Ruby weighed the purse in her hand, considering the heft of its contents as she slid it over to Madame Goodwitch. Money was weird—this purse was supposed to be a lot of money, and yet, it weighed no more than a couple bullets at most. Well, a couple bullets could buy a man's life, so maybe that was a good weight for it, but at the same time, as Madame Goodwitch took the purse, Ruby could see on her face that the money that meant so little to Ruby meant a lot to her.

Maybe she shouldn't be spending money as soon as she got it, but… what else was she supposed to do with it?

Weiss was always asking her about future plans. Really boring stuff, about investing her money. "Do you think you're still going to be a gunslinger when you're 40? 50?" Ruby figured she would. A good triggerman who didn't get themselves shot when they were getting started generally could keep going for a while. If you got out of your twenties, you were probably smart enough that you wouldn't get got for a good long while. But it'd still probably happen eventually.

She remembered Doc Watts, the Atlesian with the ivory-handled revolvers. He was pretty old, especially for this business, and he liked to flaunt that like he flaunted everything. High class, an intellectual, no subtlety that he was here and that meant his bounty was already caught. Ruby thought he was pretty impressive, cause a guy who flaunted himself like that was just asking to get shot, but if he'd gone so long without getting killed, well, he had to be real good. Good enough to scare off anyone who might try to stop him.

Not Ruby, though.

Ruby knew the bounty. She'd come to Yang and Blake to ask for help evading the man who had been sent after her. They'd turned her down—not enough money to go up against someone that big, not when they were small time—but Ruby followed the girl after she left. Introduced herself. Asked what she wanted for herself. She said she wanted to be free. Ruby understood that. Gave Penny her word she wouldn't have anything to worry about.

Doc Watts had a good trigger finger and the best guns Ruby had ever seen. But her hands were faster than anyone else's, and that's what mattered. He'd bought her a drink, she'd told him she'd been hired to dissuade him from collecting a bounty. He told her he respected her audacity, that she was a braver woman than anyone else in this town, especially at her age, but- then his hands went to his holster, fast as lightning.

That was when Ruby shot him.

Wasn't far from Madame Goodwitch's brothel, actually. She'd worried for a little bit that keeping a low profile would mean that she couldn't see the girls for a while, but it hadn't been a real concern. Seemed more than a few people didn't care for Doc Watts' flashy personality… made Ruby wonder if that was what was happening with Pyrrha. If that was why her own cult was willing to turn on her so fast. But Ruby was here to not think about the work she'd be doing tomorrow. It was why she liked having Goodwitch's place, for the stressful times. Like tonight.

"Ms. Katt is unfortunately not available this evening," the Madame said, paging through her books, "An unfortunate necessity," pregnant, "but in the meantime, I could offer you…"

Her voice trailed off as a sudden look of indecision crossed her eyes. That was more than a little surprising to Ruby—just about the only person with a cooler hand than a gunslinger was a Madame, they were women who didn't know fear as they managed the operations of their brothels under threat from jilted men, ambitious pimps, and constables occasionally wishing a little extra to look the other way. Ruby had heard a rumor that Madame Goodwitch had stared down Tyrian Callows—a gang boss, a real psychopath from before Ruby and Yang's time—when he stood at the doors and brandished a torch, threatening to burn the whole building down with everyone in it over some perceived slight. He'd done it before, but she had just set her piercing blue eyes on him with so much authority behind it, he'd been practically thrown from the building by her will alone.

Maybe it was more rumor than truth, but that was the kind of person she was, so seeing even a momentary glimmer of doubt was a big surprise.

The Madame sighed. "My girls tell me… a few of them have grown sweet on you, the little gunslinger who-"

"I am not a child," Ruby indignantly shot back. She'd had this argument before, at this very brothel, and even though she had a slight frame and a high voice, she wasn't that much younger than Yang, and nobody thought Yang was a child.

But Madame Goodwitch just lowered her eyes sadly before meeting Ruby's gaze once more. "I apologize, Ms. Rose. But what I meant… I am a businesswoman. I provide services for clients who have many and varied desires, though as often as I find… new perversions and desires for flesh, I find far, far more who are brought to my door by loneliness. And you… my girls worry about you, Ms. Rose. Do you know how hard it is to rouse the sympathies of a prostitute? Particularly for a client?"

