The carriage was packed for the four hour ride into the capital. Once again they passed alongside the massive tree on the horizon, the one that had for some strange reason been dubbed Flugel's Tree. Peter remembered the first night that he was in this world that it was this tree that he passed that had let him know just how different the world that he found himself in was.

Sure there were people with cat ears and magic, but it seemed like the very nature of this world was different from that of Earth or anywhere else that he had been thus far.

Peter spent the ride packed in between May and Emilia, nervous as the two chatted across him only interjecting little pauses for him to make comments about what one of them had just said. Most of the conversation was just idle chatter, but he wondered how they had become so cordial so quickly.

Across from them Steve and Roswaal sat with a little gap between them. It made sense, they were the biggest two in here. Rem piloted the carriage diligently and would on occasion say something soft to encourage the Ground Dragons.

Peter had seen to it that he had the regular Stark version of his spider suit underneath his clothes with the mast tucked away in a satchel he carried just in case. It hadn't seen much use in the last few weeks, so everything was fully charged and he still had about five web cartridges.

His outer wear was a little different now, he had resigned himself to something a little more locally acceptable so he wore a more casual version of a suit without a tie and with a less fancy cut of coat. His original clothes had been packed along with them and he even had some other clothes that looked more or less like what he was comfortable with, courtesy of Rem.

Emilia was wearing one of her normal white with purple trim outfits with a cloak that seemed to have cat ears over it. She wore the hood of the cloak down, her white hair bunched up in it a bit as it cascaded down her back.

She had said the cloak was something special, Peter didn't really understand what she meant nor did he ask too much more about it at the time.

"You appeared in the capital, right?" May asked.

Peter nodded. "Yeah, right in the middle of a big market street," he explained.

"It's massive, I guess it makes sense because they can only easily build so high into the air," May said.

"How big is where you're from?" Emilia asked, her fingers pressed to her lips.

It was Steve that spoke this time. "In New York City alone I remember hearing that the number is around eight million."

Roswaal's eyes flicked toward Steve. "You must be mistaken," he said. "Eight million people?"

Emilia shook her head. "I can believe it," she said. "Peter's showed me pictures on his…Metia of the city from up high. It's spectacular."

"Metia—Peter do you still have your phone?" Asked May.

Peter rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I've been using the suit to charge it. Just in case."

"Eight million people," Roswaal said. "And this New York, it is part of a larger Kingdom, yes?"

"Kind of, it's part of a country that is made up of fifty states. Each state has a capital and those states are run by smaller governing bodies," Peter said.

Roswaal pressed a hand to his chin. "It sounds almost like how Lugnica has five regional capitals and some territories run by noble houses."

The Kingdom that New York is part of doesn't have bloodline rule though, leaders are elected," Steve said.

"Well that sounds like utter chaos," Roswaal said. "We are trying to figure out exactly who the next Dragon Priestess should be and the Kingdom is absolutely worked up into a tizzy," he elongated the last word as was customary for him to do some of the time.

Steve shot Peter a glance with a smile and Peter could do nothing but smile back. Despite what had happened with Thanos and the Earth, Peter believed that there was a fix for all of this. Everything could be put back right somehow and he could still keep the promise that he made to Emilia.

She hadn't mentioned it since that night, but he could feel her resolve tempered by something. Even if she didn't know, he couldn't just allow himself to lie to her.

"That girl, Felt," Peter said, turning to Emilia. "Do you think that she is back home yet?"

"I don't know, we have the time to go back to the slums to check," Emilia said.

"You have the rest of the day to do anything that you need, the Royal Selection event isn't until tomorrow. It'll only be an hour or two after midday here in a bit," May said.

"Does that sound like enough time to run out to the slums and see if we can check on her?"

"That doesn't sound too outlandish," Roswaal said. "Felt is the girl who stole the insignia from Miss Emilia?"

Peter glanced at the floor, he had really forgotten that vial piece of information. Mostly because of what happened when they finally caught up to her. "She did do that, but it's also because of her finding Steve that we're even okay at all. We need to thank her, at the very least."

"Hmm, it is probably best that you famiiiiiiiiliarize yourself with other parts of the capital," Roswaal said. "We might be traveling to and from the city quite a biiiiiiiit."

Emilia reached for Peter's hand. "I can show him and Steve around," she said.

"Actually, I was going to look into something else," he said.

"I would offer say you should come and see Sam And James, but they're going to be out of the manor for the day, if I remember correctly," May explained.

"This is something that I had better take care of alone," Steve said.

