up. The bars are completely ridiculous, and such a fae thing to do. The bars are illusions.

Granted an illusion that you can touch, and act like reality, but an illusion nonetheless.

I keep laughing until a familiar voice interrupts me, "I take it from the laughing that it's safe to talk." Cait's voice is hoarse, and weak, but also amused and teasing, and that's so her that it's all I can do not to throw myself at her and hug the stuffing out of her.

But we're still playing a role right now, and I can't give us away, "Yeah, we can talk. They can still see us though. So face away from the bars and..." I glance down at her thoroughly bound form. She's craned her head back enough to be able to stare at me blankly out of the corner of her eye, "Right. Never mind."

She lays back down with her back to both me and the door, and I move to a spot in the room where I can get started. I pull my athame and start carefully carving basic Script structure into the stone of the cell. I'm not entirely sure what the plan is just yet, so I can't start putting down actual Script. There are however basic… formatting requirements for most active Scripts. Like putting lines on blank paper, or putting down staffmarks for sheet music, and I can start on those.

"What happened? Last time I heard from you was almost six months ago." I finally get to ask the question that's been weighing on my mind for almost that entire six months.

Cait sighs, "Somebody set a trap. I've been running an underground railroad for bakeneko and nekoshu... Do you know what happened to them?"

"I do actually. I've actually been helping to rehabilitate Shirone, Kuroka's little sister. She's the rook of Sirzech's little sister." I glance sideways at her back, "Which actually reminds me there's a few other questions I want to ask you, but those can wait until we're free."

"Right, when we're free." Cait pauses for long enough that I'm about to prompt her to keep going, when she starts talking again, "I got an S.O.S. from one of my agents. They were pinned down by searchers, hunting for the nekoshu family that he was moving, and needed help escaping. So I went to help. Turns out there was no family, or hunters. Instead, there was an ambush. My agent had been elfstruck, and they'd set me up."

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. I thought only humans could be elfstruck? Something about our lesser minds being easily overwhelmed?" I really didn't want to think about more effective elfstriking.

"You said it, not me." She teases, and I manage to limit myself to rolling my eyes, "But yeah. It shouldn't have been possible. I have no idea how, or who did it, but it's something I'll have to deal with once we're out of here."

"Right. So how are we doing that? Because I have to admit that getting you healthy, and then just killing our way out is really appealing." I comment, sounding maybe a bit too eager at the idea.

"We can't. Or rather you can't." I feel a great deal more disappointment at this then I should probably admit to.

"Why not?" I ask in a manner that is certainly not whining.

"Don't whine, Kitten." Cait admonishes me, sounding far too much much like my mother in that moment. Not that she sounds like the specific person who is my mother, but she does sound like a woman who's my mother... I can't tell if that makes sense or not, "You have guest rights don't you? You had better." And the mothering continues. I just respond with a nod since she's turned to glare at me, "Guest rights work both ways, Kitten. You can no more bring harm to him while a guest under his roof, than he can to you. Didn't you cover this in negotiations?"

I can feel my face flushing with heat, "We did. I just, might have forgotten about that part."

"Ericka..." That disappointment hurts.

"I'm sorry. I was a little too pissed off at finding you down here and looking like shit. The rules telling me I can't go after the assholes responsible might have slipped my mind." I didn't quite snap back at her. That got me a sigh, "Look. Let's just get out of here, anything else can wait for later."

I stay in that cell for another few hours, carving away at the floor. The conversation wasn't stilted, but we avoided any emotional topics. Instead discussing… not much of anything really. Just empty conversation to fill the air, and remind each other that we were both here. A reassuring reminder that we both need.

When I can't keep carving without knowing more about what the Script will be, I have the guards lead me back to my rooms.

For a few... okay I have no idea how long, I sit there just staring at the wall. It's not that Cait and I have never fought before. We've disagreed on plenty of things. But that's the first time that she's looked disappointed in me.

I need to focus on the immediate problem though, not the totally undeserved guilt.

So I can't do any damage to the Burner... or can I?

Guest laws always apply 'while under the host's roof'. Meaning while still a guest. So the question is, can I leave something behind that will harm the host, but not until I've left? Something to ask Cait later.

Well, no matter what the plan ends up being, we'll have to get Cait out of her cell. So how do I get past illusory bars? Especially since the illusion can be as 'durable' as the maker wants it to be. The easy way is to find the fae making those illusions and kill them. But that would be 'harm', and I have no idea who that would be anyway. Unless it's Áillen, but I have no interest in fighting a Lord of Summer. Especially since I seem to be terminally short on iron.

So I need some other way to dispel the bars.

...I think...