"Are you just going to insult me?" Ruby sniffed, before she felt the anger of her wounded pride rouse within her. "I get it, I hear it enough, 'Poor little Ruby Rose, a gun for a father and a whore for a mother, the truest daughter of Beacon!' What does it take to get people to stop feeling sorry for me when I'm doing what I want to do and being what I want to be! Why does everyone look at me and think that I shouldn't be doing what I'm-"

"I am sorry," Madame Goodwitch softly, but insistently, cut in, "I did not mean to anger you. But the girls tell me that you… desire companionship and warmth more than anything coital. If… if you desire someone to hold you close and help you sleep to the night, it is… not something I would usually consider, but if you would want to join me in my bed tonight…"

Ruby swallowed nervously at the offer. Not because she didn't want it, seeing Madame Goodwitch's eyes looking at her with soft, uncharacteristic, but maternal warmth and compassion made Ruby dearly wish to be held in her arms. But that was the problem—her warmth spoke to something soft within Ruby, something she wasn't supposed to feel while tasked with the work she did for the Masque. She was a gunslinger; tomorrow, she would send men to their maker and paint the walls with blood and brain matter. She wasn't a little girl anymore, she wasn't anything but a lethal trigger finger, and if she nourished anything else…

But… she couldn't deny the truth. Couldn't deny what she wanted. She didn't have as much time as she wanted, she had to rendezvous with Nora after this, but even if she didn't… she never had as much time being held as she would like.

"I… I think I would like that."

The last night before a big job was always a difficult time.

Blake had done this dozens of times before. Whether missions for the White Fang or jobs for the Ruby Masque, she was undeniably an experienced sneak thief. She'd breached the Temple of the Juniper Bough before, had gone through all this before, reciting the plan over and over again in her mind, running through contingencies and worst case scenarios, everything to make it a smooth process. They had excellent intel, thanks to Nora, and even if they were going fast, Blake felt confident that they could do this. They'd be cutting it close, but… but they were good at this. They had this.

Coming into their meeting room, two paper cups of hot cocoa in hand, Blake saw that Weiss was in a similar mood. The kind where her fingers were tracing over the map, mouthing out counterfactuals and complications as tired eyes scanned fruitlessly for that one unseen detail that would change everything.

"Hey Weiss," she said, making her presence known, "I brought you some cocoa before we all called it a night."

She'd emphasized the last words as she pressed the cup into Weiss's hands. Blake knew that she couldn't keep Yang and Ruby from doing their own thing the night before a mission, indulging their appetites for girls and liquor and… and any number of other things. They had their rituals and they knew their limits. But with Weiss, Blake could encourage a little discipline and know that she was doing a few things to keep this operation running like it ought to.

Sienna had always been insistent on discipline back in the White Fang, and never more so than the night before an operation. It was when egos were at their highest, the chest thumping reaching its zenith, and attitudes turned restless. She'd been of the belief that those attitudes needed to be broken down before the mission began, and the reality of getting shot at broke the illusion for them. Smart, but hadn't made her popular, while Adam stoked that pent-up restlessness until it curdled into bloodlust. He felt it was more honest, that they weren't criminals looking to loot the shipments they robbed but a revolution, and they needed to build the ardor, the zeal of their combatants until they could be baptized in bloodshed and reborn as warriors.

When she was younger, Blake had been enraptured by the imagery, the blending of violence and faith, the transformative power of revolution. In practice, she'd found that invoking all the powers of hell only forged new demons, and these ones knew your name.

That had been Adam's fundamental flaw, really. Everything else about him, everything he did to her, all stemmed from this. He had, in his own way, believed in discipline, and rigorously enforced it on his men, but it was for conformity, not competence. He controlled it like a valve, raising and easing tensions to adjust pressure and reshape their comrades into his mold. Rigorously enduring pain and unthinkingly following orders… and then, when the pressure was eased, letting out their more repressed urges. He indulged their cruelty, encouraged them to think in terms of domination, and always, always going back to that "natural order" that increasingly became about men like him at the top… and everyone else in servile submission.

"Thanks," Weiss mumbled, unaware of the darkness of Blake's thoughts. "It's just… Ruby says she got the charges delivered and that Nora's right on the chemistry, but…"

Her voice trailed off, her thoughts whirring in some murky direction. Coming off of remembering Adam and then seeing Weiss… the contrast was more clear than it ever had been before, seeing how far she was from the bloody-minded purpose that animated her former… leader.

"You think it won't work?" Blake asked, trying to prompt a response.

