"Yes, me," Dorlarth said calmly. "And now, if you don't mind, we are here to take the prince."

Katie reached out to a small table by the bedside where Elrond had chopped up some herbs. A small knife was still there, and she grabbed it. Brandishing it at the traitorous butler, she said, "I mind very much, actually."

Dorlarth smiled at her—it was not a pretty sight. "Do you think you are going to play the hero?" He motioned to the two guards. Katie backed up, looking between them worriedly. One came a bit too close, and Katie made a swipe at him with the knife. Of course, she never made contact. The other took that moment to grab her wrist and force the knife out of her hand. With a shriek of frustration, she pounded at him with the other fist, and then he caught that wrist, as well. She aimed to knee him in the groin, but at the moment, the other guard hit her on the back of the head with something heavy, and the darkness swirled up around her.

000

"We want them alive!" Elladan shouted as they came upon the skirmish at the front door. Two guards, Innon and another, were grappling with the two brothers Gúrvel and Glawar. As the twins jumped into the fray, more guards came running from every side. Glawar was quickly overpowered and held captive, but Gúrvel fought like a cornered warg. Finally, Elrohir disarmed him and Gúrvel began to back away from the circle of enraged elves.

"You will get nothing from me, lords of Rivendell," he growled, and spat on the ground. Then, before anyone could move to stop him, he pulled a dagger out of his boot and drove it through his heart.

Glawar made an anguished cry and struggled against his captors. The others turned their faces away in sorrow. Glawar was shouting at them now.

"Murderers! Ever have you held power that should not have been yours! We will cause you as much pain as we can! My brother's death shall not have been in vain—even now our diversion is drawing guards from every side of the house! Who will protect the princeling now?"

Elrond's head shot up at this. "What?" He grabbed the front of Glawar's tunic. "What do you mean?" Glawar spat in his face.

Wiping the spittle away, Elrond turned to run back into the house, but his sons beat him to it. Estel was the first in the door of Legolas's room, and Elrond heard the young human's cry of grief. Following the twins in the door, he saw that the room was unoccupied. There was a note laid amongst the disheveled bedding, but the bed was empty. No Legolas—and no Katie. They were gone.

With a heavy heart, Elrond slowly opened the note and read it aloud. "You never did have any hope of outwitting us. Give us the ring as we requested, and you will receive back your guests in one piece. Refuse, and you will receive them back in many. Be quick; I will not wait long."

Estel sank down on the chair and buried his face in his hands. Elrohir put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Elladan took a step toward his father, fury in his face. "We must question Glawar," he said tightly. "Perhaps we can find them before the traitors carry out their cowardly threats."

Elrond nodded, crushing the note I his hands. "Glorfindel, see to it," he said shortly. Glorfindel bowed and ran from the room.

In a few minutes, he returned. "Glawar has been taken to your study; he awaits you there," he informed Elrond. "Two other guards are missing… as is Dorlarth."

"Dorlarth!" Estel jumped out of his chair. "You don't mean to say—"

Glorfindel nodded. "I am afraid so. It seems he was the culprit on the staff."

Elrond shook his head in disbelief. Dorlarth had served them faithfully for many, many years, and he had never suspected him of duplicity. But it made sense. Lithorniel had said she really didn't need any help carrying the baskets, but Dorlarth had helped her anyway. This had given him an alibi during the time when the tray was left unattended in the empty corridor. He had simply put the biscuits on it himself when he returned. And since Dorlarth was Lithorniel's superior, it was even possible that he had given her the order to carry those baskets through that hall to begin with, making sure that he would have an excuse to leave the tray. It had all been carefully planned through.

"My lord?" Glorfindel was watching him.

"Let us question him," Elrond said, striding from the room.

000

When Katie came to, it took her muddled brain a moment to figure out what was going on. Someone had hold of her arms and was dragging her down a corridor. She struggled with them and fought to get her feet under her (thankful she was wearing leggings and not a skirt), but it was no use. The exertion made her head spin sickeningly, and she nearly blacked out again.

One of her captors was opening a door, and she was roughly shoved inside a stone cell. She fell to her hands and knees. A body was deposited on the floor next to her—Legolas.

Someone was putting a bowl of soup onto the floor next to her, but all Katie noticed was how cold the cell was—and Legolas was ill, perhaps even dying.

The elves were shutting the cell door. "Please," she exclaimed, "at least give him a blanket!"

Her captors held a quick muttered conference in Elvish, and a minute later one of them tossed her a blanket.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, but the elf shut the door without replying.

Katie spread the blanket over Legolas' still form, which she almost couldn't see now in the darkness. His skin was icy to the touch, and Katie wished fervently that she could do more to help him.

