Several weeks passed and the girls were beginning to fear that they had lost their father too. As more time went by, Saffron and Haley started having to do more and more chores until it started to seem like they were the parents. Not to mention that Malistaire was hardly eating anything. It scared the two of them to no end.

"I'm worried," Haley confided in her sister one evening while the two figured out how to make pasta from scratch. They had decided not to ask Gloria since they figured she had enough on her mind already.

"I know," Saffron said quietly, flattening out the dough.

"Daddy isn't acting like… well like Daddy," Haley said.

Saffron nodded slowly, as if in a trance. "He's acting like a hollow shell of his former self, but I don't blame him. He's known Mommy since they were kids. It would be like you if Malorn died."

That analogy made Haley stop pressing the dough. "Did you have to say that?"

"You need to see it from his perspective."

"And he needs to see it from ours. We're the ones who just lost our mom."

"And he just lost his wife of nine years and friend of seven years before that," Saffron said, "You need to stop being so hard, Haley. If you can't do it for Daddy, do it for me. I have just as bad a lot as you."

Haley hung her head and kept pressing the pasta dough. "Can you pass me the knife?" she asked.

Saffron passed her a steak knife and Haley got to work slicing her dough into thin strips.

"Do you think Daddy'll be alright?" the older girl asked

"Of course he will," Saffron replied, looking for all the world like she knew the opposite was true.

"Soup's on!" Haley yelled, setting two bowls on the table, one in her spot and one at Malistaire's already occupied place.

Saffron set her bowl at her spot and stared ruefully at the place next to it. The chair was gone, but there was no hiding that the table was made for four people, not three. The five year old took her seat, feeling solemn rather than proud of the dinner she and her sister had prepared.

As Haley sat down to eat, she found herself thinking that dinner wasn't at all like it used to be. Less than a month ago, things would have been different. Malistaire might have been cracking jokes instead of sitting silently and looking half dead. Saffron might have looked more content. Haley might have been more talkative. And, of course, Sylvia would have been there.

Haley half-heartedly twirled her fork in her pasta, thinking to herself about better days. She couldn't see how things could get much worse, with the exception of Saffron dying.

Haley took several slow bites of her pasta before deciding that it was undercooked. Oh well, she thought, at least we managed to make something aside from bread and butter tonight.

The dark haired girl looked over at her lighter haired sister to see that she had more or less the same reaction to their cooking, but both managed to finish with the aid of a glass of water each. The girls decided not to go back for seconds.

"G'night, Daddy," Haley said as she got up.

"Good night, Daddy," Saffron said, on the verge of tears.

"Good night," Malistaire said, though Haley suspected it was more habit than anything else. He had scarcely said anything else all day.

As the sisters walked away from the dining room and into the miniscule hallway that separated their rooms from the dining room, they realized that they honestly only had each other left. As soon as they closed the door behind them, Saffron broke down.

"I can't do this anymore," she sobbed. "We're the kids, damn it! He should be taking care of us!"

Haley's eyes widened. Her goody-two-shoes little sister -who hadn't thrown a single tantrum since she was a week old and had never cursed in her life- had just yelled, cried, and cursed all in the same breath.

The startled seven year old continued to stare at Saffron for quite some time as the latter kept on venting, spouting various curses in both English and Latin for a good ten minutes straight.

"I don't want to live like this the rest of my life," the younger girl finally said. "I think I'm going crazy. I can't live like this for another week, let alone until I die."

Haley finally got over her shock long enough to say, "You can, Saffron. We'll both get through this somehow, okay? I promise."

"That's a dangerous promise," Saffron said, regaining her composure, "but I appreciate the thought."

CRACK!

Haley shot up from her bed, where she had been sleeping only moments before.

"What was that?!" she yelled.

A thud sounded from the other room. "Ow!"

"Saffron?" Haley shouted. "What was that?"

"I don't know," Saffron's voice said from the other room, "unless you meant me falling out of bed."