Weiss shook her head. "No, no, Ruby would know if the placement or the reaction was wrong, if she trusts Nora on that, then between her and Yang and… well, Pyrrha, I don't think I'm worried. But…"

Her eyes roamed over the map, her path easy for Blake to trace. First the courtyard before the Temple, where Pyrrha was to be executed. Burned at the stake, the kind of ludicrous display of authority that left Blake shocked to hear it, but they had good reason to believe they could do whatever they wanted in the Mistralian Quarter. And Blake well knew that there were no limits when someone was drunk on power. But Weiss's eyes followed the route they would be taking while the "execution" was being carried out. One leading to a specific cell.

"I don't trust Nora," she said, then cut Blake off before she could reply, "Not like that. She's not… I think she's sincere in her intent, but she's desperate. She'll do anything to save the people she loves, and that means she's playing with a different deck than we are. Once her and Jaune are together," she pointed to the map, directly at the cell Jaune was being kept in, "her priorities are for her people. And as we're making our exit…" her fingers traced the path they'd take to rendezvous with Yang… and with Pyrrha. "There's a point where we'll be on the way out and they'll be holding all the cards."

Blake took a seat. She could see the strain on Weiss's brow, the exertion of her thoughts clear on her face as she tried to think her way through the one foe that could never be out-thought. Herself. And like a spider's web, the more she wrestled with it, the tighter she was stuck. It was something Blake knew well—how many times had she gone over her own recrimination with the White Fang?—and she knew, in spite of how hard it was to act on that knowledge, that the only way to get out of those knots was to get outside of your own head.

"You're worried about being in the front line," she said, finding how much easier it was to give advice rather than take it, "that you're not living up to your expectations of how we handle this."

Weiss looked up, an objection on her lips that died away as soon as she met Blake's gaze. She knew Blake had her number and couldn't really deny it.

"It's not easy," she said, "I keep thinking back to when Jaune came at me in the safehouse, and now…"

"You'll be escorting him from prison."

Weiss nodded. Blake had seen more people try to attack her than she liked to know, but that feeling of fear when you realized you were outmatched and that things had gone very, very bad…

"Heh, I'm feeling the same thing a little bit… Pyrrha was…" she shook her head, "she was something else. Seeing her just… nothing we threw at her, nothing made a dent, and now we're giving her the keys to the Mistralian Quarter."

"Ever get the feeling we're making a terrible mistake?" Weiss asked, dryly.

Blake stretched, giving her neck a good crick. "Every day of my life," she replied, "But… you know, you don't have to-"

"Don't have the numbers," Weiss cut her off. Blake knew it as well as she did, but she really didn't want to do this without giving her an out. "Besides," she smirked, "I want to see him, and I want to see the look on his face, with my own eyes, when I free him from prison."

Blake couldn't help but grin. Weiss had that look in her eyes, that desire for utter domination that bled through from the boardroom into planning heists. Wasn't enough to just win, it had to be total, and all debts incurred must be wholly repaid.

"Is there anything…" Weiss suddenly asked before hesitating, "No, no, never mind, it's not-"

"Spill it."

"No, it's stupid, it doesn't-"

"Spill. It," Blake extended a finger and crooked it towards Weiss, "You wouldn't have started to ask me if it wasn't important. So come on, open up and tell me what's got you worried."

Weiss sighed. "I just wanted to ask if there was anything you did before going on a mission. Like… rituals or something, ways to get your mind off of things."

Blake nodded, but she could tell that Weiss's words weren't what she had really meant to say. Making Blake think of what she might have meant to say…

"Get a good night's sleep," was all she said in reply. "It's what I do, and I think it's the one thing you need right now."

Weiss nodded, but Blake could see the way her eyes darted to the side. It was almost painful right now, they were so close to the moment, the two of them were alone and Blake could tell that Weiss had something on her mind, something she could guess, could even ask her, but at the same time, Blake found herself utterly unable to say anything.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Weiss finally took a sip of her cocoa, reminding Blake that she still had a cup in her hands. She sipped it, mentally kicking herself for letting it cool as she enjoyed the chocolatey taste. But she had only bought a small cup, and she drained it before she even had time to properly savor it, to let the sweet taste, masking a slight hint of cocoa bitterness, distract her from the greater bitterness that was now growing in her heart.

"You're right," Weiss said, getting up from her seat and gathering her things. "There's no sense staying up. I'll go home, get some sleep. Come back at this at my best."

