Aster is up at half seven, and she's making such a clamour in the main kitchen that the whole house gets up with her.

"Say a single word," Tyene warns their grumpy guests, "and I'll cut your throat. She probably doesn't have her hearing aids in."

Willas came up in the lift, but he came up on his crutches. Ed was right that he was a stupid idiot for not doing his exercises as soon as he got home from the airport, and he's paying the price now. He uses his crutch to get Az's attention, though, while Ty's threatening the lives of everyone else currently living in Willas' house.

Aster swats at him with a spatula in return for him poking her in the arse with the base of his crutch. She's wearing her glasses and doesn't have her hearing aids in, and she looks more like him than like Ty, for once.

" Pancakes?" he guesses, because it's the only thing other than paella that Az ever makes. She makes delicious pancakes, fluffy and rich, and she did duck out with Marg for an hour yesterday afternoon, which explains why she's pointing insistently toward the dining room.

"I didn't even know this many types of berry existed," Trystane says mildly. Somehow, he and Ned both already have coffee in one hand and phones in the other, and they take the two seats furthest from the door without further comment.

"Welcome to Highgarden," Alla says, grinning. She's much brighter and sharper than she used to be, in Willas' uncertain estimation, and he suspects Arya Stark has something to do with that. Sansa's sister can be a bitch, but never to the people she loves. Willas generally gets a sort of hard-edged tolerance from her, but he's seen her with his children across enough lifetimes to know that that's mostly a front.

"I'll help the kid," Arya says, pushing him toward the dining room. "Get out of the way, Tyrell, sit down."

She and Ty get on well, so there's no risk of tension there. Margaery, wearing a peacock feather print silk dressing gown, with her hair held back by her eyemask, might present more of a problem.

"Tell Az," she says to Ty, "that I want mine almost burned."

She sits down next to Willas, bleary-eyed and scowling.

"I was up all night trying to get a hold of Myrcella," she says. "She's changed her bloody voicemail message, but she doesn't seem to be checking it! Renly says he hasn't been able to get her alone for a moment, and poor idiot Robb is beside himself with worry that King Turd has hurt her."

"He wouldn't," Willas agrees, pouring her a glass of apple juice. She only rarely drinks coffee, and she worked through all of his tea except Az's carefully guarded stashes within a day. "Communications might be monitored, though. You know how controlling he is."

"And then there's bloody Edmure," Marg goes on, fuming visibly. "What bloody good is it to charge around shouting that there's foul play in Sansa's disappearance? Of course there's foul play! She's disappeared!"

Aster kisses Marg good morning when she arrives with their pancakes, and then she drags a chair around to sit at the corner between Willas and Marg.

"You need to wash, Dad."

"I'm washing!"

"Your hair? If you're having trouble with your leg I'll do it over the sink."

"Last time you washed my hair you tried to dye it Rangers red."

"I promise I won't now!"

He takes the bowl of raspberries from the middle of the table and puts it down between the three of them. He prefers strawberries, generally, but they're Sansa's favourite and he just isn't in the mood at the moment. Az gives him one of her narrow looks, but she doesn't say anything.

Everyone always assumes that Az must be quiet, because she's mostly deaf and prefers to sign. They only think that because none of them speak her language. As soon as Aster finds out that someone in the room signs, she doesn't ever, ever shut up. She's like Tyene that way, and like Loras, and Sarella. A silence from Aster has enormous value, because she usually can't resist passing comment.

"She's right," Marg says, nudging Az and giving her a thumbs up. "You look like you're one-third grease."

"At least he doesn't smell," Ty calls from the far end of the table. She's leaning over Trystane's shoulders, reading whatever he's reading, but she takes the time to straighten up and speak a little slower, so Az can read her lips. Lipreading is bullshit, mostly, but Az can manage a little with people she knows well, and she knows Ty better than anyone.

That stings, but it's true. Part of the reason Willas keeps his beard trimmed so short is so Az can read his lips a little easier, and she'd have an even easier time of it if she'd lived with him half as much as she has with Ty.

He puts his arm around her shoulders. Gods, he misses her when she's at Starfall. It's best for her, but he misses her.

They eat. Az eats most of the raspberries, and Marg steadily works her way through the rest of the raspberries, then the blueberries, and then she moves onto the boysenberries.