It had taken Peter and Emilia no time to reach the Loot House at the edge of town and what they found should have been no surprise. Somehow, they both were shocked to find that the whole thing was totally decimated still from the fight with Elsa. Peter picked through the rubble of the crumbling building as Emilia walked around inside of the opening that had been torn by the massive ice spell that she had sent toward the assassin.

Trails of dirt crisscrossed the exposed parts of the floor in little paths where the water from rain had run over the past four weeks. Peter was glad that he had changed out of the jacket and slacks into these more tailored trousers and a long sleeved shirt. He wore a brown cloak around his shoulders with the hood down.

"I guess I did kind of overdo it," Emilia said, her face coloring furiously as she eyed the hole she had made.

Peter was standing over where one of the tables had been crushed under a fallen part of the roof. He moved a beam to the side to get a better look at something glistening on the floor and found it to be one of Elsa's knives. They somehow seemed to still appear to be shrouded in shadow even in the broad daylight.

Behind him, close to where Emilia stood, something shifted. Peter turned, racing for her as he realized what was happening. Peter bounded for her as part of the ceiling collapsed. The instant before the beam hit her in the head and before he reached her, two mighty ice spikes erupted from the ground at an angle to meet above her head and catch the ceiling.

Peter dove and caught Emilia, shoving her out of the opening at the same time. He rolled so that he landed under her. Silver hair spilled over in his face as she moved to get back onto her feet.

"That was a close one," Puck's voice seemed to be very near, though the spirit hadn't made an appearance for most of the day.

"It could have been a lot badder," Peter said.

"Thank you two," Emilia said. She laid on Peter and made no effort to get off for a long while. Puck zipped out of her hair and floated around both of them.

"You're welcome, but Emilia, could you not lay like this—things are, well it's a little awkward," Peter said.

"Oh, silly me," Emilia said as she climbed to her feet.

Puck shot Peter a glance, but said nothing.

When he was back on his feet Peter looked up and down the street. "We need to find someone around here who might know where Felt lived," Peter said.

"True, it didn't seem like she lived in the Loot House, it was just a place that she went to sell things," Emilia said.

Peter pointed at a man walking along an alleyway smoking a pipe. "We can ask him," he said.

The man with the pipe was older with a scruffy gray goatee and bald head. He looked up at them as they approached and before they could too close the man stumbled back, bumping into the wall of the building he was closest too.

"You—," he said pointing.

"Wait, what? We just need to ask you a question," said Peter.

"Silver hair and purple and blue eyes," the man started. "Don't think that these old eyes can't see your connection to that damned witch cult!"

Peter jumped up onto the wall of the alley so that he was right above the man, looking down at the top of his bald head. "Don't look at her," he said, causing the man to glance up. "Look at me—do you know where Felt is?"

The old man gasped at the sight of Peter stuck to the wall above him like some kind of insect, but the implications of that were probably better than the implications that the Witch of Envy was in the slums.

"Felt? Ain't no one around here seen her in about a month," the man said

"A month?" Peter repeated.

"N-now get away from me!" The old man charged down the alley. "Freaks!"

Peter flipped down from the wall and landed on his feet in front of Emilia. She was frozen, her purple eyes glazed over. Then Peter touched her shoulder, there was almost this electricity between the bare skin of her shoulder and his fingertips. He fought to suppress the thought.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked.

Emilia bobbed her head just enough to let him know that she was still there.

"Don't let them get to you," he said. "We did get the information that we needed. The man said that Felt hadn't been here since the night that we fought Elsa."

"When we last saw her Reinhard had taken her, though we never found out why," Emilia said.

"We should have done something about him, can we really trust he didn't do something to her?" Asked Peter.

Emilia nodded, of this she seemed more than sure, Peter could tell by the face that she made. "Reinhard is—well he's the Sword Saint," she said as if that were all the explanation that a person could need with a tone that you would use to tell a person that water was wet or the sky above us.

"What's the Sword Saint?"

Emilia considered this question. "He's really good at fighting. He's the single greatest weapon in the Kingdom," she said finally. "More than that he's honorable and the paragon of a knight."

"If anything he came off as a little unsure of himself that night when he was speaking to you," Peter said, remembering hearing bits of what the two of them had said.

"We could go to the barracks and see if Reinhard is there. That way we could ask him ourselves what became of Felt."

"How far away is the barracks?" Asked Peter.

Emilia glanced toward the rest of the city rising off into the distance the massive mountain that the capital was situated on rose up to meet the castle. "It is closer to where we met originally."

