From the woods the two watched soldiers posted both on the inside and the outside of the doors. They were armed with heavier weapons now and they moved with a crispness that suggested just how ready they were to do bodily harm to intruders. Their chances of getting back in didn't look good.

At nightfall when they couldn't see the guards anymore in the dark they wandered back further into the woods to the previous night's camp. They didn't risk a fire, which might bring unwanted attention, but just sat instead in the dark.

"Sirius, what was different about those men in the little rooms? I noticed something but I didn't get a chance to really see."

"I wasn't paying attention. I had other things on my mind at the time."

Annikaya sat back, her brows knitted in thought. She stared at the cold charcoal from the previous night's fire and spoke hesitantly. "They...they had wings too."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

Annikaya was still frowning. "Do you think they were prisoners too?"

"They could have been but they might not have too." He really didn't know where she was going with this.

"You said something last night about music attracting magic. Would it attract one of those people?"

"Yes. If they were near enough they might come. But why would we want to call them?"

"If they're prisoners the others might be willing to help us get back into the building again. What do you think Sirius?" she appealed, suddenly anxious. "But what if they're working for those givers or whatnot?" For some reason that brought to mind Peter and he shivered a bit at that betrayal. Annikaya noticed, even in the dark, but she said nothing. Sirius found himself pathetically grateful for that and wrenched his thoughts back to the task at hand.

Annikaya bit her lip. He noticed that she tended to do that when she was thinking. "Could you cast, like, I dunno, a kind of illusion so I wouldn't actually be near if they were bad? Like a projection or something?"

"Err..." Once again Sirius had to shake off distracting thoughts and figure out what she'd just said. "Yes...yes, I could do that."

"So...how do we want to do this? I was thinking bright and early tomorrow morning. I don't want to be running around in the dark in case they're not friendly."

Sirius shook his head. "Normally I'd agree with you but that particular summoning works best at night."

Once agreed that they would do the summoning that night rather than the next, Sirius and Annikaya both went back up into the tree and Sirius cast an image of Annikaya below them. He turned to see that his companion was slithering back down the tree to gaze at her image.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, slightly irritated at having wasted the effort of levitating her up the tree if she was just going to climb back down.

"I want to see me." she replied. "Mirrors only show the front side." She finished circling her image and returned to the front, regarding her likeness solemnly. "Hmmm." She turned her attention to Sirius. "Can you help me back up?"

"I don't know. Are you going to stay up this time?" he asked wryly.

"Sirius."

He relented.

"Alright now." she wriggled around until she was comfortable so far above the ground. "What now?" "Sing a song asking the winged people to come."

"Make up a song? Yuck. Do you at least know the name of these people? I mean, are they faeries or sprites or...?"

"Sorry."

Annikaya wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I hate having to make up songs. They always sound so inane. I'm more likely to scare them off. Oh well." She sighed and began to sing. "Oh come all ye winged ones, flying, fluttering, people-sized. Oh come ye, oh come ye to where I am."

Her voice didn't show it but her face expressed her embarrassment at butchering a song so. Sirius would have found it funnier but he was diverting most of his attention to making the summons appear to originate from the image as well as animating it.

Still, no matter how bad the song, it worked. Shortly there was a group of ten women approaching the image, delicate crystal wings picking up the light.

One of them was eyeing the image curiously and she spoke first. "Why did you call us?"

Annikaya hesitated before she spoke, her words coming through her image. "I saw some of your people today and wanted to meet you. I have some questions I'd like to ask."

From up in the tree the smile of one of the other women was barely visible as she said, "So do we."

"I'm Annikaya."

The woman who had spoken first turned to introduce the others, ending with herself. "And I'm Azaelia." "I hope you won't think I'm rude. I wouldn't normally ask. You see, we don't belong here and..."

"Just go ahead and ask. I'll try not to be offended." Azaelia said in a friendly tone.

"Err, right then. Are those people in the building holding onto your people on purpose?"

One of the other women, who had been introduced as Vavy, spoke up now and her tone was half shock and half anger. "What?! What are you talking about?"

"Maybe you'd better start at the beginning." Azaelia suggested.

"First I have to know if you work with those people. I won't endanger myself." Annikaya said firmly.

Vavy assured her they did not and Annikaya proceeded to tell her tale.

"So where is this 'Sirius' now?" Vavy asked curiously when the tale was told.

"Actually I'm up here." Sirius spoke. "And so is she." He dropped the illusion. He noted with some amusement that Annikaya was already half way to the ground on her way to meet the women. With a sigh he joined her.

Azaelia was smiling lightly. "Interesting idea." Her wings fanned behind her idly, catching and reflecting the light like little crystal prisms.