"Come on," Haley said loudly, walking out of her bedroom door in her purple flannel dark sprite pajamas. "We're going to find out what that noise was."

Saffron stepped out of her room in green flannel sprite pajamas, toting a teddy bear in one hand and rubbing her eyes with the other. Her hair was in two short pigtail-like braids, which she always put in before bedtime. "Why?"

"Because I want to know what that noise was and I'm not leaving you here alone," Haley stated.

"Daddy's here," Saffron said sleepily.

"Like I said: alone," Haley repeated impatiently.

Even when she was half asleep, Saffron knew it was best to let her sister's temporary madness fly. "Okay," said the green-eyed girl.

Haley grabbed her little sister's arm and practically dragged her to the front door of the house, through the Commons to near the Fairgrounds, and through the Ravenwood tunnel.

CRACK!

The sound was almost deafeningly loud now.

"The Death school!" Haley yelled. The sisters, now both as awake as a ninja with a caffeine addiction, ran toward the aforementioned destination to find it looking like it had been hit by an earthquake. The entire grounds were encircled by deep crevices.

"By Bartleby," Haley gasped. She saw a glimmering gold dragon curled up on top of a circular ruby on the top of a magenta staff, heard a large sounding boom, smelled a hint of the girls' bad cooking from that evening, tasted bitter air mixed with dirt and half-dead grass, and felt a dull ache on the back of her head. Then, everything went black.

"Ugh, I feel awful," was the first thing the amber-eyed girl could recall saying when she awoke. The second thing she recalled saying was something along the lines of "Where the blazes am I?!"

She heard someone say, not unkindly "You're in Marleybone, dear."

"Why am I in Marleybone?" Haley asked, opening her eyes the very least she could so as to let in as little light as possible, but still see her surroundings. She felt like a pickaxe had hit her in the back of the head. Furthermore, it felt like the pickaxe was still lodged in her head.

"Someone found you on the side of the road this morning with some sort of hex on you and brought you here," the voice said. "I dunno how you got here in the first place." Haley could see enough of the person talking to tell that in was a woman in Post-Victorian nurse clothes. Yep, it was Marleybone alright.

"Just me?" Haley asked, feeling somewhat panicked.

"Yes, just you," the Post-Victorian nurse woman replied, confirming the girl's worst fears.

"I have to find Saffron!" Haley said frantically, beginning to sit up. She cried out in pain and plummeted back down; now feeling more like a pickaxe had hit every nerve in her brain instead of only the back ones. What kind of a hex have I been hit with?

"Saffron who?" the Post-Victorian nurse asked, though Haley scarcely heard it.

"Saffron Drake," she managed to say, "my sister."

The nurse woman said something that Haley couldn't make out due to her concentration on the stabbing pain in her head, and then the girl blacked out again.

The second time she woke up, Haley was alone. Her Hindbrain still hurt like the Dickens, but it was a lot better than before. She felt like she was supposed to be doing something, but she didn't know what exactly. Then, it came to her like lightning had jolted her memory banks. Saffron!

Haley started to sit up, but found that she couldn't. This time, it wasn't because of the pain in her head, but because of shackles on her wrists and the fact that she was already chained to a wall. Experimentally, she wiggled her legs. Her ankles were shackled as well. Haley began to panic as she looked at her surroundings. She was in a dungeon of some sort. The rough stone walls looked like they had been painted in mildew and the floor was a carpet of wet mold. The shackles that pulled her to the walls were old, rusted, and covered in what looked suspiciously like dried blood.

Okay, she thought, so if this is Marleybone, where could I be?

The list was endless. And that was assuming this was the same place as earlier, which the amber-eyed girl highly doubted. Earlier, she had felt safe and had been comfortably warm. She had most definitely not been in a cold, damp dungeon. Honestly, she could be in a million different places in or out of Marleybone. There was really no telling.

