A.N: I'm sorry if the previous chapter was in any way perplexing. Dreamwine is a wine with mild sedative and hallucinogenic qualities. The Kingsguard man was Kettleblack. Cheers.

Cersei knew Jaime would be waiting. She was expecting him.

It was late by the time she climbed the stairs to her quarters, after spending all evening coordinating schedules with the various entertainers in the great hall, but Jaime didn't disappoint her. The moment Cersei reached the landing she felt his hand on her arm, as he stepped forward from where he'd been leaning in the shadow of the curved wall. His grip was firm as he steered her toward her bedchamber.

'How nice to see you, brother,' she said pleasantly, wincing at the pressure from his fingers. 'Are you here to aid me in replacing the candles in the hall, they are getting low -'

'Later,' he growled. 'We need to talk.'

'Later we will be busy with the wedding, and several lights in the hall have burnt out complete -'

'Have your handmaidens attend to the damned candles.' Jaime was unrelenting. The guard stationed outside Cersei's door stood to attention, as Jaime marched her over. 'Your Grace, Ser -' the man nodded, but Jaime jerked his head at him to go.

'The Queen and I have business to discuss. Leave us.'

Cersei smiled graciously at the guard as he looked to her for confirmation. 'Important wedding business -' she concurred, before Jaime flung the door open and propelled her inside. She stumbled a little, both from Jaime's impetus and the considerable amount of strongwine she had consumed while finalising the menus.

Maybe she should have eaten something as well, but the saffron-infused partridge she'd nibbled at breakfast hadn't mixed well with the morning tumbler of wine. She'd filled herself with more wine instead. Trying to calm my nerves. It hadn't worked. I would have thought the glasses contained nothing but flavoured water, except that when I stood up the room spun. Now she clutched at Jaime's breastplate to steady herself, turning to bring her face up close to his.

'Jaime,' she breathed, lips parted. 'You are... most eager to be alone with me.'

He held her off him with one hand, slammed the door behind them. 'Where is the commoner girl, Cersei?' he demanded, his tone resolute.

'I don't know what you're -'

'Don't lie; don't sweet-talk me, sister. Not now. I talked to Father and I know you have her.'

Cersei set her mouth in a stubborn line. How dare you command me. With deliberate lack of haste she brought her hands up to the net in her hair and released it, so that it fell in golden ringlets over her shoulders. She tossed her head. 'Discussing commoners, really. Must we suffer through such unpleasantries? I don't remember you being this boring, brother.'

'I warn you, I'm in no mood to be trifled with.' Jaime's green eyes smoked.

'No. You do seem rather upset. You haven't been yourself since you returned. Mayhaps Pycelle could fetch you a tonic to relieve your confused state of mind.' A tonic to restore your sense, you addled fool.

Jaime gave her arm an insistent shake. 'Are you going to tell me where she is or do I have to -'

'What? Hit me?' Cersei's voice dropped to a low hiss. 'Are you going to beat me, to find out the whereabouts of your little... whore?' Before Jaime could respond, she yanked herself free of him and swirled away. On her bedside table was a decanter, and Cersei's hands trembled as she uncapped it. The crystal lid tinkled against the spout. She managed to slosh half the contents into a goblet and raise it almost to her mouth before Jaime's hand closed around hers and halted its path.

'Stop, you've had too much to drink already.'

'Unhand me! Why shouldn't I drink, I have a great many responsibilities, many duties, and no-one is helping me! Even those who are sworn to love me are - are -' she gulped in distress, tears welling up. Inside she couldn't help but rejoice, as she felt their hot wetness slide down her cheeks. See? See what your cruel betrayal has done to me?

'Cersei, enough.' Jaime pressed her hand holding the goblet down. 'You don't need any more to drink.' Carefully, he prised her fingers off the stem and set the glass back on the table.

'I need you, Jaime. I need your help.' She revelled in the tremors that ran through her body, her eyes blurring with tears that she knew made them shimmer like emeralds. She sensed Jaime's determination begin to ebb as she wept harder. He sounded uncertain.

'I will be with you tomorrow at Joffrey's wedding, I promise. By your side, where I belong. But I have to know where the girl is. It's very important.'

'Qyburn said that you... ' Cersei choked, unable to finish the vile accusation. She hugged her arms around her own waist so that her breasts heaved.