She picked up the bowl of soup, now aware of how hungry she was. It didn't taste wonderful, but she didn't really care at this point. The stress of the day—both physical and emotional—came down on her suddenly. Everything had gone wrong. She curled up on the hard, cold stone floor next to the blond elf and pillowed her aching head with one arm. For one instant she was glad Legolas was unconscious—he wouldn't see her cry.

000

Glawar sat in Elrond's study, carefully tied to a chair. He gave the elf lord a dirty look as he entered, Glorfindel and his sons in tow. Elrond pulled up a chair across from the captive, and the others took up stances along the wall, waiting until they were needed.

There was a moment of silence as Elrond looked sadly at Glawar. The younger elf's hair was disarranged, his clothing torn. A bruise was rising on one cheekbone, and his eyes smoldered with anger. The anger was what puzzled the lord of Rivendell. He understood that Glawar would be angry about his brother's death, angry that his plans had been foiled, angry at his captors. But his anger was older than that. Why would a young warrior who had everything to live for give up his life as a diversion for kidnappers? Why did he hate Elrond so much?

"I am sorry for your brother's death," Elrond said sincerely. Gúrvel had been a good elf from a good family—Elrond remembered assisting at both brothers' births. He opened his mouth to continue, but Glawar cut him off.

"Lies do not become an elf," the younger being ground out.

Elrond gazed at him with astonishment. "Why would you think that was a lie?" he asked slowly.

"Our leader opened our eyes to your cruelty long ago," Glawar replied.

"Your leader." Elrond paused. "Was it Dorlarth?"

"So you finally figured it out," Glawar said with a mirthless laugh. "He was indeed too cunning for you."

Elrond ignored this remark on his intelligence. "What cruelty was I accused of?" he asked evenly.

"As if you did not know," Glawar sneered. "You have oppressed the elves of Rivendell for many centuries—and done it so subtly that few recognize it as oppression. You keep us holed up here in this valley, rarely allowing us to roam beyond it—while allowing your sons free rein to ride out with the Dúnadain. You led our people to be slaughtered in war, and you allow filthy human spawn to be raised with our children." He glared over Elrond's shoulder at Estel, who seemed shocked to encounter such hatred from an elf, particularly an elf of his father's realms. Elladan took a furious step toward Glawar, but Elrohir put out an arm to stop him. Their father would handle this interview.

"And so you and the rest of your conspiracy hope to take my ring and take over Rivendell yourselves, is that it?" Elrond continued as if the inflammatory outburst had never happened.

"We will allow the people freedom they have not tasted in centuries," Glawar answered firmly. "Dorlarth will destroy the Ring of Air, and no one will use its power to enslave us any longer."

"Will he really destroy it?" Elrond asked.

"Of course! He is a kingly elf," Glawar answered angrily.

"A kingly elf." Elrond looked at him closely. "'King' is a title which even I do not aspire to. But Dorlarth might."

Glawar did not answer. Elrond thought he might have gotten through to him.

"You call me cruel and power-hungry," Elrond said serenely, "and claim that your leader, if in possession of my ring of power, would destroy it and relinquish all hold over the freedom of our people." He lightly put stress on the word 'our'. This was the time for careful and persuasive speech. "But look carefully at Dorlarth, and consider his character.

"You call me cruel. Had I been cruel, I would not be speaking with you thus—I would be torturing you to receive the answers I wanted. I would have rejoiced in the death of your brother. Instead, I am filled with grief at the loss of an immortal life, the death of one of my fellows, one of those elves I protect, one of those I count as my children." Glawar seemed about to protest, but Elrond continued, not even raising his voice. The power of his age and his wisdom seemed to hold his interlocutor enthralled. "Now look at your leader. To wrest control from me, he murdered a fellow member of the household staff. Not just murdered, practically dismembered. I am certain that Orain's death was neither short nor painless, and what was done to his body afterward was the work of a fiend. The elf who promised you liberty has poisoned a fellow elf and put him, now helpless, and an innocent human girl of but seventeen summers into the power of kidnappers who will not scruple to murder them as well when their usefulness has ended. Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures, you might say. Then why the defacing of Orain's body? Why kidnap the girl when the prince would have been sufficient? That is cruelty. That is the kind of man you and your brother served. Do you really believe that he will destroy the ring if it ever falls into his possession? Do you really think that he will destroy a chance to wield more power over others? He assigned you and your brother a task which he surely knew would end either in your capture or your death. I am not responsible for the death of Gúrvel. If anyone is, it is the elf you call your leader." Elrond stood abruptly. "You may yet mend some of the evil done this day, if you can give us information regarding where Legolas and Katie have been taken. I will leave you to think it over."