"So what's the deal with what we saw?" Annikaya asked. As a whole the other party's faces turned hard and angry.

"They were all taken from us. We didn't know by whom. The Givers, that's what the people in your building call themselves, offered to help us find them in exchange for some favors. We were considering accepting their offer." Annikaya didn't remember her name.

What she did remember was reading something similar to this situation, only in prehistoric times and with a woman named Ayla. She wondered if this all counted as deja vu or not.

Vavy had turned and was fluttering those beautiful wings, rising off the ground.

"Where are you going?" Annikaya asked.

"To get the others." The winged woman replied and flew off.

"What are you going to do?" Sirius asked Azaelia casually.

"We outnumber them by a bit. We'll help you through the veil too. It's the least we can do."

"The veil?" Sirius asked, rolling the unfamiliar term around in his head.

"That's its name." she affirmed. For Sirius it was a long night, waiting in the dark as the army of winged ones gathered. Annikaya had struck up a friendship with several of the winged people and Sirius found himself wishing she were with him for the familiarity of their shared position. Still, he was kept busy telling the others what he knew of the building and by the time morning arrived they were all assembled.

Sirius had seen many things in his life but for many years afterward he remembered the winged people marching to battle, the sparkling wings their only battle flags. They didn't carry weapons as their enemies did, but instead were able to call forth blasts of magic out of nothingness to scorch the sentries and enter the building. Other soldiers came, red pulses from their weapons staining the air. Wings filled the air as the flitted and darted to escape those shots.

The soldiers had been caught by surprise and tried to counter in small squads, expecting only their two escaped prisoners and not an army. Ten men groups are no match against a hundred. The army marched on, inexorably, like a flood, finding the room that unlocked their people and then taking their stations.

Azaelia and Vavy appeared at Sirius' shoulder. "Here we go. Are you ready?"

Sirius nodded and saw Annikaya do so as well.

Twenty of the winged people clustered around the two, as they were unable to directly attack their opponent, and having learned from the last time the soldiers would not be fooled again by blue smoke and the flying spell again. Going through the ceiling wouldn't work either because the winged people's wings wouldn't fit.

The new group struck out down the hall. There was an ambush waiting in the computer lab. One of their party caught the first shot in the chest and went down. Sirius didn't want to see what the energy weapons did to a person but he saw anyway. The soldier who had fired the shot ducked back down behind the partition that had been erected.

"Sirius! Transform them! Or transform the barrier! We can't get a clear shot!" Annikaya said as blasts of magic shot harmlessly over the partition or splashed against it. She was down on the floor trying to stop the wounded from bleeding to death.

Spells scrambled around in his head. "Deletrius!" The barrier the soldiers hid behind suddenly disintegrated.

"That's handy." Someone behind him commented.

Sirius grinned as their team shot off their own magic, cleaning out their attackers.

"Sirius, can you help here?" Annikaya asked, indicating her patient.

Sirius shook his head regretfully. "That's beyond me. I only know simple healing spells."

"All clear!" Someone else shouted and the party was able to enter the lab, leaving a few behind as lookouts. Sirius smirked to see that the chairs he and Annikaya had used the previous day were still stuck at the bottom of the white room as half a staircase, now tipped over from its fall.

"You ready Sirius?" Azaelia asked, fanning her wings rapidly in preparation.

"Can you really lift us?" he asked dubiously, not sure what else he'd expected.

Vavy, having appeared from behind them, scoffed. "Of course we can. You two are nothing." She lifted herself a few inches off the floor and turned to Annikaya. "Grab hold."

Annikaya did so awkwardly, for Vavy was taller than her without the added inches of flight. Sirius grabbed hold of Azaelia with better grace and the two were lifted slowly into the air.

Suddenly there were shouts from the hallway and the sound of blasts being exchanged. Another squad of soldiers burst into the room

"Shield Azaelia and Vavy!" one of the winged people shouted and several rose into the air, for with their hands full Azaelia, Vavy, Sirius, and Annikaya were defenseless. Azaelia and Vavy's wings wee fanning hard and sweat beaded on their foreheads as they strained for altitude and speed. They were almost there!

A red bolt clipped the edge of one of Vavy's wings and she screamed as the crystal veins of her wings turned a rose color. She kept flying. "I'll be fine." she assured Annikaya after a moment, struggling with obvious pain. "It'll heal."

"Repario!" Sirius ordered and the tattered tip repaired, the color returned to normal.

"Sure you don't want to stay?" she asked.

They reached the fluttering veil hung in the air.

"Good luck." Annikaya told their two friends.

"You too." Azaelia said. Then they pushed the two through the veil and everything went black.