Prologue:

Jay had hurt nobody, and Finn was tremendously grateful for that. He was grateful not to have had anybody else lose their life in this insane conflict. At the same time, he felt a tremendous sadness. His son had gone off the reservation. Honestly, Finn had known Jay was pretty far off the straight and narrow already. He'd been nursing thoughts of hatred and rage for months, even before the fateful decision to seek a wishmaster. Now, he'd stepped over the line, and Finn had no idea what to do about it.

Of course, if Finn was upset, Bonnie was all but inconsolable. The two siblings had been close in their early years. They'd been childhood rivals, and they'd always been testing and pushing each other, much as Finn had been with Jake. They'd grown apart as the years came piling down, and Bonnie had chalked a lot of that up to the burden Jay had been carrying taking care of their farm and their mother. She'd honestly looked at their new circumstances as a chance to rekindle their old relationship, but now Jay was gone.

"I don't understand," Bonnie sniffed. Finn did. He understood it all too well. Softly, the big man said, "he lost everything, Bonnie. Jay's lost everything, and so he's lost the anchor that binds him to the world–to us. A man with nothing has no anchor, leaving him to drift..."

Sitting down, the big man motioned for his oldest daughter to take the seat beside him. As Bonnie listened in wonderment, her blue eyes going wide, and her jaw coming unhinged, the man she'd always looked on as the greatest hero in creation told the tale of his own father. Sparing nothing, he told of his father's efforts to save his family from the imminent destruction of their homeland, in spite of the strictures of the Ark's society. He talked of how Martin had been forced to leave his wife behind and then of how he'd lost his son in the wilds of Ooo. As a horrified Bonnibel Mertens looked on, the King told her of how her grandfather had sunk into evil–sliding in slowly and subtly until he was irrevocably lost.

The King looked up into his daughter's eyes and studied her. Solemnly, the big man said, "it's my biggest fear, Bonnie. That I'll cross that line. That I'll fall like my dad did. That I'll go from the man I would want my son to be to a vile sinner that has to be put down." He'd been blessed to have Simone in his life. He'd been blessed to have all the people who'd helped keep him on the straight and narrow over the years when he could have drifted off the path.

As she digested what her father was saying, Bonnie's expression slowly changed. Shooting to her feet, she said, "I'm not giving up my brother, daddy. The girls saved you when you were falling. I'm going to save Jay. I'm going to save him from this thing that's got its hooks into him." And just like that, she stormed off. Finn nodded at her back. He hoped she would. The King of Ooo didn't have the time right now.

Jake stepped down into the garden. He'd known she was there, listening and watching. Striding up, the shapechanger offered, "she's strong, Finn. She's strong like her daddy." Stopping in front of him, his bodyguard and mistress said, "you didn't give up on me, when I was fucking up. She won't give up on him." The King nodded. He knew his daughter's quality. It was a matter for another day. In the now, he had to get his shit together. They had an airship to catch.

Elsewhere, Melinda Griffin came stepping down the boarding ramp and onto the cold, dry ground, looking natty in a blue parka trimmed in white fur. Behind her, the stranger who'd rescued her from death came down the ramp, his blue eyes scanning the cold world around them. Her fellows were frantically packing. They were packing up everything they had. She'd had the pilot radio ahead to warn Insight of her failure, and Gordon Wells had immediately swung into action.

"Follow my lead," Melinda murmured. Her voice quavered a little, telling Jay just how dangerous this situation was. The men around them were heavily armed, and it was clear that they would happily murder the both of them. It felt foolish to be doing this. He felt all of a fool. He'd bet on Annabelle and found himself falling into darkness. Now, he'd literally pulled this woman out of his father's dungeon. His plan was insane. He felt like he was embarking on a journey into madness, but what else was he going to do?