Haley had a tiny shard of common sense buried somewhere deep in her brain, so she didn't scream for help, but focused more on her surroundings instead. She soon noticed that she wasn't the only one in the dungeon: chained up next to her was a red-haired girl in a tunic so covered in soot that it was hard to tell exactly what color it was. She was about nine or ten. Her eyes were closed, but she was clearly breathing.

"Hey," Haley whispered. "Hey!"

The girl's eyes shot open, revealing that they were lavender. "What?" she asked quietly.

"Do you know where we are?" Haley asked.

"I'm as clueless as you are," the redhead said. "One minute, I was in Dragonspyre. Next thing I know, I'm here."

"What's your name?" Haley asked.

"Natalie Titanspear," the girl answered. "What's yours?"

"Haley Drake," Haley told her.

Natalie smiled faintly. "That's a nice name," she commented. Haley suspected it was for the sake of conversation. "Are you from Earth?"

Haley shook her head. "No, I'm from Wizard City. What about you?"

"Dragonspyre," Natalie said.

"Why do you look like you just walked out of a fireplace?" Haley asked.

"It's a long story," Natalie said apprehensively.

Suddenly, the two heard footsteps from behind the walls. The girls fell silent and pretended to be unconscious, but Haley still kept her eyes open a crack. A spot on the slimy stone walls slid up to form an empty doorway and a rough-looking man entered the dungeon, followed by the woman who haunted Haley's dreams. Morganthe Sauda strode into the room like it was a throne room and she was its queen.

"You two can cut the act now," she said. "I know you're awake."

Haley and Natalie opened their eyes all the way and sat up. Haley scrambled backward as far as she could go. This was the woman who, whatever else she had done, had killed Sylvia Drake, the most powerful healer in the Spiral. And none too painlessly either.

Morganthe smirked, then waved the man back out of the wall panel. The wall closed behind him.

"Darn it," Natalie mumbled.

"Well hello girls!" Morganthe said brightly. Natalie raised an eyebrow, while Haley tried to figure out what her last words should be.

"Where are we?" Natalie asked none too fearfully.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," Morganthe taunted, stepping somewhat closer to the wall where the girls were chained up.

"Where's my sister?" Haley asked shakily.

"You know, I honestly have no idea," Morganthe said, inspecting her nails. Haley's eyes widened in horror.

"What did you do to her?!" she screamed. Morganthe laughed.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" the murderess teased. Haley closed her eyes, wishing she had her knives with her. Then she could show that biscuit eater what for. She also wouldn't be defenseless. There was that. She opened her eyes.

"No," Haley said, admitting it more to herself than the woman in front of her. She knew Morganthe could be cruel, and she didn't especially want to give the woman an opportunity to hurt her more than she was already going to.

"Smart girl," Morganthe commented. "I know of some heroes who could take a page from your book."

Haley hung her head. Natalie gave the younger girl a pitying glance.

"Why us?" Natalie asked. "I mean, why did you take us instead of someone more… important?"

"You on the other hand…" Morganthe began, whipping around to stare straight at Natalie. "You ask too many questions."

"And you don't give enough answers," Natalie retorted. Morganthe narrowed her dark eyes at the redhead and reached for the ankle-length hem of her skirt and pulled a dagger off the side of her right boot.

"Don't back-sass me," Morganthe said, waving the dagger in Natalie's face. The girl didn't even flinch.

"You don't scare me," she said calmly. "I've seen worse than the likes of you."

"You have not!" Morganthe yelled. "I am the Spider Queen, Conqueror of Celestia, Master of-"

"Are you finished?" Natalie asked. "I'm getting bored."

Morganthe's eyes blazed hotter than the deepest pits of the Underworld. She slashed at the redhead's cheek, leaving quite a mark. The girl showed no sign of pain.

Natalie shook her head in exasperation. "Try all you want, but you'll never break me. I've faced much scarier things than you."