He strode from the room, and the others followed him. Glawar watched him go with a thoughtful expression on his face, finally mixed with just a little bit of doubt.

AN: That was a hard chapter to write. I had no idea what Elrond would say when he went to talk to Glawar. Big thanks to Dana for helping me figure it out! Dana is a writer at heart, even if she is a math major. :D

: That was a hard chapter to write. I had no idea what Elrond would say when he went to talk to Glawar. Big thanks to Dana for helping me figure it out! Dana is a writer at heart, even if she a math major. :D

EresseElrondiel: Yes, I find cliffhangers make it more likely that I will have return readers and more reviews. Mwa ha ha ha. As far as romance goes… I would love to give the twins a romance, but there didn't appear to be one in Tolkein, and they're so cool as twin bachelors. Plus, human-elf couples are so sad, because one of them gets old and dies. So yeah, no Katie-twin couples (unfortunately) will make it into this story. But yeah, I'm half in love with the twins myself—quite jealous of Katie, who gets huggles from them! I can't tell you yet whether she gets to go home, and yes, I'm planning at least one sequel. –Ashley huggles her purple cow stuffed animal— Thank you! I like to think I'm doing pretty well right now in the updates department. :) I have a perpetual fear of losing my readers…

Saltwater: Holy crap, when I read your review I laughed so hard I almost fell off the chair. Even the cat was giving me funny looks… lol Actually, I just read today that half of the United States allow first cousin marriages. And I know for a fact that it happened all the time in the Victorian period. It's not so much that it's considered incest, but offspring of first cousin marriages often are born with birth defects. Me! An Amish hillbilly! Hee hee! Actually, they have problems in Lancaster (practically the Amish capital of the world) with Amish kids being born with an extra finger because the gene pool is too small and they end up inbred. As far as kissing cousins goes, that's probably a lot more common in West Virginia. Pennsylvanians make fun of West Virginia a lot. We tell West Virginian jokes—if a West Virginian husband and wife get divorced, are they still brother and sister? How do you tell a West Virginian family tree? It grows straight up! (If any of you readers out there are West Virginian, I apologize profusely…) BTW, my dad's beard isn't nearly long enough to have rats crawling out of it! ROFL And my accent is generally a pretty normal American accent, except when I accidentally go PA Dutch and say things like "Throw your father down the stairs his hat." And as for breaking into rich people's houses... There um... aren't that many rich people around here... But when I take my computer home from college we have four PCs with internet hookup, so we're good. :) Yes, Viggo looks awesome when he smiles. Speaking of Sean Bean, have you seen National Treasure? Because if you haven't, you should! It's awesome, and Sean is the bad guy. And Billy's Scottish accent! I LOVE Scottish accents! Just watched Timeline, and Merrick's accent is great! But I have to draw the line at the dwarf. Oh, and I was just reading a fic this past week, and one of the characters was named Dorlath. I just had to laugh. Alright, now that I have wasted all your time with the note...

RenegadeKitsune: A bad game of clue… It was Colonel Dorlarth in the Kitchen with the poisoned cookies! You're going to play Lady Macbeth! AWESOME! I LOVE that play; we read it last year in AP Eng. But I've never seen it performed. Actually, something interesting to note on the double double bit. It is believed that Shakespeare actually didn't write that part, that it was added later by somebody (I forget the name) who was trying to promote his music (which was about witches). Several reasons why they think this: 1) Shakespeare always wrote in iambic pentameter (that section is in iambic tetrameter), and almost never in rhyming couplets. 2) The witches, by their name of "weird sisters" (wyrd means "fate") were probably meant to be the Fates, not normal stereotypical witches. So why would they be chanting around a cauldron and taking orders from Hecate? 3) The scene has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story, and neither does Hecate. 4) While Shakespeare wrote his own song lyrics to go in his plays, he never mentions tunes that they are to be played to, and if you look at the staging notes in that section, it mentions specific songs. Supposedly, this was the music the guy was trying to promote. All I can say is, the dude who wrote that section was pretty darned creative! And as far as the curse goes, Macbeth might be dangerous even without a curse! What with all the nighttime scenes, the swordfights and the special effects (fog machines, pyrotechnics, etc). Stay safe!

Thanks to crazycatluver, werewolflemming, ThoseRainyDays and MaddHatter! You make my life brighter! –sighs happily—

Alright! Off to the next chapter! Please review! Hugs all around! (You can imagine they're from the twins, if you prefer… lol)