'Cersei just - just stop it.' Jaime sighed, taking both of her arms in a gentler grip than before, and bringing her around to face him. 'Qyburn is a sly old man, inventing tales to try and curry your favour. He wanted to work in KingsLanding, and he concocted this lie to have you agree to his plans. Now, where is the commoner girl?'

'I don't know. She's with Qyburn. He's taken her somewhere... somewhere out of the Keep.'

'What? When?'

'Today, while you were talking to Father.' Perfect timing his leaving was too. I couldn't have planned it better myself; he was gone well before you could confront him. Sometimes the gods are good. 'He left the Keep and went into the city.' This much was true. The Maester needed to purchase supplies, he'd said. Equipment, utensils, sedative potions, other things Cersei hadn't bothered to listen to. He had in mind to perform certain experiments, relating to the nature of life and death, the gruesome details of which Cersei had no desire to know. She simply gave him the coin he needed and sent him on his way. 'He smuggled the girl out with him, dressed in an apprentices' cloak. They've gone to an Inn or somewhere, he won't be back until after the wedding.'

'I told you not to lie to me, sister,' Jaime scoffed. 'The girl is wild, two guards couldn't restrain her, let alone a feeble old man on his own.'

'Restrain her? Why would you think she needed to be restrained?' Cersei laughed through her tears. 'She went with him willingly enough, she couldn't wait to get out of the Keep. She wanted to enjoy herself at the local taverns, to earn some coin from the local men drunk enough to pay extra for a... pretty face. She is pretty, isn't she?'

'You've seen... her face?' Jaime looked genuinely confused.

'Of course, when she left with Qyburn,' Cersei sniffed. 'Though there are prettier whores in our brothels, dear brother.'

Jaime's evident disbelief irritated her. Why does he doubt that I've seen her? How damn pretty can a slut be? Cersei swallowed her ire and laughed again. She liked the sound of her own laugh, even in her distraught state she admired its melodic tone. 'What's wrong? Does it trouble you that your precious whore isn't faithful? Did you really think a common harlot would care who's cock she has between her legs?'

'You've always been a hopeless liar,' Jaime shook his head. 'It's something I love about you.'

'I lie to you all the time,' she spat, mocking. 'You're just too stupid to see it.'

Jaime's voice softened, then. 'Did you lie about loving me?'

'No more than you have.'

Jaime flinched and loosed his grip on her arms. His expression was wounded. 'I wouldn't lie about loving you. Cersei, I always loved you.'

She took advantage of the freedom to lift her hand and strike him as hard as she could across his mouth. The impact of the blow stung her palm and one of her fingernails ripped along its quick. Jaime didn't try to defend himself. He didn't move at all. For a moment he was so still Cersei wondered if she'd gone too far. The Jaime I know would never harm me, but this isn't the Jaime I know.

'What are you going to do, hurt me?' she dared, her heart racing with exhilaration.

'I would never hurt you.' His eyes wide. Across the newly clean-shaven skin of his jaw, her hand-print stained red. 'It's me. Jaime.'

Cersei knew he told the truth. Others would hurt her, but not Jaime. Never Jaime.

'Then why does this whore matter to you? Why are you here, demanding to... to know her whereabouts, why are you being so... so... so hateful to me?' Cersei sobbed anew, more tears spilling down. She wiped them on her sleeve.

'She doesn't matter to me. You're wrong.'

'Tell me then that you didn't touch her. Tell me you didn't!'

'I just want to repay a debt, to someone who helped me. But... but it's nothing. The girl is nothing. Don't make this out to be something more than it is.'

Cersei buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

'Shhh Cers, shhh now.' Jaime pulled her into him. 'You're hysterical, over something that doesn't even exist. The stress of this wedding is getting to you. And you can't handle the godsdamn wine; you're not Robert.' His broad palm was warm on her hair, as he held her head to his chest. 'We're Lannisters, we should be working together on Joffrey's wedding, not fighting over rumours and falsehoods.'

In his embrace, Cersei's shuddering eased. Gradually, she calmed. His words once again reassuring, not accusing. His arms around her so familiar and secure.

'I'm sorry,' Jaime said. 'I'm sorry you thought I had... that I wasn't there for you. It's difficult, sometimes. To be everything everyone wants you to be.'

'I need you with me,' Cersei whispered.

'I know. I know.' He kept stroking her hair.