This time, the Spider Queen stared at the girl as if trying to decide whether to kill the redhead on the spot or ask the girl to join her. Instead, she settled on quite different words.

"You don't know when to cooperate, do you?"

"I don't know what in the Spiral you're talking about," Natalie smirked. The blood from the wound on her cheek was still bleeding profusely, but the redhead didn't even acknowledge it.

Morganthe opened her mouth as if to say something, closed it again, and then exited the dungeon through the wall panel with all the sweeping theatrics she could muster.

"How did you do that?" Haley asked with wonder.

"Let's just say Dragonspyre Academy's enrollment teaches you a few things besides just how to fight," was Natalie's response as she inspected the shackles around her wrists. "Darn these things! They're the old-fashioned kind. With rust."

"Why is that bad?" Haley asked.

"Because rust is completely oblivious to magic," Natalie replied. "You don't happen to have a rock handy, do you?"

Haley shook her head. "Not unless I can teleport back to my house and grab it off my nightstand."

"Well, there goes that," Natalie sighed. "So what's it like in Wizard City?"

Haley thought for a moment. "It's bright and hot in the daytime, and it's still warm at night. It's never quiet because the Ravenwood kids are always busy with something. Oh, and there are a lot of secret doors."

Natalie chuckled. "That's not really what I meant. I meant what the people are like."

"Most of them are pretty nice," Haley said, "but there are a few mean ones. What about Dragonspyre?"

"It's hot and covered in lava. It always looks dark out, but you can see everything because of the light from the lava. It's almost always quiet because no one wants to be seen," Natalie said. "The people there are secretive, but also tough as nails from the time we learn to walk. From the age of five, most of us that are left from the sieges can take down a Draconian."

"That's not what I've heard about Dragonspyre," Haley said, bewildered. "I've always heard it was a paradise."

"Not anymore," Natalie said bitterly.

"So what's your family like?" Haley asked.

"My mom's strict, but not as much as some. A lot of people think she isn't strict enough," Natalie told the amber-eyed girl. "My dad's a lot like her. I have a little brother named Nicholas who likes to get in trouble and a little sister named Olivia who loves the library. It broke her heart when they torched it. I haven't seen any of them in months. What about your family?"

"My mom taught the Life school in Wizard City, and she was always willing to give anyone a chance with the art. She died in April because of Morganthe," Haley said, tearing up a little. "My little sister, Saffron, is a stickler for the rules. She's only cursed on one occasion in her entire life, and that was completely understandable. My dad teaches the Death school at Ravenwood. Last time I saw him, he was hardly there. He wouldn't eat, he barely slept, he only talked in the classroom, but somehow he still got up for work."

"You have been out for a long time," Natalie commented. "As far as I know, no one teaches the Death school anymore."

"What do you mean?" Haley asked, bracing herself for the worst.

"The last person to teach the Death school is in Dragonspyre," Natalie said. "Is your father Malistaire Drake?"

"Yes."

"Then he's…" Natalie began. "He's the reason Dragonspyre is the way it is now."

Haley stared at Natalie in shock. She'd thought he was dead when the redhead hesitated, but this… this was much worse.

"I would pat you on the back, but I'm kind of chained to the wall," Natalie said.

Haley gave her a weak smile. "I appreciate the thought."

"Sorry I had to tell you, but Morganthe likes to hold things like that over people's heads. You needed to know."

"Thanks. I imagine it would have been worse if she'd told me." Haley paused. "I think she's scared of you, Natalie."

"I know," the redhead said, "but she'll figure out how to deal with me soon enough. Trust me on that."

"How do you know?" Haley asked.

"Because I've been awake longer than you have," Natalie said. "I've seen her 'take care' of tons of people using different torture methods. Physical torture is easy for me. It's psychological torture I can't deal with."

"What's the difference?'

