A/N Hey, sorry this update took a little while, I've had it ready, but it had to be beta'd then I was away and you know how it goes! But considering I have my GCSEs I'm being pretty good with the updates don't you think!

"My eyes aren't like hers!" Calla said, jumping up from the bed and standing, looking aghast.

"Calla, I didn't mean-" he tried to explain, but she interrupted him.

"I am not like her, nothing like her! My family was cursed by an evil enchantress and I am nothing like her!" She screamed then, a long heartfelt scream. Tears began to burn her cheeks, stinging her eyes. She fell to the floor, weeping uncontrollably. Beast watched as her body shook. Her head was tucked in her arms and her red curls covered her face.

"I'm sorry, Calla," he said, saying the words for what felt like the first time. He knew he meant them, because he was truly sorry. It was his fault she was here, that she had to go through all of this. Guilt began to crush him, and he began to be able to feel what she felt. Empathy was a powerful thing.

Calla felt a weight lift from her. The tears stopped and the overwhelming sense of forlornness lifted. She sat up, brushing her curls away from her face so they didn't stick to her now tear-stained cheeks. She looked up at Beast. He lay on the bed, gazing at her. His eyes were filled with pain.

"Beast?"

"I don't know what happened..."

"Me either. I just felt unbearably... and then you said... and now..." She paused once more, still not knowing what could have happened. "I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have overreacted, I don't know why I did. I think Kairos was Beauty's sister too... she was, she is, related to me."

"I think we should put this back, you don't know when she might get back." His voice held the forlornness that she had felt just moments before.

"I'll take it. You... rest or something."

She took the parchment and carefully rolled it up again. Then she walked back along the corridors, hoping she could find her way back to Kairos' tower. She knew there must be a reason, a story behind the curse. And somehow, she and Adam needed to find it out. That was the only way they could save him now.

She turned a corner and there was the staircase. She climbed it quickly and peeked inside. The ornate room was empty. Calla stepped inside. She quickly and carefully hung the parchment back in its rightful place. Then she sighed and leaned against the stone wall. She heard a creek and glanced, startled, at the door. But it hadn't moved. Instead, the mirror had swung off the wall, revealing another room behind it. Some people in her position might have run away, but Calla didn't run. It wasn't in her nature, as you might have been able to tell. No, if something odd happened to her she explored it, and this new room was no different. She walked through the wall into the secret room.

It was a library, or something like it. Shelves upon shelves were filled with old, dusty, leather-bound books. But none of these were by authors Calla had ever heard of. She felt the air was heavier in here and she wondered if, perhaps, this was where Kairos performed magic. By the looks of the titles, each one grimmer than the previous one, it seemed to be a correct assumption. There was a dark blue book with gold, swirly writing that said; Necromancy: Blood and Earth ties. The next was a red book, with stains of darker red covering some of the title, she could still make it out however; Sacrifice Rituals Under The Crescent Moon: A lesser-known time of power.

She walked over to the wooden desk where there were numerous bottles of odd-coloured liquids. A single rose, not red but dark, dark purple, so dark it looked almost black, lay on the desk. She picked it up and breathed in the heavenly aroma it gave off. A sharp pain awoke her from the scent and she saw that a thorn had pricked her index finger.

Suddenly a book flew to her. Its cover was a dark green and there was no title or author to be found anywhere. She opened it, and found a page at random. The spell there shocked her. It seemed to be exactly what she had wanted. This spell could help, maybe. She quickly searched the room for the correct ingredients and, without thinking rationally, tucked them into the hidden pocket on her dress' skirt.

She clutched the book to her chest and quickly made her way out of the room, closing the mirror behind her. She didn't know what she was doing, but she felt it was right, like this was what she was meant to do. Whatever fate had planned for her now, she had decided to go along with it.

The mirror clicked back into place and she jumped as she saw herself reflected in its face. Her eyes were the same colour as Kairos's. She could see that now, as if they had been enlarged. The picture began to change, and the mirror now showed a young girl, a little older than her, with ruby red curls, the same shade as hers, emerald eyes and opal skin. Her instinct told her this was Beauty.

Another girl replaced this picture, one with raven hair and light blue eyes. It was Kairos. Now Calla could see that her eyes were not exactly like Kairos' were now, but more as they had been, perhaps before the curse. These eyes were her eyes, this girl, with an innocent smile. But the enchantress' eyes were colder and stonier, as if the emotion had been sucked from them.

The mirror image swam, and again it changed. This time it showed a young man with black hair and vivid green eyes. They were Adam's eyes, but she knew this wasn't Adam, this was Patrick. The first Beast. Somehow these three people tied together and formed a story, they formed a curse. Generations later, the curse would be broken. Calla knew this. Both she and Adam were too stubborn to let it go. How odd, that in all these images, the eyes were the first thing to stand out. Maybe they had been enlarged, or maybe it was the magic, working itself in some other way.

She heard a noise and turned around. Kairos was sitting on the throne. Calla quickly put the book behind her back, hoping the witch hadn't seen it. Although Kairos' body expression was relaxed, her eyes showed shock, and even a little worry.

"Calla darling. Having fun in my private room, are you?"

"I... was just-"

"Of course. Well, as pleasant as this was, you had better get ready for lunch, hadn't you?"