Pua and I did some experiments with applying Script to illusions while we were still trying to find a way to improve my glamor. It wasn't long after we started that we determined that the issue is my abysmal, by fae standards, ability to multitask. So the experiments never got that far.

We did come up with a number of theories though.

I think... I think there was something in those theories that might help. I can't remember them all clearly though, it's been a couple of years since I've given them any thought.

I kept the notes though.

I pull open my backpack and pull out the notebooks of the correct time.

...That's a lot of notes. Everything had still been new back then, and so I took notes on everything.

Well I guess I know what I'm doing tonight.

Who needs sleep anyway?

###

It takes me two days to find what I'm looking for, but it's good when I do.

I'm excited enough that whatever discomfort had been between Cait and I when I'd left is the last thing on my mind. When I get back into the cell she looks almost surprised to see me.

Something I choose not to think about.

I put the two silencing tags back up, and almost forget to put up a third false tag just for consistency, and sing the sound barrier back to life. Once that's up I turn back to the cell and start carving again, making sure my body language gives nothing away. Which isn't the easiest thing I've ever done.

"I got it!" I whisper for... really no good reason. My excuse is that it helps me keep my body language calm.

"Got... what?" Cait asks slowly, sounding a little like she hasn't had her morning coffee yet. Or whatever it is she drinks in the morning. I got my hands on some once, just to try it. It smelled great, and Cait slapped the mug out of my hands and across the kitchen before I could get a sip of it. She never explained but from her reaction I'm betting that it isn't good for non-fae.

"Two things. First, how to get you out of this cell. The bars are an illusion. Fae illusions, so almost as good as reality, but the key in this case is 'almost'. Because Script is reality, Pua and I theorized at one point that if I could actually put a bit of Script on an illusion I could... sort of remind reality that the illusion is actually an illusion. Then said illusion ought to just... poof out of existence like a resolving paradox."

Cait blinks at me several times, "That's a lot of 'maybes' and theories."

I resist the urge to shrug, "It's not exactly something I can test without attracting attention here, and it's never been important before. So while I have no idea how we're getting you out of here, I can at least get you out of the cell."

"Us." Cait corrects me, "How we're getting us out of here."

I grin, "That's the other thing I've figured out over the last couple of days. We don't have to get me out of here. I'm not in danger. You are. If we do this right you'll vanish, and I'll just shrug and say that without you I can't do what they want, so I'll take that trip back to the mortal world now, please. And by his own oaths, Áillen will have to give me at least that much. I can even make him less likely to take a shot at me the moment I'm no longer a guest by telling him to call me again whenever he's found another Iron Blood." I pause for a moment then continue thoughtfully, "That will also tell us when he's found another Iron Blood."

Cait blinks several times, her eyes darting back and forth as she thought over my logic. After a moment she smiled very slightly, and nods, "That could work. Especially if he has reason to want to stay on your good side."

"Great. Now we just need to find a way to get you out of the castle." I comment, "Navigating this place... I don't know if it's like navigating the faerie trodes, and so I just can't since I'm human, or if the place is actually reorganising itself any time you're not looking at it. But I can't find my way anywhere without a guide. I have no idea how we'll get you to an exit, or me to a place where I can have something like an alibi."

"I... Might have an idea." Cait murmurs from her spot on the floor, "I'll need time to work it out though."

"How much time? 'Cause the longer we're in here the more likely it is that something will go very wrong." I point out dryly.

"As much time as it takes." Cait says, laying her head back down on the stone floor.

I sigh. Normally Cait isn't so... Fae about things. That was a very fae answer though.

I'm about to go back to carving what I can without knowing exactly what I'm carving, when I remember something I'd meant to bring up with Cait while I was figuring out how to open the doors.

"Cait?" The cat fae hums in response, "I've got a question about the particulars of the way guest rights work." She hums again in question this time, "I know I can't do anything to hurt him while I'm a guest, but can I set something up that will hurt him? As long as I'm not a guest when it does?" Cait rolls her head to look at me, "Like say a bomb on a remote trigger?"

The savage smile that I get when I voice that idea makes me very optimistic.

###

I spend most of a week carefully carving a Script based on a combination of my Gourd of Destruction grenades and the Script that makes power of destruction for them. I'll start it when we decide to leave, and the cell will fill up with power of destruction. Hopefully quickly. Ideally the room will fill up enough to be under pressure, like my grenades. So when I eventually break the Script keeping it contained, with another popsicle stick, the room should explode like a rather large bomb. Hopefully a large enough one to eliminate the entire castle, and the Burner.

I really hope it works.