"Now," Marg says, pushing away her plate and throwing berries one by one down the table at Trystane and Ned. "Little boys. Tell me what you've skimmed from the palace communications."

Winterfell in mourning is strange.

Robb's sideways with tiredness, but Rickon's waiting with half a dozen members of the home security team when he gets to the lobby.

In past lives, in older times, Robb would have had Smalljon with him, or Dacey maybe. They have security teams of their own this time around, though, so instead Robb has a cousin of Jory Cassell's, Adam, Lar Hornwood - entitled to his father's name only because his mother threatened to go to the papers - and a rough-haired boy called Dannyl Snow, who has to be a Mormont with a jaw like that. They're good, well-trained and sensible, but they're not his sword swords.

He misses Smalljon and Dacey and the rest if only because they were also his friends. He's still adjusting to growing up with people his own age this time around, because the only other time he hasn't been thrown into adulthood at fifteen was the time before the time before last, when Dad survived.

There's a shrine of sorts, on the footpath across the road from the main doors of Winterfell Central. Whoever set it up used a great photo of Dad, taken outside the Fell's last match of the league last year. He's wearing a Fell scarf, grey and white hoops, and a bobble hat that Arya knitted for him on a dare that has so many dropped stitches that his ears are poking through. Robb knows the picture - Mum's on the end of Dad's outstretched hand, decked out in full Riverrun checkerboard, but they've cropped her out. Fell won forty-two to ten, closing out their best season in a decade. They'd all gone together, and poor Mum had been the only person in the entire Builder's End not wearing Fell colours.

It's a great photo. Robb doesn't realise he's staring until Ricky grabs him by the wrist.

"Bad news," he says. "Uh, really bad news. Mum went into town to see about arranging for Dad to be brought home pronto, and that woke me up."

"Fuck, Ricky, I'm sorry I wasn't here-"

"Finding San is more important," Ricky says. "Bran was here, and Uncle Ben's come down from Wallside to help with the arrangements."

Much to Robb's annoyance, Ricky's been taller than him since he was fifteen, but he's like a nettle - skinny and prickly. He doesn't really fit under Robb's arm anymore, but he folds himself down to fit unless there's some of his cool friends about.

"There is worse news," he says, one skinny arm wrapped tight around Robb's back. "Well, depending on your idea of worse."

"Please tell me Mum hasn't-"

"Mum's Awake, too," Ricky admits. "Surprise!"

Mum's more than Awake.

Mum's absolutely furious.

"I assume you and your sister are hunting for Sansa," she says, once she's kissed his cheek hello. "Tell me everything. Everything, Robb Torrhen Stark, or I will get really angry."

"Well, Mum's Awake," Arya Stark says, putting a cup of tea down on the table by Aster's hand and touching her wrist to catch her attention. "Here, kiddo. But yeah, Bran just texted me. Seems Mum's gone and woken up, and she wants answers."

She puts her laptop, already open, down on the table. The screen, and therefore the camera, is facing Willas.

Catelyn Stark looks very well, all things considered. Sansa's mouth goes thin like that when she's angry, too.

"Hello, Your Grace," he says, terrified of offending her, all things considered.

"I think we're a little beyond titles just now, young man," she says. Her voice is tinny through the shit laptop speakers, but that'll be remedied as soon as Trys finishes setting up his and Neddie's command centre in the dining room. "I hear you're the man to talk to, so tell me. How soon do you intend on having my daughter back?"

"I hear you went out twice yesterday, sweetheart," Petyr says. "Once I might have forgiven without explanation, but twice? Are you trying to get caught?"

Petyr's always been big on breath mints, but he's obviously going overboard at the moment. His breath is cold against Sansa's neck, and his hands are cold around her wrists.

Joff always preferred to pin her hands over her head. He said it made what little tits she had stand out more, and it made it easier for him to lean in and pin her properly. Petyr's got her hands down by her hips, though, and he's talking right against her skin, low and even and calm.

Or, well. He's giving the appearance of calm at least. Sansa doesn't really believe it.

"Why can't I call my mother?" she asks, keeping her voice as steady as she can - steadier than it is usually, then, because she's got tons of practice at this. She's better than anyone she knows under pressure, because there's no pressure like being pinned to the bed with Joff's hand tight in the hair at her nape while he demands to know every move she made while on a night out in White Harbour for Wylla's birthday.