'It was hard with you away... no-one is on my side, Jaime. They don't respect me, they... they try to undermine me all the time, they resent me because I'm better than they are.'

'You're imagining things, Cers. Who is this 'they'? No-one resents you. People are on your side. I'm on your side.'

She let herself melt into his comforting warmth. 'I thought of you often while you were gone, you know,' she told him. It was true. All the times Kettleblack's hands had touched her, all the times his mouth had been on her, she had imagined they were Jaime's hands, Jaime's mouth. I wanted him to be you.

Jaime drew back, held her hands in his, rubbed his thumb across her wrist. He bent his head as if to kiss her neck and she shivered in anticipation, but instead she heard him murmur, 'Where did Qyburn say he was staying?'

Cersei pulled her hands away as if they'd been burned. 'I thought you said it didn't matter.'

'I just want to sort it out now, Cers. Before the wedding.'

She stared at him. To think I almost believed you. Too much wine, and I'm a fool.

'In Eel Alley.' She played along, forcing indifference into her voice. There were dozens of Inns on Eel Alley. It would take hours to search them all, hours before Jaime realised Qyburn wasn't there.

'I'll see you tomorrow, sister.' Jaime pressed his lips onto her forehead, heedless of her stiff posture. 'I love you.'

Cersei didn't respond, only squeezed her arms around herself to try and wring out the stabbing pain she felt inside, as she watched her brother hurry out the door. I know you do love me, Jaime. We belong together, always.

She couldn't let anything come between them.

Cersei had to know, she had to see for herself. To get the thing to confess. She waited until she was certain Jaime had left the Keep, watching from her window as the shadow of horse and rider passed beneath the torch-lit arch of the gates. Then Cersei retrieved her key to the store-room from a drawer, and donned a shawl made of heavy velvet, with a frayed hood. She slipped out of her room and down the stairs, across the deserted drawbridge as the stars glimmered above her. The night air was crisp and chilled in her lungs. The sound of chaotic merriment from the Dornish camped around the grounds was louder than ever, but down the twisty lane behind the Kitchen Keep no-one stirred.

At the rough-hewn wooden door, Cersei paused. Should I have brought Kettleblack with me? Jaime said the thing is wild. What if she tries to attack me? But then Cersei steeled herself. A lion is afraid of no-one. And she had to know.

She turned the key in the lock and held the lantern out in front of her. The air from inside was icy and smelled of something damp that had never dried. Mouldy wheat and pickled jars of things gone sour. Cersei stepped through the door cautiously, swinging it closed behind her. The last thing she wanted was for it to escape. In the swaying light of her lantern, nothing moved.

A bundle curled on the floor, near the furtherest corner. Cersei watched it unravel and stretch, like a cat, blinking in the light. It was wearing a simple green dress and its reddish blonde hair, tousled from sleep, cast black shadows over its face.

'Get up,' Cersei snapped. 'Do you know who I am?'

The peasant yawned. Insolent wretch. 'Who are you?' its husky voice rasped, sounding more like the croak of a hideous swamp creature than a person. Then it coughed. 'D'ya have any water?'

What am I, a cup-bearer? 'No,' Cersei said.

'I'm so thirsty,' the wretch sighed. It sat up, crossed its legs and pushed the messy tangle of hair off its face. Cersei froze, feeling as if all the blood in her veins had turned to frost. It can't be. It's not possible. But it was.

She was sitting there. Wrinkling her dust-smeared nose and rubbing her arms to try and ward off the bitter cold. Cersei's younger self was sitting there, wearing filthy old boots with soles worn through, a black bag across her thin bare shoulder, squinting into the light cast by the lantern. A terrifying scar like a crescent moon clawing from one eye to the base of an ear. Her eye, her ear, her own younger face. Cersei gaped, stunned.

The thing has my face.

Most people might overlook it. But Cersei had spent hours when she was younger gazing at her reflection in mirrors and windows and the surfaces of still water. She knew every contour of her face back then, the way each symmetrical angle and curve came together so pleasingly. When she'd been pregnant with Joffrey, the age this commoner was now she realised, Cersei had been particularly radiant, and had studied her reflection daily, awed by its perfection. The only person who knew that face better than herself had been Jaime.

And here it was again, blinking in the brightness of a lantern, dirty and scarred. Her face, on a peasant. A no-one.

