A/N Because of the brilliant review reply thingy, I can start writign straight away! Hope you enjoy!

"Up there?" Beast hesitated. That was Kairos' tower. The one with the mirror.

"You're not scared are you?" Calla teased, having seemingly forgotten Beast's previous comments, and also it seemed, his horrendous appearance. She had a sly grin on her face, knowing that her teasing would instantly persuade him to join her on the staircase. And of course he couldn't refuse.

"Fine," he grumbled, trying hard not to grin too. He knew from looking in the mirror placed hauntingly in his room that this made his features seem all the more terrifying. Not that Calla seemed to mind.

He followed the girl with ruby red curls up the twisting, turning staircase. She was quite sweet. If he hadn't been... so... if he hadn't been Beast he would definitely have made a move on her by now. But he was Beast. That was the whole point!

"Wow," Calla breathed as she reached the top. The room was astounding, following the beauty of the rest of the castle, but with a much more flamboyant turn.

"Yeah," Beast mumbled. He was reminded of the last time he had been up here, when Kairos had managed to make a fool out of him, like she did whenever they met. He growled involuntarily and Calla turned with an eyebrow raised.

"Oh la la, what's rubbed your fur up the wrong way?" she said sarcastically.

"Nothing, I just... Oh never mind!" He sighed and turned to the window, pondering his revenge on Kairos. Revenge he knew he could never take, but nonetheless it was pleasurable to plot.

Calla still had a raised eyebrow. Whatever was bothering Beast, he obviously wasn't going to tell her, so she turned away and began to look around the room more closely. The thing she noticed first was, of course, the throne. But somehow, however beautiful it was, it didn't hold her interest. Neither did the ornate mirror. What she noticed next made her wonder, so she walked closer to it.

It was a a large piece of what seemed to be parchment, so old-looking it was brown and curling at the edges. It was hung on the wall, and had curly script written on it, and as she got closer, Calla realised the words formed two family trees. With a gasp she realised what this must be. She moved closer.

She began looking at the bottom. Next to each other, but separated with a gap, was her name and... she glanced at the name next to hers: Adam Smith. That must be Beast. She was tempted to mention it, but remembered why he wanted to keep enigmatic. Each female name on her tree was in bold, as were the male names on Adam's, or Beast's, tree. In smaller writing next to each one was the name of the person they had married, and also any siblings they had. And each name in bold above her and Adam's had a stroke through it, obvious symbolism if ever there was any.

There was something similar about all of her female family members' names, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Then it hit her: her mother had always told her that her name meant beauty, in Greek (which is where her father's family descended from) and her mother's name meant grace and beauty. That was the key: every single female ancestor of hers had a name that, somewhere in the meaning, meant beauty. And right at the top was Beauty Fortner. How strange.

But even stranger was the line that linked horizontally off from Beauty, off to the left, where as the beginning of Adam's tree, beginning with Patrick Smith was to the right. There, on the left, was the name Kairos. Calla gasped again. Surely not, surely this Kairos wasn't...

"What's up?" Beast said, coming over to where she was standing. He looked at the parchment and immediately noticed his old name. But Calla didn't seem to have noticed it. Then he saw where she was looking. "Kairos? No way!"

"I... I need to explain some things," Calla said. "I don't think you know the full story of your curse, actually neither do I, but my mother and grandmother told me some... interesting things. Maybe when you know them you can help me to tie in this bit of," she paused, searching again for the right word, "information."

Beast nodded, his shaggy fur waving gently as a breeze came in from the window. He shuddered involuntarily. "Let's do this somewhere else though. This place freaks me out a little."

Calla nodded. "I know what you mean!" She smiled, and she gently took the parchment from the wall, rolling it up gently. Then they both headed downstairs.

"My room," Beast said gruffly. He didn't mean to be rude, but he was worried. What if Calla had seen his name, and what if she tried to find out more about the old him? He wanted to forget that part of him, because he knew, no matter what new information Calla had, he wasn't getting out of here.

Calla noticed the gruff tones, but didn't mention it. She hated being the one in this position, being guilt tripped here, but she would hate being in Adam's place even more. She bit her lip. Beast's place, she had to remember that, she had to at least give him one of his wishes. She sighed as she realised that what she was going to tell him was definitely not going to make him feel better.

They walked along numerous corridors, and miraculously Beast knew his way. Last night, Calla had had to ask a servant the right way to her room. She wondered how he knew his way already. It was actually one of the things Adam had always been able to do naturally, along with drawing. He could always find his way, it was just a knack.

Finally Beast loped up to a wooden door. Calla noticed it was wider than hers, but it was also smaller and she had to duck to walk in.

Just as the main feature in her room was the mirror, in Beast's it was a mirror. Nearly the whole wall in front of them was covered by the golden framed mirror, a continuous taunt to Adam of what he now was, Beast. Calla paused as she took in the odd scene it reflected. A young girl with pearly white skin and red curls wearing a pale blue, 17th century dress stood next to a hideous beast. His yellow eyes were staring at her, whereas she was looking straight out of the mirror, straight at Calla. It was odd, her brain knew it was her, but Calla didn't recognise herself. She hadn't changed in the last few days, not physically anyway. Was it possible that the person she was inside was reflected in the mirror?

She shrugged and tried to stop her mind from thinking these confusing thoughts. It wasn't possible, but then neither was anything that was happening to her or to Beast.

Beast jumped on the bed and lay there. He looked like a big dog, well more like a big wolf, in that position, but as his yellow eyes looked up at her she could see the human that was trapped inside the beast. And almost, she could see a green tinge in his eyes, a blonde sheen to his fur, but she blinked and it was gone.