"If you do as you're told, I'll keep you safe," Petyr insists. It feels awfully like he's sniffing her skin. Has he touched you yet? "And when the time is right, I'll escort you to Winterfell myself."

Has he touched you yet? He's touching her now, and it's making her skin crawl.

"You just have to do as you're told, sweetheart," he says, breath cold and hands clammy. "Can you do that?"

Mya gave her a bra, and she hasn't taken it off - even in the shower, she wrapped it in her nightdress and hung it inside the curtain. She feels sick with all this strange, implied danger. At least with Joff it was all straightforward. He shouted at her and called her names and he hit her, usually with his hand and sometimes with his belt, and if she did something that really embarrassed him, he'd put out a cigarette on her thigh. She knew what to expect with Joff. Even now, if she goes back to him, she knows exactly what he'll do. He'll beat her unconscious, and then he'll never let her go ten yards from him without one of his loyal cronies watching her.

Which would be better? Trapped by a crown, or trapped by Petyr's memories of her mother?

Or trapped by a spiderweb? That's a choice too, if Mya can be trusted.

"I went out for breakfast," she says. "Because there was nothing in the kitchen. And then Mya came to see if I wanted coffee, and I didn't have a good excuse."

Sansa's queen of good excuses. She's been using every excuse in the book to avoid ever becoming Queen of Westeros since she was nineteen, after all. If Petyr has been paying attention as closely as Sansa's starting to think he has, then he probably knows that.

"She's dangerous, silly billy," Petyr says, letting go of her left wrist so he can put his hand on her waist. "Half a Baratheon, the other half raised as fat old Arryn's ward-of-court. She can't be trusted."

Has he touched you yet?

Just be careful that he's not expecting a fee.

Petyr was always a funny one. He used to beg that we play kissing games, the silly kind you play when you're little, even when we were in secondary school.

Mum always played it off as a joke. They'd been kids. They grew up together. She never found him creepy. Uncle Edmure had, though. Uncle Edmure had never liked Petyr, and had gathered Sansa and Robb and Arya and Bran together one day while he was babysitting them, when Mum and Dad were at the hospital for a scan while she was pregnant with Rickon, and told them never to call him Uncle Petyr.

He'd told Sansa never to let him too close. She'd thought he meant at court, because the Lannisters never really trusted him and it would just be one more thing for Cersei to hate her for, but Sansa knows better now. She gets it.

Baelish used to stand right under the bannister whenever there was a ball or a party, Edmure had said. He used to wait for Cat and Lysa to come down the stairs in their dresses, and he'd always be right there, staring straight up.

He's worked his fingers under her top. They feel even colder on her waist than they had on her wrist.

Has he touched you yet?

Not yet, but she should have known. It's been coming for years.

"You're not crossing the Neck," Robb says. Even Mum's terrible fury won't be enough to sway him this time, because he's a lot more scared of what might happen to her than he is of what she might do to him. "Every time you cross the Neck after we lose Dad, we lose you too. I'm not doing that to the others, and I'll have the guards keep you here if I have to."

"Sansa is my daughter, Robb," Mum says. "And even if you are Duke of Norham now, I'm still your mother. You can't tell me what to do, young man."

"This isn't about telling you what to do, Mum! This is about keeping you safe - keeping all of you safe! I've never managed it before, and I'll be damned if I let a second one of you disappear before Dad's even in the ground!"

Mum crumples. She does at every mention of Dad, and while Robb said it without thinking he's not above taking advantage.

"Listen to me," he says, but gently. She's shaking a little when he puts his hands on her shoulders, but this has to be said. "I have to keep you safe too, Mum. Not just the others. You too."

Robb lets her pretend not to be crying when he pulls her in close. He pretends, too.

"Have you heard anything from Myrcella?"

Mum likes Cella only a little more than she likes Joff. Robb hasn't been able to be mad about that, on the whole, and he hopes that Mum might soften up a little now that she has her befores back. She usually does.

"I've had a couple of snaps from her, but nothing useful," he admits. He hasn't quite let go of her yet, but she doesn't seem to mind. "I'm worried about her. I tried to see her, but it's all Lannister guards on the Hill and they didn't want to let me in. Renly and Loras have both seen her, but they can't get talking to her."