Peter looked around to see if there were anyone else looking at them, it seemed that most of the people on this side of town were in their homes or out for the day. He hadn't seen anyone other than that one man in a while. "What do you say I carry you and we move across the rooftops?"

"Um, if you're sure you're okay to do that—I imagine I might be a little heavy," Emilia said.

To demonstrate how negligible her weight was to him, Peter flipped over to catch himself on two fingers, pointer and his middle finger, and hold himself in a handstand like that for several seconds. When he dropped to land on his feet without even showing signs of strain Emilia nodded.

"I guess that means you'll be fine," she said.

In the swell of the moment Peter grabbed Emilia by the waist and bounded to the top of the brick wall that enclosed the slums. He ran along the wall, though it was thin, with superhuman speed and precision until he reached an area where a pole was jutting up from it. Peter grabbed the pole with the hand that wasn't supporting Emilia and swung around on it to fling himself forward and web a three story building just outside of the slums.

Peter pulled them to that roof, perching there for enough time to get his bearings and then he bounded off to leap roof to roof. He had never moved with her like this in his arms for this long and though she didn't scream, Peter could feel her heart thundering against his shoulder where she was pressed.

Her breaths came out in short, shallow breaths. It had been too long since he had moved this way: leaping across the tops of buildings, using the web to tug himself into a horizontal projectile aimed at the next foothold, the next roof, or spire that could support his weight.

Without the mask down, Peter would have to be a little careful. There was a lot going on around him and his senses could get overwhelmed. Luckily this city was no New York. There was less stimuli: no billboards blaring their bright colors into his face or traffic horns. Still, there was the smell of Emilia's hair and the sweet hint of the scented oils that she used on her skin. There was the cadence of her heart and breath.

"You really used to do this, huh?" Emilia managed, her voice just verging on panic.

"Do you need me to stop?" He asked as they landed on a steeple.

Emilia looked out over this area of the city, this high up the wind caught the hood and her hair sending them out behind her like a trail of silver and the sun made each strand seem like it was glowing.

"It's breath taking," she said. Then, as if she finally heard the question that he had asked, she answered. "No, I'm fine. We can keep going."

She wrapped her arms around his neck as he moved. "You ready?" Peter asked. He was answered by a nod. "Hang on tight." Peter kicked off of the building with Emilia clinging to him as he fired a web back to loop himself around the spire and cross the street for another, taller building. He swung from that building, catching hold of the next and moving down this street liked that. The buildings here were tall enough for some limited web-slinging.

Emilia pointed at an arched gateway a few streets over and a little ways up from where they were. "That's the Barracks," she said.

Peter adjusted his trajectory, crossing the roofs of the buildings across the street in a single bound and landing on the edge of the next row of buildings. He walked to the edge of the roof that he was on to look across at the wide gap that there was between these businesses and the archway that was the entrance to the Barracks. The Barracks itself seemed to be a massive building with a huge parade ground out front of it. All of the land that it occupied was gated off.

"It's a bit of a jump, but here we go!" Peter fired webs from either of his hands at the building edge and tugged them as a test. Then he braced himself back against them with Emilia held tight.

"Wait, maybe we should—"

Her words were cut short as Peter used the webbing as a slingshot and fired the both of them through the air at a low arc so that they passed over the lower part of the wall. With this kind of fall and at this angle there wasn't a way for him to land while holding her without the spider-legs on his back to manage her. So he did the next best thing.

As he approached the ground, Peter flung Emilia straight up. There wasn't even time for him to warn her this time, but there was no way he would miss that catch. Peter landed rolling and stopped in a crouch. He popped up to his feet just in time to follow Emilia's scream and her shadow to where she would land and catch her.

Her purple eyes were wide with shock. "You threw me!"

"You handled it like a champ though," said Peter forcing himself to smile.

"You really did Lia," Puck said flying out of her hair.

Emilia was shaky on her feet as Peter placed her on the ground. "Well, that being said, we may need to return to the manor so that I can change out of this skirt," Emilia's face was as red as he had ever seen it.

Something pounded across the ground, stampeding toward him. His tingle flared and Peter spun just in time to catch a Ground Dragon at the head and shoulders and stop it. He held the thing in place, sticking his feet to the ground so that it couldn't push him and webbing the dragon's.

It was then that he noticed this Ground Dragon was wearing bespoke armor and had a man writing atop its back with a saddle. His face lit up. "Whoa cool, are you a Ground Dragon Knight! That's so awesome!" Peter shouted.