"Physical torture is like if she cuts someone with a knife or starts casting curses on them. It hurts people on the outside," Natalie explained. "Psychological torture is when she brings someone's worst fear into the room or brings up parts of their past that they aren't proud of. It hurts people on the inside. It's also really easy for her to combine the two, since she seems to like coming up with new spells."

Haley nodded. "So how long do you think it'll be before she switches to torturing me?"

"Not long," Natalie said. "You'll have to either learn to hold your own against that ipsum or figure out how to die on the spot. You've made yourself look weak from the start. You have to be strong."

"But I'm not strong," Haley insisted.

"You said you have a little sister," Natalie began. "Be strong for her. Because if you aren't, you might not see her again."

The next day, Haley awoke to the always pleasant sensation of being struck on the cheek with the hilt of a dagger. It hurt like heck. Combine that with the still-present headache in her Hindbrain, and you get a girl who wished she was at home in bed. With an icepack. And a bowl of chocolate ice cream.

The girl moaned as she opened her amber eyes.

"Good morning sunshine," said a voice like poisoned honey.

"I beg to differ," Haley mumbled, tentatively touching her cheek where she'd been struck. That's going to bruise.

"Well 'good morning' to you too," Natalie said. "I'd hate to see what you consider a bad morning, though." Haley could see that the redhead also had a bruise blooming on her right cheek.

"You two are going to spill that secret if I have to torture you within an inch of your pitiful lives for it," Morganthe said abruptly, pointing her stygian dagger at first Natalie then Haley.

"What secret?" Haley asked. "I know lots."

"Don't play dumb with me!" Morganthe snapped. "I know you know what secret I'm talking about."

"No, actually, I don't," Haley replied. "For all I know you could be talking about what the last thing I ate was. That's somewhat of a secret. I think it was an IV tube."

Natalie stared at the amber-eyed girl for a moment, dumbfounded. "You ate an IV tube?"

"Well, not exactly," Haley began. "It was probably fed through a needle in my arm."

Natalie nodded understandingly. "I ate gruel."

"What's gruel?"

"It's pig slop."

"What's pig slop?"

"It's what farmers feed pigs."

"What are pigs?"

"They're like-"

"SILENCE!" Morganthe yelled. "Tell me the secret!"

"To what?" Natalie asked, having way too much fun baiting the Spider Queen. "To making gruel? You just grind up a bunch of garbage and put it in a bowl of dishwater."

Morganthe stepped closer, miraculously not slipping in her high-heeled boots on the slick stone floor, and jammed her knife forward almost to Natalie's chest. She narrowed her eyes at the redhead.

"Don't play games with me," the woman hissed. "The secret to your powers."

"Powers?" Haley asked, bewildered.

"What powers?" said Natalie, pretending to be clueless. A fracture of anxiety was visible in her lavender eyes.

"You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" Morganthe said triumphantly, all but nose to nose with the girl.

"No," Natalie deadpanned. She didn't even wince as Morganthe pressed her dagger into the soft skin beneath the redhead's elbow.

"So that's what your power is," Morganthe said. "You can't feel physical pain."

"Maybe I just have a high pain tolerance," Natalie retorted.

"High? Try nonexistent," Morganthe scoffed.

Natalie rolled her eyes.

"I know just how to deal with you," the murderess sneered. Then, she strode over to Haley and placed her knife on the terrified girl's throat. "Tell me the secret to your ability or watch her," Morganthe jerked her head toward Haley, "die a very painful death."

Haley was terrified, yet at the same time had a lingering sense of how poetic this all was. She was about to die just like her mother: in agony and as leverage that was no longer needed. Haley was looking Natalie straight in the eye. Please don't let me die like this, she silently pleaded. I know you hardly know me, but I don't want to die like this. Please help me.

Natalie's eyes darted back and forth between Haley and Morganthe, indecisive. After much wrangling with her conscience, the redhead made up her mind.