Blake should have agreed, should have said something to acknowledge and agree with what Weiss had said, but instead, she just felt the paper crumple under her grip as her heart began to beat, her cheeks grew warm, and yet, her jaw wouldn't move…

"By this time tomorrow, we'll be… Blake? Something on your mind?"

So damn much.

Trying to lecture Weiss on how to best handle herself on a mission and right now Blake felt like a tea kettle about to boil over. But hypocrisy was nothing new to her. She could hear the steam building up inside her, the pressure growing greater, the kettle becoming a bomb as she-

"Weiss!" she suddenly cried out, startling her teammate enough to make her take a step back and nearly dropping her coat. She definitely thought she was being weird, but so be it! They all knew that Blake wasn't good with social skills! "There's- there's something else I- I have to- I've been meaning to-"

"Blake…" Weiss's voice was like the whisper of a ghost and the Atlesian's face was paler than Blake had ever seen it before. Saints, she was beautiful, and even in this moment, even as she stumbled over her words, she found herself transfixed by Weiss's elegant features. Like an ice statue, perfectly chiseled by a master artisan and then given life. "What- what d-do you mean?"

Moment of truth. Even as she was frozen on the precipice, half-overturned and already feeling gravity pull her down on her route to destiny, but still, yet, holding that impossible, temporary balance as her jaw opened and a hoarse wind came forth from inside her-

"Before tomorrow, there's something I want to know!" she cried, "And- and I think you want to know it, too."

Her confidence waned on those final words, but she saw a look in Weiss's eyes, a startled, surprised look that made her… made Blake's heart suddenly fear to hope, even as it did.

"You mean-"

"I th-think," Blake stammered, needing to be the one to say it first, even as she stumbled her way up to this point, "I think I… I like you. A lot. And I can't… do this, can't go out there and shadow you for a mission if I don't know if… if I might miss my chance to tell you this."

She thought her heart might explode, felt like there was no air in her lungs as she choked out those words, but when she'd done so, she suddenly felt a rush of relief surge through her, like cool waters flowing through her veins as she realized that not only had she finally said what she'd been meaning to say, since before she even realized she meant to say it, but that she could see on Weiss's face a look of surprise… and recognition.

Her cheeks turned pink, color coming to her pale features as her lips curled upwards and she- she laughed! A soft, sweet laugh, sounding like the tinkling of crystal as she said…

"I told myself I wouldn't say anything until after the job… but that was because I was worried… you might not think the same way about me."

And all the world came rushing down in a wave of pure relief as Blake cracked a disbelieving smile and felt that giddy surge of hope and possibility like nothing she'd ever felt before.

Jaune hadn't realized how much he'd grown used to his information network until it had been taken from him. It was frustrating that he had no intel, not just on his current situation (though "you're going to die" was the pretty clear gist of it all) but on the larger goings-on in Beacon. Had the Temple retaliated against the Ruby Masque? A part of him hoped so. Oh, it'd be nice to imagine that snotty Schnee on the back foot as the Temple unleashed its full force to cut off a loose end, but Jaune knew that the better way was to imagine how it'd more likely go. He didn't know much about the Ruby Masque, but they definitely had their proper stronghold secured. Imagining the Temple trying to throw their weight around without his guidance or Pyrrha's strength, seeing them blunder right into whatever traps Schnee and Belladonna had prepared… yes, he could imagine how it would go. He could insert Shoko or especially Thrush's idiot faces as they stepped into a gunline and saw their arrogant retaliation get shredded by proper preparation.

Well… they would still have Ren, just as Jaune always had relied on. And Ren was good. Ren had always been more than just Jaune's henchman. And from the way Jaune's leg still throbbed with pain, Ren had very much proven he was no puppet. He might be able to counter whatever the Masque had planned, but…

It was so frustrating, all of the thousands of small details that every plan hinged on, all as unknowns for Jaune's mind to whirl about on. Maybe the Masque had gotten smashed, maybe they'd fled, maybe they'd humiliated the ungrateful pricks who kept him imprisoned. And he couldn't enjoy imagining any of them when his mind had been long trained not to get blinded by his hopes! Even now, on death row, awaiting whatever painful and public means of execution they had planned for him, the one time where he was undoubtedly entitled to impossible fantasies of revenge, he still was too pragmatic to enjoy it.