"I've been ghastly to her, haven't I?" Mum sighs, patting his back. He lets go a little. "Once we have Sansa back, I'll make it up to her."

"The timing on that one is a little fuzzy, Mum," Bran says. Robb hadn't heard him come in because he's using his mechanical chair instead of the motorised one, the little shit, but he doesn't look smug to find Robb having a cuddle with Mum like Ricky would have, or Arya. He looks a bit dazed, which means he's had a Seeing. "But I can tell you that Myrcella is going to be just as she is now when Tommy marries our Robin."

"And Sansa?" Mum asks, smoothing both hands over her hair the way she does when she's really, really freaked. Arya does the same thing. "Did you See her, Brandon?"

"She looked good," Bran says, smiling. This must have been one of his rare, clear Seeings, because he's usually a lot less willing to share his visions. "Fruitful, almost."

Mum makes a noise like she's having a stroke. The little shit.

"Put it this way," Rodge says. "Asha and I may not run our crew the way our dear uncles do, or the way Maron does, but we're still a little less refined than any of you."

Rodge and Asha always look like they've just come from ravishing some beautiful wench in a corset and big skirts, all rakish and tastefully dishevelled. Edmure's always been intensely jealous of Rodge's whole look, because thanks to having bright red hair and more freckles than anyone really deserves, that sort of cool has always been out of his reach.

They're all here, in poor Will's destroyed dining room. Little Martell and Lyria Dayne's nephew have turned a whole wall into a monitor bank, and they're running things from a series of phones and tablets that Edmure's fairly sure each cost a month's rent for most people in the city. You could house a family of four for years with all the equipment in this room, which is a harrowing sort of a thought.

Little Martell and Ty are showing for the Vipers, and then there's Asha and Rodge for the Krakens. No one for the Spiders, because no one is stupid enough to court that particular risk, and Edmure can't help but wonder how it is that the extensive intelligence network the Tyrells and Hightowers run, formally unified by Fat Mace and Fair Alerie's marriage, has escaped a shitty nickname.

Ned's Jon is glum in the corner, clean-shaven and somehow even sadder than usual because of it. He's watching everything with those dark, thoughtful eyes of his, and that's another thing that always makes Edmure wonder. How come Jon Targaryen-Stark was allowed to become just plain old Jon Stark without so much as a murmur? Ned himself used to say that he had no real influence over the King, but he let the son of his most hated enemy grow up and thrive without a word because he was Ned's nephew - just what did Ned have on Robert?

"You're looking thoughtful," Arya says, plopping down in Edmure's lap as if she's still ten and bony, instead of twenty-three and muscley. "What's turning the old cogs, uncle?"

"Well, niece," he says, "they're a little stymied by your weight."

"I'm featherweight," Arya says cheerfully. "There's a reason I win so many races, Ed, and it's only sort of because I'm the best jockey going - the horses all but forget I'm there, most of the time."

Fair enough. Barbrey Ryswell takes a lot of credit for Arya's success, but really, the Rills have only been doing so well since Arya signed on to ride for them.

"The wheels are spinning, duckling," Edmure says, adjusting her a little so her still-boney arse isn't quite as painful on his thigh. "I'm going to let them spin a little longer, see where they end up."

Of all Cat's annoyingly clever kiddos, only Arya shares two vital things with Edmure: she's left-handed, although that might have come from Ned's sister, and she's dyslexic. She gets taking an extra moment or two to process things.

"How's Robin?" Edmure asks, because Robin gets lost in the stampede whenever there's something going on. He's a good, smart kid, though, and Edmure wishes more people paid him heed. It isn't his fault Lysa's got less sense than an angry goose. "He wanted to know if there were any of Roslin's lot we could trust, but…"

"I know how much you love Perry and Olly," Arya says, "but I hate every other brother Ros has, so I'm hesitant to let even them in."

"Shame the Twins always lean west," Edmure agrees. It really is a shame, because he adores Roslin, but her family are all at best insane and at worst evil. "Anything from your friends and family? You've got an eclectic little address book."