If I just piss Áillen off, well I'll be out of the universe soon enough. It won't come back on me. They might decide to take it out on Cait though. On the other hand, they needed to ambush her and suborn one of her men with a never before heard of elfstriking ability to get her the first time. Now she knows what they're capable of, and who's after her. I doubt they'll get her that way or so easily again.

Or at least that's what she assures me.

I try as hard as I can to believe her, the last thing I need are yet more nightmares.

Other than my not quite mindless carving we spend the week catching up. I tell her about Kuoh, and Shirone. Something that earns me several large, though hidden, smiles. I try to get her to tell me what she's done to make Shirone think I'm a cat, but like when I tried to get her to tell me why she wouldn't come back to England, she just ignores the question and changes the subject.

Considering that we're in the situation we're in now because of what she wouldn't tell me last time, the behavior is less than reassuring. At least this time I have her... implication that she'll tell me when we're free.

Still, at the end of the week, I get a wink from Cait upon entering the cell and the moment we can't be overheard she grins, "Got it." I snerk slightly as she repeats my previous words.

"What have you got?" I answer with my own grin, while making sure that my back is to the guards.

"I found us a guide through the castle." She tells me with a smirk, "The same I used to get you that message about your aura." I blink, a cat dropped that off. That... actually makes a lot of sense, "It's telling that even in Faerie there are rats, and so even Lords need rat catchers."

The castle cats will guide us out.

Well then, it seems like we have a plan.

###

We only wait another couple of days, long enough for me to finish the Script on the cell, before we make our break for it. The Burner's knights haven't really put any pressure on me to work faster, I guess I impressed on them how difficult what they wanted would be. They could start demanding results at any moment though, and we unfortunately can't do much more to be ready for this prison break.

The morning, as far as the guards are concerned, starts like any other. They collect me at my rooms, and lead me through the ever shifting passages down to the dungeons. Through the dungeons past an entirely new cavalcade of horrors and tortures and into the cell.

As we approach the cell where I've been working, I contemplate just quietly killing the two guards. It would make everything easier if I could, but even as I plan how to go about it, the hook in my soul that represents the guest rights I agreed to, tugs at me in warning.

I suppress a sigh and, like every day thus far, pass through the cell door that only moments ago was full of bars. Bars that vanished while I'm not looking, again like always. I put the tags on the bars, and begin to sing them to life. While I'm singing I quickly move to Cait, and draw Sclamhaire. I don't time things quite right, so the tags go off before I've freed Cait.

With an almost subaudible popping sound, the bars vanish as the Script I've written on today's tags, politely point out to reality that the bars they're on don't actually exist.

Reality corrects the oversight with a slight shiver.

One that unfortunately attracts the guards attention.

Two quick swings of my wonderful blade and Cait is freed of her bindings. The way they vanish at Sclamhaire's touch leads me to think that they were illusions as well. Which just seems like a bad idea, binding a fae with illusions? But I guess fae arrogance applies even when dealing with each other.

Cait springs to her feet as the knights enter the cell, one charging forward to engage, the other hanging back by the door in case one of us makes a break for it. I back up quickly, still unable to harm my 'hosts'. A problem that Cait does not share. What happens next...

I've always known, academically, that the higher ranked a fae is, the more powerful they are. Why exactly that's always the way it works, I have no idea, and Cait would never explain. But knowing something academically, and seeing it are very different.

The Queen of Cats slips around the first knight's blade, seizing his wrist and rolling up his arm. This puts his arm at a ninety degree angle, his wrist behind his head, and his elbow is braced on her shoulder. Smoothly she levers down causing the knight to let out a wet tearing sound and a scream.

The ruined arm spasms, letting go of the sword that Cait snags from the air. Taking a step forward, she throws the sword like a spear. What should be an awkward projectile flies straight and true, going point first into the visor slits of the second fae knight's helmet.

Spinning on the ball of her foot back to the first knight, she kicks out her still screaming victim's knees. Then planting the same foot in between his shoulder blades, she reaches over him to grab the rim of his helmet under his chin. She kicks forward and pulls back simultaneously, using the helmet as a lever to break the knight's neck.

The whole thing took five or six seconds. Which is enough time for me to pull off a gauntlet and cut myself.

Cait stretches as I start to sing the Script to life, her arms straightening over her head as she leans first one way, then the other. In the center of the room a single black bead, the first bit of power of destruction, bursts into existence. Cait finishes stretching as I finish with the Script. She looks over her shoulder, smirks and her tail appears, flicking it's tip at me.

I hesitate for only a moment before I grab the end of it, and follow Cait into the unknown.

Like this, I'm feeling optimistic for the first time since my debt was called due.