Striding up to a familiar figure, Melinda put on her most imperious demeanor and asked, "where's Gordon?" Parker replied, "he's waiting on you in the comms bunker..." The other spy nodded at the rusting grey shack that sat in the middle of the compound with an array of antennas clustered around it. Melinda gave him a curt nod and stepped off. Jay followed, though his eyes were for the people around them and the way they looked. His father had told him. You could gain a lot of insight into people's thoughts by the way they looked at you, especially when they didn't realize you were watching.

These people were hostile. A lot of it was directed at the little woman ahead of him. That stood to reason. She was a failure. She'd tried to sleep her way into their adversary's confidence and ended up blowing the whole thing. Instead of getting information from Finn, she'd ended up giving away a lot of her own secrets. What was more interesting was the way they looked at Jay. There was fear there, and there was a lot of curiosity. That was the key here. Melinda was his key to achieving his goal. He needed her to go on breathing a little bit longer.

The wax-hustler led the way into the comms bunker and straight into the central briefing room. Gordon was used to holding meetings with the far-flung members of Insight from there, and it would have been no surprise to find him coordinating the evacuation there. Unfortunately, what she found was anything but pleasant. Far from being ensconced inside the briefing room, meeting with his agents via radio-link, it was Gordon himself up on the video screen, when Melinda entered the room.

As the pair came to a stop in the center of the room, the doors boomed shut. Melinda swallowed hard. This was usually the scene where you got terminated. Her eyes flicked to the man who'd let her out of prison. On the screens before her sat Gordon and his tame madman. That was new. She was a little disturbed to find that the madman was involved in Insight's business.

"Melinda," Gordon greeted her. Face flushed, Melinda rumbled, "somebody compromised the mission. Somebody told Finn the Human who I was working for." "Somebody," Gordon retorted? Melinda grimaced. "He laid a trap for me," she replied. "Somehow he knew who I was and who I was working for. He said it himself. Somebody has to have compromised my identity."

Gordon frowned at her. Those words were dangerous. It was the risk of their world. They were professional liars, after all. Even their secrets had secrets. While he had thought that Melinda had fucked up–and still thought that–the idea that Finn knew she was a double-agent was very bad news. Who in his organization had revealed that? Eisthir? The two sisters had done in their third sister. The two of them had been willing to murder Reese. Would Eisthir have been willing to murder Melinda? Nothing was making sense right now.

"Who's your friend," he asked? "This is Prince Jay," Melinda replied. "He's Finn's son. He's decided to break ties with his family..." Gordon's eyes flicked to the tall stranger. This was one of the two children from another world. Gordon wasn't quite sure what to make of this. Why would one of the victors be wanting to join their faction? While he pondered that, Gumbald spoke, announcing, "you look troubled, young man... Perhaps you could use an uncle to talk to..."

Jay's keen blue eyes locked on the stranger. He was just as he'd been described. Tall, thin, balding, and with eyes that shimmered with madness. Some people think you've gone mad, Jay, the half-breed reminded himself. His mind wanted to be sympathetic. He was a man out of his world, just like this fellow. At the same time, Jay hadn't tried to do awful things to normal people. "My father's behaving like the tyrant of my old homeworld, Lord Woolcot," Jay declared. "I no longer wish to help a man who wants to set himself up as a tyrant." "Indeed," said the candy-person, as he stroked his whiskered chin.

Jay wasn't sure if he was fooled or not, but then he wasn't the man with their lives in his hand. Gordon Wells broke in, announcing, "I'm having you shipped to our site in the southern deserts, south of the kingdoms. We'll talk when you get there. You're on probation, Melinda. Until I know for sure what happened in Tongchon, you're on very thin ice."

The spymaster broke the link from his end, cutting off the transmission. Shortly after, the doors opened once more. They were still alive. Melinda blew out a breath. She'd gotten one more day, when she'd expected to be hung and tossed away like trash. Her eyes flicked to the stranger. He'd spoken nothing of his motivations, and she hadn't spent a lot of time questioning them. Could that really be true? If so, he was rather a naive fool. Finn had been remarkably light-handed. It's what we have, she thought. "Come along," said the wax-hustler. "There may still be food to be had here." They probably hadn't packed everything.