"Most of whom have as little as possible to do with politics. I've asked around, but there's nothing yet. Yet. If that bastard gives her even a little more leash, someone will see her. Robin's people and Neddie and Trys say that she's dyed her hair, but how many women over six foot tall are walking around King's Landing?"

Edmure tucks Arya in close. She likes to let on that she's a tough nut, but she's soft at heart. Cat's just the same.

"Morning," Will says, easing himself down into the chair next to Edmure. He's wincing and grinding his teeth, which means his leg's in bits - but he's wearing both his glasses and his hearing aid, and his hair is freshly washed. That means he's keeping it at least mostly together, and they probably have Azzie's presence to thank for that. Will would rather die than let Aster down even a little bit.

"Do your nieces still sit in your lap, Will?" Edmure asks idly, rocking Arya like a baby. He's gotten good at that since Coren was born, because he won't sleep unless he's rocked. "How old are the girls, four? Five?"

"Six and three," Will says, with what might even be a genuine smile. "Merry's six and doesn't want anything to do with me if Aster is on hand, and Marry's still shy of everyone who isn't Gargoyle, Leo, or Dad. Isn't that right, Az?"

Aster's had her hair cut since last she stayed with Willas, and it makes her look terribly grown up. Edmure still remembers her as the tyke who used to colour in all of their notebooks while they were at uni, and there's something just a little upsetting in seeing her as something approaching an adult. The short hair does show up how much she looks like Will, though.

"We all love Granddad best," Aster says, and then she kisses all of their cheeks, even Arya's. She's an affectionate girl, and always has been. "Try not to take it personally, Dad."

She sits beside Will instead of on top of him, and Edmure gives Arya a pointed look which she cheerfully ignores.

"Alright," Margie says, and it's somehow strange seeing her look quite so grown up, too. Everyone younger than Edmure and Will and Rodge and Renly sort of stayed as kids, in his mind, and having so many of them gathered together like this is just one shock after another, it really is. "Here's what we know for certain."

Loras is obviously on his way back from some sort of training session, because he's got that bulgy-eyed madman look that he only gets after exercising.

"Sansa's within easy walking distance of the Falcon's Rest on Fishmonger's Lane. That means she's no more than a mile from it, so-"

They've set up an honest to goodness overhead projector, spurning little Martell's many screens in favour of something a little more old-school. Margie draws a neat red circle around the neat black X on the map.

"Thanks to Trys and Neddie," she says, "we know that Sansa is being held in one of twenty-four properties within this radius. Baelish owns forty-six, but we're sure he isn't keeping her in a brothel, and she's not being kept over any of his strip clubs, either."

"Renly," Loras says, "has had a few friends of ours ask discreet questions. He didn't want to spook his niece, the one Sansa was spotted with yesterday, but from everything we can gather, she's a Spider."

Will's tentative smile drops.

"The good news about that, though, is that we know where she is," Rodge points out. "She's in that cafe every day at lunchtime. She's manager of the biggest taxi firm in the whole of the fucking Merchant's Quarter, but she always comes in there a little after noon for her lunch. We catch her, we use her to get Sansa out safe and we send a polite message to the Spider that he should fuck the fuck off."

Rodge is signing for Aster, as all of them who were there when Will and Ty were trying to balance a toddler with college do. The Tyrells didn't make anything of learning sign, not even old Olive Oil herself, and neither had the Martells, so they hadn't either - Edmure and Rodge, Renly and Lyria, Humfrey and Leo, they'd all learned sign to make things a little easier on Az as she was growing up. Edmure is still proud of Will and Ty for not making the decision about implants for her, because she's quite happy with signing and her hearing aids.

Gods above, though, she has the same fuck-ugly taste in glasses as Will.

Rodge keeps on signing when Asha speaks.

"I've laid some groundwork with the pretty girl behind the counter," Asha says, "so Rodge and I propose that I lay a little more groundwork, and see if I can't get in with Miss Mya."

Everyone starts talking all at once - Arya's Alla has a great deal to say, as do young Martell and Lyria's nephew, and Margie and Loras have their usual double act rolling over the top of the whole mess even before Rodge and Asha start losing their tempers.

Ned's Jon stands up, slinking over to Margie and Loras and their projector with his hands in his pockets.

"I think," he says, just loud and firm enough that everyone stops, "that I might be able to help."