Other knights or guards were around them in an instant taking their shots at him. For all their efforts Peter danced out of the range of every attack. As he slapped blades away, caught attacks and flipped between slashes, he spoke. "Right, it might look like I kidnaped this beautiful maiden to you guys," Peter said. "And then invaded your barracks—I probably should learn to look before I leap."

Emilia cried out. "Stop, he's with me," she held her badge up. "Emilia, Candidate for the Forty-Second Ruler of—" Emilia stopped to ice the ground and hinder another couple of guards from getting to him. The collapsed into a pile and slid past her. "Peter is with me!"

Peter webbed the archway and pulled himself out of the group of soldiers just enough to drop on the ice in front of Emilia and slide to a stop so that he was standing between his attackers and her.

"Come on, it was a misunderstanding!" Peter shouted.

"Stand down, all of you." A voice with a dignified tone cut through the chaos happening on the parade ground. A man with lavender hair parted in the center and wearing a white uniform that was pristinely pressed and cut to fit him was coming from the direction of the arch. As he walked he lifted one of Peter's webs from the ground and looked at it with a curious eye.

With his words alone, the attack stopped and all of the soldiers who had been rushing around trying to find an opening to get at Peter froze. The trio of men that Emilia had immobilized with her ice on the floor even stopped.

"This woman outranks you all," the lavender haired man said with his gloved hand held out to acknowledge Emilia. He walked between Peter and Emilia, fearing no repercussions and not even slipping on her ice. He stopped and bowed at Emilia's feet, taking her hand in his and kissing the back of it.

"Miss Emilia, I apologize on behalf of the Knights of the Kingdom of Lugnica," he said,.

"Thank you Julius, you're too kind," said Emilia. "But please, th-there's no need to be so formal."

Julius got to his feet and looked Peter over. "And who is your friend?"

"Julius, this is Peter Parker, Peter, this is Julius Juukulius," she said. "Peter is my guardian as well as my friend, he should be treated with respect," she said addressing the assembled soldiers. "He didn't realize that coming over that wall would garner that kind of response."

Peter stood awkwardly watching their exchange. He had never heard Emilia talk about this guy and here he was kissing her hand. Why hadn't Peter ever thought to be formal like that. Peter banished the thought from his mind, that was probably some greeting here, right?

Julius glanced back at the wall that even had guard towers at the corners and was higher than the buildings around it. "You didn't think that jumping over the huge wall wrought iron spikes atop it that surrounds the barracks would illicit a response?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Not my brightest moment," Peter said.

Julius was tugging at the webbing, testing its strength. "I've never seen someone fight like that and these ropes you fire out of your hands—does your body make them? Fascinating."

"Sorry if anyone got hurt," Peter said scratching at the back of his neck.

"Wait, are you one of the ones that bested the Bowel Hunter some weeks back. Rumor spreads fast, Reinhard was quite distressed that he wasn't there to stop her himself. Though hearing that anyone managed to live through a fight with her is something—she usually runs or murders whoever she has it in her mind to kill," Julius said offering out his hand.

Peter accepted his hand. "Yeah, I had help with her. Emilia and our other friend," Peter explained, "but thanks."

"Speaking of Reinhard, where is he?" Emilia asked.

For a moment Julius Juukulius stood silently in thought. "On days when he isn't on duty he tends to vanish. It's hard to say where he has gotten off to," said Julius.

The guards had dispersed by now, or were dispersing. Helping each other up and moving back to their posts. As the left Peter apologized again, mouthing the word 'sorry' at them so as not to disturb the conversation taking place between Julius and Emilia.

"We had a question for him about that night, with the Bowel Hunter," Emilia said.

"Well, if you would like we could check to see if there is any record of where he should be today and what he should be doing. It would require that we go inside though," Julius said.

"Peter," Emilia said, taking his hands. "I don't think they would allow us both into the building here, could you wait outside the gate for me."

"Are you sure it will be okay, if Steve's not here I wasn't supposed to let you out of my sight," Peter said, mirroring the words Roswaal had told him.

Emilia smiled, her cheeks turning red. "I'll be fine, there's hardly a safer building in the Kingdom than the Barracks. But it is sweet that you take your duty to me so, well that you're so eager to keep your promises. Even to people that aren't me." She gave his hand a squeeze.

She was capable of taking care of herself and she also had Puck with her. This Julius Juukulius guy didn't seem to be some scrub either, all the other guards had stopped really quick when he spoke up.

"Okay, I'll be outside when you get back," Peter said.