Calla didn't bother to say anything. It was obvious how angry Kairos was and she didn't want to add to that in any way. The curse proved how powerful Kairos was. Calla hurried from the tower room, being careful to keep the bottles upright and the book out of sight. It had proved useful, for once, that she had taken GCSE textiles: she knew all about pockets, and in this case, the ones that women used to put in the skirts of dresses before bags were invented. It was a subject she had picked because she had thought it would be fun. What a mistake. But there were instances when some facts she had learnt came in useful.

As she was walking down the corridor she wondered how long she would be here. For all she knew, given that she could never find the door, it could be eternity. It was early September, and she had just started her first year at the local Sixth Form College, doing AS-Levels. Would she miss so much time she would have to re-take the year? When she had run out of the house two days ago she had barely given a thought to anything, never mind her future.

She reached her room, mostly out of pure luck, and decided to put those thoughts to the back of her mind. Whatever might happen with her future, all she needed to think about right now was saving Adam. That was why she was here, and that was the only way she could leave. It was difficult to stop worrying though. The last year had been full of tears and stress, and to think it could all have been for nothing was extremely depressing. Both of her parents had wanted her to succeed, in whatever she wanted to do, and she didn't want to let them down. As she wasn't sure what she wanted to do, the only way to do that was to keep her options open by taking good A-Levels. If she was here for too long the college might not accept her back. It was all extremely worrying.

Kairos leant back in her chair, staring at the blank mirror. What had the girl been doing in here? She had been looking at the mirror intently as if she saw something there, but when Kairos had transported back, the mirror was blank. She flicked her pale hand, and an image began to form. She could almost make out Patrick before the image disappeared again.

So, the girl had seen Patrick. But was that all she had seen? And what did the image mean to her? Did Calla know about the original curse? Kairos considered what it meant if she did. Nothing really... it wouldn't mean anything.

She shook her head. No, of course, whatever Calla knew, she couldn't break the curse unless she broke the oath to herself first. And that wouldn't happen. Kairos would make sure it wouldn't.

Beast lay on his bed, feeling utterly sorry for himself. Nothing seemed to make it better, thoughts of the past or thoughts of possible futures. He was stuck in the present and he didn't know a way to change it. How could you change the present anyway? Was it even possible?

He wondered whether Calla had got the parchment back safely. He hoped she was ok, and that she hadn't run into Kairos. He felt so guilty, whether she had or not. He didn't know why; he had never felt guilt in his life. Why had it started now? It was so strange: one minute he felt sorry for her, then wham, guilt washed into him like a wave onto a cliff. It overwhelmed him so he was unable to feel anything else. He could barely breathe. Even his body didn't ache so much, just his mind. He wondered whether the other beasts had gone through this pain, both physically and mentally.

In fact, Kairos considered, watching him in her mirror, nothing of this sort had ever happened. But then this time was different in many ways. The eyes for instance. Never before had such a resemblance occurred. Of course there were always Beauty's curls, reminding her of her sister, the girl who had started this. But now, there were her eyes, and Patrick's too. Was it a symbol of fate, or just a coincidence, the two Fortner girls tied with him? No, it couldn't be a symbol. It must be a coincidence of random genetics.

She looked again at the mirror, studying the wolf-like creature that lay forlornly on the bed. Another difference, how wolf-like Adam's Beast was. Every generation the Beast got more wolf-like and less human-like. And every day as a petal dropped the Beast got worse, a strange side-effect of the curse. Soon enough Adam could turn into a wolf... maybe or maybe not, even Kairos didn't know. It wasn't her who came up with the curse, and it wasn't her who had gotten the boundaries wrong. Only the mysterious Voice could answer for that. Now, generations later, she knew her full worth and her full power. She knew what she could do, but more importantly, she knew how to control it, and use herbs and potions to maximise it. But still, she couldn't help conjuring a rose, her favourite flower and the thing she had begun her powers with. It was odd how the flower that signified the Beast's doom was one that brought such pleasure to her. Or maybe, considering her broken soul, it wasn't.

She waved her hand and the golden mirror reverted back to its clear state, reflecting nothing. It was during the second generation that she had found the mirror, with Patrick's son. Both his parents, Patrick and his new beautiful wife, had died, and he lived alone in the castle-like manor house. He was eighteen if she remembered correctly, and incredibly easy to manipulate. Once he had bargained his way out of the curse he was too scared to ever return to his family's home. That was how she had inherited it, using the term lightly. It was she that had grown a forest around it, making her guard spell flow through the trees and the earth to give it power. It had trapped the servants in the castle and it let only her, her Beast, and her Beauty enter. It was ingenious, and it worked perfectly. Of course, while exploring her new home, she had found the tower, with it's secret room and the beautiful mirror. She hadn't needed to use any spell to make it magic, however. For some reason it already was, and now it was by far her most prized possession.

It was odd, living here, in such grandeur. She had lived here for centuries, and yet, she wasn't used to it, and it felt... strange. This was where he had lived, and it was where the curse had first been uttered. Another strange thing about this generation: the room she had thought of as hers, the one in her favourite colour scheme, had been given to Calla, and it seemed, blue was her favourite colour too.

A/N Hope you liked it, more soon!