"And why's that, Stark?" Rodge asks with narrowed eyes.

"While I don't doubt that Asha could seduce her way into just about anyone's underpants," he says, "there are other ins."

"What sort of ins?"

"I might just be able to reach her," Jon Targaryen- Stark says, with a smile that has nothing to do with Ned, "if I try royal bastard to royal bastard."

Joff's face is all over the front of the newspaper.

It's the first newspaper Sansa has seen since the day before Dad was murdered. Petyr's been exceedingly careful to keep anything approaching current information away from her, but Kettleblack-no-first-name brought this with him. He's been sitting in the kitchen all day, making sure Sansa doesn't go anywhere, and she slipped in when he went to the toilet just to see.

He looks handsome. Joff always looks handsome, even dressed in full mourning blacks. No one down south has worn full mourning in years and years, but of course Cersei has decided that Joff ought to wear them for public appearances. He's probably been bathing in champagne to celebrate his father's death, but he'll do his utmost to make sure everyone thinks he's really cut up about it.

Sansa wishes she had something black. Even a rosette or an armband would do, but there's been a conspicuous lack of mourning blacks in the clothes Petyr's been leaving out for her. It feels disloyal to Dad to not wear black, but she can at least wear her hair in mourning plaits - that's old fashioned, and pretty much only Northern, so no one will notice it. Not even Petyr.

Cella's in some of the pictures with Joff. She's wearing full mourning, too, but Sansa knows her just enough to know that the grief on her face seems a lot more genuine than Joff's noble suffering.

Once she's seen Cella, she looks closer. If Cella's making public appearances, maybe Robb will be with her - or maybe Robb and Mum will be appearing up at home! She just wants to see that they're both alive, that they haven't fallen in Dad's wake-

Why would she even think that? Why would her first concern be making sure that Mum and Robb are alive?!

They're on page four. Robb looks grim, but well. Mum's pale and drawn, and her hair is braided tight to her head and then down over her shoulders, one long plait on each side. Northern mourning braids, just like the ones Sansa is wearing. There's some sort of blurb about the search for Dad's killer, and the search for Sansa.

One and the same. No! Why would she think that? What could Petyr possibly stand to gain through Dad's death? The Lannisters trust him even less than they did Dad, so it isn't as though they'd ever appoint him Prime Minister, and even without the strict year of formal mourning demanded by Northern custom, Mum would never consider remarrying. She never has before-

What before?!

"You shouldn't be reading that, little lady," Kettleblack says, tugging it out of her hands. "I'd get my head down if I were you. Boss' due back soon."

If Sansa gets into her room before Petyr gets back, she can get changed and lock the door without him interrupting. That's good. That's what she's going to do - it's good sense, and a bad sign that even Kettleblack-no-first-name is advising caution.

She gets changed. She wears the tight, kind of sheer exercise leggings Petyr left, and the tight t-shirt to go with it. The alternative is one of the lacy nightgowns that fill the top drawer of the dresser in the corner, above the drawer full of skimpy knickers.

She keeps on the bra Mya gave her, and her socks, and leaves her hair in her mourning plaits. She locks the door. She gets into bed just as the apartment door bangs shut. Petyr and Kettleblack talk a little, their voices low, and Sansa shuts her eyes tight.

The door bangs again. Kettleblack leaving, presumably. He's barely gone before Petyr's tapping on Sansa's door.

"Come on, sweetheart," he croons. "Open the door. Let Uncle Petyr in."

He's slurring a little. Drunk. Sansa doesn't move.

"Don't be selfish, sweetheart," he calls. Something grinds in the lock - a master key, probably. Of course he has a master key. Why didn't Sansa take a knife from the kitchen? Kettleblack probably would have taken it off her, but maybe not. "Come on now, I know you're happy to see me."

The door clicks open, and Sansa tenses under the blankets. The light that spills in from the hall is muted, but Petyr's footsteps on the thin carpet are not.

He stops to take off his shoes. He tucks them against the wall by the door, and then he sits on the edge of the bed. The far edge of the bed.

"Now, Sansa," he says, chiding and swaying a little as he starts to take off his shirt, button by button, "you had to know there was a price to pay for your rescue, sweetheart. Nothing in life is free."