Emilia started to walk toward the barracks, her boots clicking on the cobblestone of the parade ground. When she was several feet away, she looked over her shoulder with a big smile. "I'll hurry back, okay?"

Peter made his way to the archway and back outside under the watchful eye of every guard and knight still in the vicinity. As the gate slammed behind him he turned just in time to watch Emilia disappear through the door of the building with Julius close by.

Steve wandered until he started to see places that struck up some of his memories. He passed the brothel that he had walked by before and noticed a trio of different women outside this time waving at the people as they passed and, generally, trying to pull some attention from the pedestrians that walked along the sidewalk.

As he walked by he turned to nod at them, making sure that it wasn't too apparent that he could see back behind himself in his periphery. His blue eyes darted sideways, just to check and make sure that what he thought that he had spotted earlier was still indeed there.

He hurried through brothel's portion of the street and crossed between two Ground Dragon drawn carriages making sure to appear like he was in no hurry. This was the nature space that an unhurried, unhindered pace would have put him in. The carriages just happened to be here too.

There was a wide intersection up ahead with a few market stalls and carts filled with wares, this was near where he had stopped the thief, though that time he had been moving much faster. Steve turned to look at something that was in one of the carts and slowly let his gait list to the right so that he walked closer to the buildings. After a moment he slipped into an alley way in between them, hoping that this would illicit the response that he assumed.

Steve tucked himself in to the alley, hugging tight to the wall in the direction that he had just come from. If his pursuer were to come this way they would turn the blind corner before they could see him putting him at their back. He assumed that they would think he bolted and in running to catch up, get sloppy.

The last thing Steve expected was for Elsa Granhiert to whirl around the corner dressed in a much more conservative outfit than the previous one: this time only her face showed through the opening in the hood with black hair jutting our around her neck and chin. She held a straight bladed knife with a purple and black blade out of one long sleeve aimed directly at Steve's face.

"We have to stop meeting this way," Steve said.

"Would you happen to believe that this is all fate?" She said.

"Come on, Elsa," Steve said, pushing the knife down. "I saw you trailing us before we got into town. I hoped that coming out here would lure you away from the others."

"Hoping you could have me all to yourself?" Elsa asked.

Steve walked around her in a quarter circle, just enough to that his back wasn't against the wall anymore. The whole time he kept his eyes trained on her. "Who hired you?" Steve asked.

The smile that washed over her face seemed to make the shadows playing over her skin all the more sinister. "You couldn't torture the answer out of me, though I wouldn't mind letting you try."

"Elsa, you're at like a twenty-one and I need you at a six, max," Steve said. "Did you give any thought to what I said."

She moved one foot so the tip of her foot was pointed at the ground and rested her hands on her hips while still holding the knife. "You said something about the orders I don't take and having a choice—" Elsa said. "I do what I do because I simply enjoy the feel of warm innards spilling out over my hands and that rich blood smell."

He shook off the darkest implications of what she was saying. "So you found a profession where could do what you love?" Steve asked.

"You seem to have no problem with the whores back there," Elsa pointed over to the street. "They do their best work on their backs and I simply do my best to put people on theirs with a nice, horizontal gash across the good bits."

"They're not murdering anyone," Steve said.

"These days I only kill when paid or when pressed," Elsa said.

"How about fighting for something more?" Steve said.

Elsa smiled. "Why are yo so interested in me?"

"Because I see someone with talent and power to do something good," said Steve.

"You know," Elsa said turning her back to him and pacing a few feet up the alley. "I could, just this once take a kiss as payment. That is if you have someone you need dealt with ."

"That's not happening again."

"Fight you for it," Elsa said as she rounded on him, knife at the ready and her face red with delight.

Before things could get any further, Steve whipped the shield off of his back, flung it against the alley wall to bounce into Elsa's side. She was quick enough to bring her hand up to block, but the sheer force of the shield hitting her hand shattered the bones and caused her to punch herself in the face.

Elsa glanced up at him, blood leaking from her mouth. "You win, your prize is—"

"Let me guess a kiss?" Steve walked passed her as her face began to heal. He stomped down on the shield catching it as it flipped up. "Sooner or later you'll run into a fight you can win, just how long can you heal yourself like that?"

He expected some snarky remark, some witty comeback, but instead, as he exited the alley she hollered after him. "How long can you keep your hands clean," it sounded as if her jaw snapped back into place halfway through that sentence. "Sooner or later you'll need someone killed—and you'll come fine me ready to pay up."

Steve turned out onto the street, headed in the direction he had just come from. Elsa didn't follow.