He glanced at the bars of his cell. He still had a few idle thoughts of escape, delusions, really, but he wasn't a man who could go without coming up with plots and plans, couldn't be faced with a knotty problem without trying to untangle it in his mind. He was always scheming, always devising advances and counter-measures and casting his mind about a hundred different problems, and even now that it couldn't do him any good, some habits were hard to break. Especially when he didn't have anything to drink. This might be the longest he'd ever gone without something alcoholic, and while Jaune was usually pretty good at keeping his mind disciplined and keeping it from wandering, tedium eventually wore everything down.

He could really use a drink right now.

He glanced out the window to take his mind off of things and immediately regretted it. It was funny how cheerful the sun could be, shining through the window bars as though this was anything other than a blessed morn before a day of industry and honest work and not illuminating the last place Jaune would inhabit before his surely fast-approaching execution. But Jaune was in no mood for humor, and so it felt like a personal insult. Some force of the Fallen World getting one last taunt in as it reveled in its victory over him.

But it reminded Jaune that he had a window, and it could be an avenue of escape. High up, and, yes, the bars were thick and sturdily placed, but… but he had to think outside the box. People counted on the sturdiness of the bars, so what if that was part of his plan? That he could… could use them as a stable point and craft a sort of pulley that would…

Leaning back, Jaune let the back of his head smack into the stone behind him. Wouldn't work. He kept coming up with plans that he already knew wouldn't work, the rat in his mind squeaking its refusal to accept that it was trapped and looking to gnaw its own leg off even if that wouldn't work. Just so that it could cling to hope a little longer.

No, Jaune had only one hope for rescue, and he didn't know what she was up to. But he didn't allow himself to think about that. She slipped in, sometimes, in his dreams, her hair streaming behind her like a pennant, spear and shield in hand as she shattered the bars that caged him, dream logic allowing the force of her personality, her beauty, to be sufficient to rend iron and stone.

He hated those dreams. Hated waking up and having to chastise himself for being weak. All he had left was his dignity, some sense that, even in captivity, he was more than any of his captors were. They were cowardly, venal men who profited off his talents and then left him to rot when he became inconvenient to them, but he'd go out showing them that they, for all their pomp and authority, didn't have a tenth of the strength he had. And then… and then he'd have dreams like that. Foolish, self-important, impotent, worthless dreams that-

Anger. Anger did him no good.

Taking a deep breath, Jaune glanced at his door and-

Hold on a moment.

Getting up from the floor, Jaune walked up to the bars that stood between him and the hallway. Looking to his right, he saw a guard stationed there, ramrod straight, an expressionless look on his face. Looking to his left, there was… nothing. And it was quiet out there, particularly for the morning.

That was odd.

Something was coming, Jaune could tell. Something where they needed as many men as they could spare. An assault on the Masque? No… too small a force for that. Unless they were expecting the Masque to be working with the Constabulary, and that hammer was dropping at a time they lacked their best assets to fend them off. Served them right, but… Jaune didn't feel he'd get so lucky to see that play out so soon.

No it had to be… had to be Pyrrha's trial. Had to-

Something caught in his throat as he thought that, a tear stung the corner of his eye. Pyrrha would be safe, she was too valuable by far to sacrifice. Not like him… but the thought of Pyrrha being made to recant, not just to deny her feelings for him, feelings he now knew were so real and so close he could almost touch them, but…

She deserved better.

Walking back to his window, looking out across the rooftops of Beacon, looking so pretty in the pinkish hues of the rising sun, Jaune wished to… to whatever was out there, if there was anything out there, anything bigger than small men and suffocating scriptures, that the world that made someone as remarkable and wonderful as Pyrrha could give her what she deserved.

But of course, the only answer he got was the far-off cries of seabirds.

Thanks to Renarde, Six, and Danish for feedback on this chapter!

And Act 4 begins on a more contemplative note as our various characters think about their relationships. Whether fleeting, beginning, or lost, in the long night before action, the members of the Masque and the Bough find comfort in one another. Blake finally admits her feelings for Weiss, perhaps at an inopportune time, but after everything that's gone down, she's not sure how much time she has left. Ruby seeks more monetized comforts, having found her place within the world of Beacon. And Jaune is missing his girl, though he knows she's better off without him. But as Jaune noticed (though doesn't have the context to understand) something is about to happen. Pyrrha's been sentenced to death, and the crew had better get in motion if they want to save her. Starting next chapter, the final showdown as former enemies move to save the fallen Vessel and burgle the Temple one last time.