That's the funniest thing Sansa has ever heard, because Petyr was given access to the very highest levels of society for free, simply because her grandfather felt sorry for his father - because Hoster Tully was a good man, before the cancer ate away at him, Petyr Baelish became someone.

The lamp on the cheap bedside locker is heavy in Sansa's hand. It's one of those bendy desk lamps, but it's got a thick metal base, and it clunks satisfyingly against the side of Petyr's head.

In the muted light spilling in from the hall, his blood on the pale, thin carpet looks black. Sansa doesn't think on that for too long, because she has to find her shoes and get the hell out, as fast as she can.

Petyr's keys and phone and wallet are all in the safe. Shit. Well, she has a fairly good idea of where in the city she is, and she's sure that she can get to Marg's from here. If not Marg's, then maybe Jon's? Even if Jon's away for work, or if he's gone home to help with arranging Dad's funeral, Val will be there.

Oh, gods be good, what has she done? What if Petyr is dead - she's a murderer! She's going to jail, which is the last thing Mum needs now, after losing Dad-

"Evening, Miss Stark," Shadric says, stepping from the shadows under the stairs right as she gets the front door of the building unlatched. "Think it's time you and I had a little talk, don't you? Miss Stone's been keeping us all very well informed about you."

The Spiders. Oh, oh gods, the Spiders, so Sansa will be presented to Joff on a platter to pardon or punish as he sees fit, and either way, she'll be dead before the year is out.

Shadric puts a jacket around her shoulders and leads her down the street to an unremarkable car, and she starts to cry when he opens the door for her. Better under lock and key than under Petyr, she supposes.

" Bad news," Rodge says, and Willas scrambles to get his phone to his good ear so he can hear properly. " Really shit news, to be honest."

"What's going on?"

It's only ten o'clock, so surely there can't be anything too terrible going on?

"Renly called," Rodge says. "Tyrion's got the kids out of the palace, but Stannis won't take them, so they're with him. But there's worse, Will."

"What could be worse than Stannis being a prick?" Willas asks, waving Marg down into her chair. They'd been playing Cluedo with Aster, who'd gotten bored halfway through and left them to it, and the whole sitting room smells of cinnamon because Marg has a heavy hand when she's making hot chocolate. "Although I suppose that goes without saying."

"It's Sansa, mate," Rodge says. "We found where she's been kept earlier this evening, but we couldn't get her out without bloodshed - and now she's gone, with someone I don't recognise, and we've lost her in the traffic."

"Trust me," Sansa can hear him saying on the phone. "Mate, have I ever lied to you?"

The wood floors in the hallway squeaks under Sansa's feet. The whole place still smells a little of fresh gloss paint, because they had to replace all the skirting and architraves when they replaced the doors.

"Trust me," Jon says again, winking to Sansa as Shadric ushers her into the kitchen. Val is sitting at the island, rubbing the side of her belly - baby must be kicking, she told Sansa just last week that it's much more active than her sister's baby was - and the woman sitting with her looks very like Arianne Martell, except her eyes.

Sansa doesn't know anyone with purple eyes of any sort. Any Martell she's ever met has the most stunning dark brown eyes, which cuts down the list of who this woman might be. Cuts it all the way down to one.

Jon hangs up the phone.

"Hey, San," he says. "Have a seat - have you met my sister? Rhae, this is Sansa, Uncle Ned's eldest daughter. Sansa, this is Rhaenys."

Rhaenys Targaryen, eldest child of conveniently dead Rhaegar, smiles. Sansa's only met Oberyn Martell once or twice, at formal events, but there's no denying it.

"Cousin Varys," Rhaenys Martell-Targaryen says, still smiling, equal parts charming and venomous, "has been most helpful in arranging for our return to the country."

"I'm sure you'll be just as interested as we are in seeing to it that some things change, San," Jon says, guiding her into the high stool next to Val's. "Here, have a cuppa, and then you can have a wash and go to bed, and in the morning we'll talk things through."

Jon's a Spider. Jon's a good deal more a Targaryen than they realised.

"Does your mother know about this?" she asks, shocked into speaking by Val's hand running warm and gentle up and down her back. "Did Dad?"

"Mum and I haven't talked in weeks, San," Jon says. "But no. Uncle Ned didn't know. He might still be alive had I told him."