"It's genetic," she surrendered. "Celestia went through a nuclear phase thousands of years ago and a lot of people's DNA was mutated because of it. Most of them got different types of cancer and died, but a very small number's DNA was mutated in a way that gave them unique abilities. I'm a descendant of one of one of the second group."

Morganthe kept her knife pressed lightly against Haley's throat. The amber-eyed girl yelped as it dug into her skin.

"Stop!" Natalie yelled. "I told you what you wanted!"

"Is there another way to gain these powers?" Morganthe demanded.

"No," Natalie said. "You have to be a descendant. Just let her go! She's not one of us!"

"One of us?" Morganthe repeated, a single questioning eyebrow raised. Natalie looked taken aback

"The descendants," the redhead said hurriedly. "I meant she's not one of the descendants. She doesn't have any special powers. She's just a normal kid."

"But leverage nonetheless," Morganthe said icily, stepping back from the amber-eyed girl and bringing the stygian dagger with her. A thin red line had appeared across Haley's neck where the knife had pressed against her flesh.

In one fluid movement, the Spider Queen whipped her black-bladed knife back to the side of her boot.

"All too easy," she said, grinning like a sadistic child who'd just won a goldfish at the carnival and was thinking of ways to make the remainder of the fish's short life as miserable as possible.

"You know, it's actually a little bit disappointing," Morganthe commented casually. "I was so looking forward to the screaming."

"You're insane," Haley mumbled in horrified awe.

"Probably," the murderess mused, "more than a decade of misery and loathing hasn't exactly contributed to my mental stability. And then there was your mother. She didn't exactly help that either."

"My mother?" Haley echoed, half wanting Morganthe to continue even as Natalie frantically shook her head.

"You didn't honestly think I killed her for no reason, did you?" the woman asked with a knowing smile. "But that's a story for another day, now isn't it?"

Then she sashayed out of the dungeon without another word, the wall panel closing immediately after her.

Natalie ran her fingers across the rusted metal of the shackles that bound her to the wall. "There has to be a lock somewhere," she mumbled. "These can't closed by magic. If I could just find the lock…"

Haley, meanwhile, was not bothering herself with such trivial matters as escape. "What did she do?" the girl half murmured, half whimpered.

"What did who do?" Natalie asked.

"My mom," Haley said. "What did she do to make Morganthe so angry?"

"Oh," Natalie said, going back to combing her shackles for a lock or keyhole. "If it makes you feel any better, it was probably something really small. Most Zafarians are very temperamental. The humans are worse than the lions by a long shot."

"What?" Haley asked, turning to face Natalie with her dark eyebrows raised.

"Zafaria: the world of lions, zebras, and the occasional desperate tribe of humans," Natalie said, then, under her breath, she added, "There has to be a lock or a keyhole or something. It can't just be solid metal because then she'd need magic to lock it, and you can't use magic when rust is involved… Aha!"

Natalie grinned as her fingers ran across a small keyhole. "Are you wearing a hairpin?"

"Not as far as I know."

"Darn it," the redhead mumbled. "Do you have any lock picks?"

"Not at the moment," Haley replied. "I kind of got up in the middle of the night, then woke up in Marleybone, and then I was here."

"That's very interesting, but distinctly unhelpful right now," Natalie commented. "I need a hairpin or something. You know, it's times like this I wish I was a girly-girl. Then I'd have a bunch of hairpins…"

"Shh, I hear someone coming," Haley whispered. Natalie quit talking and stopped fiddling with her shackles just as the panel cracked open. Plates of gruel hit the girls' faces.

"My trash needs a little more food," Natalie yelled as the panel closed again. The plate fell off of her face, revealing that it was totally solid and hadn't shifted at all. It looked like someone had made a plastic model of vomit, put it on a tray, and called it food. "At least it's not road pizza this time. That was terrible."

"Road pizza?" Haley asked, her so-called food falling to the floor. "That doesn't sound too bad."

"It's a lot worse than you think," Natalie assured her. "At least I can't tell who's in this one."