She sat on the bed next to him. It was strange how she wasn't afraid of him. She never had been. It had been shocking to first see him, but now, barely 24 hours later, she was used to him.

They both lay against the grey bedspread, both thinking their own thoughts about the other and the world they had been thrown into.

Beast respected Calla. She sat here next to him, even though he knew how hideous he looked. The mirror showed him a constant reminder of that. And he had no shame in admitting that he wouldn't do the same. There was no way. No amount of guilt would make him come to a castle just to spend time with someone who was doomed, someone he had never known. Yet, it seemed to him, that perhaps they had met before. Did she recognise him as he recognised her? No, that was silly, he wasn't even in his human form. But, it wasn't as though he remembered actually meeting her, it was just a sense of deja vu, as though they had met in a dream once, years ago.

"I never knew about any of this, until the day before yesterday," Calla began. "I thought I was normal, I thought my family was normal. I thought a lot of things." She sighed. "My dad died six months ago, in a car crash -he was coming to pick me up, and sometimes, hell, all of the time I feel racked with guilt. And then my mum and Gran told me about the curse."

"They told you about me?" He thought it better not to talk about her dad; he wasn't good at feelings.

She nodded. "Yes, they told me that there was a cursed boy in a castle -that I was the only one who could break the curse."

"She didn't tell me that guideline," he muttered.

"The curse itself isn't tied to just me, but there is a spell around the castle. It flows through the forest itself, and no one can pass it. Just people with my blood."

"Why you?"

"I don't know, neither did my mum or Gran, but..." she glanced at the rolled up parchment, "perhaps this can give us a clue."

"How did your Mom and Gran know?" Beast asked, and she noticed his American accent. He was still confused, but he felt like he was close to the centre of the maze. A few more turns and he would reach the middle and then he would know. Know what? The way to break the curse? The way to kill Kairos? He didn't know what the knowledge could lead to, but he knew that he and Calla both had pieces of the map, even if they were locked away in their subconscious minds.

"Because they were here too. They found their way here, and they tried to break the curse, they didn't know about it to begin with, but Kairos told them after. But somehow... I don't know how, the curse moved on to the next generation."

"So, it wasn't me who brought this on... I..." Beast didn't know what to think. He had never been close to his father but to know it was his dad's fault that he was here... "That bastard."

"It's not your father's fault either," Calla said, reading his mind with an insigtfullness that shocked him. "This has been going on for years. Generations my Gran said, although how many, only this can tell." She began to unroll the parchment, laying it gently on the bed.

Beast didn't know who to be angry at. Right now it was his dad. All he knew was that he needed to stay angry, stay hating. He needed to feel something. Anger and hate are the most animal emotions, but ironically they were the only things that stopped him from sinking fully into the Beast. Three days he had been here, and already three petals had dropped from the rose, and as each one fell he felt more and more like giving up, giving in to the animal instinct that haunted the back of his mind.

Calla pointed to the parchment, drawing him out of his reverie. "There's us." Beast glanced down.

Adam Smith. It stuck out from the paper as though it was written in flamingo pink.

"Don't worry," Calla said, "I understand. You can forget that part of you, if you want. For now anyway."

"Thanks," he said gruffly.

She traced the lines up, her lips moving as she counted the names. "Thirteen. We're the thirteenth generation, how... apt."

"Yeah..." It was daunting. If the past twelve generations couldn't break the curse, how could they? But then they had something over all the others. They both knew about the curse and how to break it. But... they had sworn never to do the only thing that could break it. They had both sworn never to love.

Calla looked at Beast. She knew what he must be thinking because it was the same thing she herself was thinking.

"I... I'm willing to try. To try and break it," she said, humbly. Her conscience was too strong. She couldn't live with herself if she didn't even try.

He gave what she thought was a smile of sorts. "Thanks, but it's ok. For all we know it could be a trick. You don't want to be stuck with a hideous monster all your life!"

"I'm stuck with you anyway," she said, nudging him playfully. It was easier to joke about it.

"You can't force yourself to love anyway. And I don't know about you, but I'm stubborn. I swore and I can't break an oath to myself."

She laughed. "Me too. We're too stubborn for our own good." She gave a small smile. "We'll just have to find another way to break the curse then," she added determinedly.

"You are too good for your own good!"

"Thank you. Now, I think the key is here, the first generation." She pointed to the top row of the family trees. "Patrick Smith, your great great, throw in some more greats, grandfather. He was the first Beast."

"And your great great great etc., grandmother was Beauty." He paused and gave what sounded like either a chuckle or a growl. Calla assumed it was the first. "Beauty and the Beast. Has a sort of ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Let's write a book, or make a film, about it!" Calla joked. "But anyway, look: Beauty Fortner, and Kairos Fortner."

"But they can't be... sisters? Kairos cursed her own sister?" Beast said, shocked.

Calla nodded. "I think so. I also think it was her younger sister. Look at the siblings: there's my older brother, Daniel, my mum had an older brother, my Gran had an older sister."

"The second child is always a girl." Beast nodded confirmation that he understood her train of thought.

"Not only that, but the girl is always Beauty. The meaning of her name always has Beauty in it." She gasped. "My hair. We all have red curls."

Beast gave a curious look.

"Well," she continued, "I do, my mum does, my Grandmother does. They always said it was a family trait."

"You..." He looked at her closely and noticed something he never had before. "They were definitely sisters."

"What makes you so sure?" Calla said, frowning.

"You have Kairos's eyes."

A/N Oh, look at that mini-cliffhanger! Lol, well by my standards it is mini, would you like more of those? Or not? Let me know in your many reviews!