"You said 'who'," Haley said nervously.

"I know."

There was a long silence as the realization set in that neither of the two girls knew what (or who) was on the plates in front of them.

"Do you think it's a person?" Haley asked after a while.

Natalie shook her head. "It's impossible to tell. Maybe. It doesn't really matter; we won't get to eat at all unless we can get out of these chains."

Haley found herself thinking longingly of the vegetarian chili her mom used to make. Oh, what she wouldn't give for some real food…

"I have an idea," Haley blurted out. "Can you reach your boot laces?"

"I can probably grind at them with one of my feet," Natalie said. "Wait, you're going to try to use a boot lace to pick a lock, aren't you?"

"I was planning to," Haley answered.

"No offense, but you're an idiot," the redhead deadpanned.

"How could I not be offended by that?" Haley asked.

"Good point, but it's really obvious that you can't pick a lock with a boot lace," Natalie said.

"Why not?" Haley said indignantly.

"Boot laces are kind of… floppy," the redhead said.

"Floppy?" the younger girl echoed.

"Yes, floppy," Natalie confirmed.

"That's a funny word," Haley commented.

"I know. That's why I didn't want to use it," the redhead sighed. "Anyway, we need to figure out a way to pick these locks without magic."

"While our hands and feet are chained up," Haley added.

"Thank you," Natalie said through gritted teeth.

"I just thought I'd add that."

Natalie gave Haley a glare that could freeze a volcano over. "I'm seriously considering leaving you here when I escape."

"Duly noted," Haley said perhaps a little too cheerfully.

"Wait!" Natalie said. Her face brightened as she fingered her shackles. "I think I found something!"

"What?" Haley asked interestedly; hope was sparkling in her amber eyes.

The redhead's face fell.

"Nothing," she said. "I thought I'd found a release switch, but it's just a snag."

"Oh," Haley said, slumping back against the wall and immediately regretted it. The walls were even slimier than they'd first appeared. "Do you think we'll ever get out?"

"We might if we're smart enough," Natalie replied. "Anyway, wasn't I just saying that I'm considering leaving you here?"

"Have you decided yet?" Haley asked.

"Ask again when I get these shackles off.

"Do you think she'll let us go?" Haley said after a moment of silence. "I mean, you told her what she wanted to know."

Natalie shook her head. "It's never that simple. There's always something else, a catch of some kind. It seems like Morganthe just likes watching people suffer, so suffer we will."

"That's terrible," Haley said. "Why would you want to watch someone hurting?"

"I don't know," Natalie whispered, as if thinking aloud. She yawned. "I'm going to sleep now, alright?"

"Okay," Haley said quietly, staring at the wall in front of her.

Natalie was asleep in five minutes flat, and snoring in eight. Haley, however, didn't sleep at all. The amber-eyed girl stared at the wall, seeing images in the stones and algae. At first, the pictures were simply a way to pass the time, an amusement, but then they became a timeline mapping everything that had ever happened in this room.

There was always a trace, no matter how small, left behind of what had transpired in any given location. Not only did the dungeon have a grim appearance, but it didn't feel right to Haley. Having lived in a house where nothing was as it seemed, with a family that was stranger than most, Haley had an acute sense of when things weren't right. This dungeon, to the amber-eyed girl, was begging to have its mysteries unraveled.

A missing piece of stone, a spot of blood, a broken chain; they all told different stories, not necessarily about Morganthe or her prisoners. In a missing stone, Haley saw a mystery. Where has it gone? In a spot of blood, she saw someone's story. Who were they? In a broken chain, she saw an escape. Where did they go? Are they still alive now?

All night, Haley sat awake, wondering who those people were and what kind of fate hers would be. Would she be a spatter of blood on the wall or a missing stone? Or maybe she would be a broken chain, though she somehow doubted it. The amber-eyed girl could never actually break a chain that thick.