Cersei tripped on the trailing hem of her gown as she stepped back, almost fell. She felt sick, the taste of wine and bile rushing into her throat. She leaned on the wall to steady herself, then snatched her hand away as it brushed against thick cobwebs. Get a hold of yourself, you are a lion of Lannister. Fierce and brave. Cersei wrenched her gaze from the horrifying image of her own double and saw a pitcher of wine on the floor. She considered picking it up to see if it was empty. She desperately needed a drink.

Now you know, now you know why. Cersei took a deep breath, and another. Her head cleared. This trickery would not defeat her. Whatever accursed sorcery caused this, she would not flee from it. But she could feel her heart beating too fast in her ribs, and her skin prickled all over with fear.

'Are you... the Queen?' the thing-in-her-likeness said. Its accent was awful, coarse and lowborn. As the shock wore off, Cersei glared at it, gripping the handle of the lantern so tight her knuckles showed through white. 'Yes. I am.' Her own accent sounded more imperious than ever, in contrast.

The commoner regarded her with curiosity, and Cersei wanted to rip her own expression off the girl's skin, leave only a bloody skull that could resemble no-one. 'You look like Jaime,' the common girl said, thoughtfully.

There was no other recognition. Maybe youth cannot see its future self, as age so easily remembers its youth, or maybe the commoner spent no time in front of mirrors. Maybe all this girl saw when she looked at Cersei was an older woman in a regal gown, with ivory skin rarely touched by the sun, and sharp cheekbones where her own were plump, and eyes hollowed with the weight of years and cynicism. Maybe the whore is blind.

This girl frightened Cersei in a way she couldn't remember being before. She knew without a doubt Jaime had been lured by the false promise of it. Of course he had, men are such damned fools.

He had fallen in love with Cersei when she was younger, after all, back when they had run through the woods together like little animals, hunted and wrestled and come home covered in dirt, without care. When their hair had been tangled, and their nails black with soil, when they had been children with children's freedoms. Before their assigned roles had sent them on different paths. What had Jaime said? 'The girl is wild.' I used to be wild, too. He looks at this thing and he sees me, as I once was. Before ambition and motherhood and responsibility tamed me. Back in that last age when Jaime and I truly were one person in two bodies.

Cersei felt as if everything was slipping from her grasp. Gods help me. How can this be happening? She tried desperately to gather her wits. I am a lion. A lion is not weak, a lion does not cower. With an effort she regained her poise and managed to give the commoner a polite smile.

'So you travelled here, with my brother?' she queried. How many times did you spread your legs for him, you foul witch?

The common girl nodded. 'Jaime.'

The sound of his name repeated in that horrid accent enraged Cersei, but before she could bring herself to say anything, the commoner spoke again.

'Do you love your brother?'

'Of course,' Cersei replied, narrowing her eyes at the odd question. More than you know.

'As I loved mine,' the common girl said, returning Cersei's smile.

As if I care one whit about your ill-bred siblings. Cersei couldn't stand being near it any longer - I must leave - when with a swift motion the girl shrugged off the drawstring bag from around her neck and reached inside. 'I have a gift for you, Your Grace,' she said. 'For the King's wedding. If you would be so kind as to... receive it.'

Cersei watched suspiciously as the commoner pulled out a skinny case, removed the lid and held it up.

'What is it?' Cersei asked, mesmerised by the glowing light pulsing around the length of silver that nestled inside.

'An arrow, Your Grace. It's extremely well-made, and powerful. From the lands across the sea. Does the King like to hunt?'

'He has a crossbow, yes. How is it powerful?' Cersei wanted to know. Something about the way the silver shaft gleamed in the dim light; she suddenly longed to have it. It was magnificent. Joffrey. Joffrey would love it.

'It never misses,' the girl said.

'Is that right?' Cersei smiled. Mayhaps I will have him come down here and use it on you.

'It would mean a lot to me and my family if you would accept this gift, for the King. On his wedding day.' The girl bowed low and held it out. Cersei considered her.

This girl has features like mine, but inside, she is just a base, worthless slattern; a creature with no ambition beyond survival, no higher thought in its head than where its next meal is coming from. An immoral, uncivilised, slovenly wretch. Barely a step up from the beasts in the fields. Never would this thing have spoken and understood the different languages of the world, seen a royal tournament in all its finery, or sat around a council deciding the fate of Kingdoms. Never used political wiles to cultivate allies and crush enemies. Gods, it probably cannot even write its own name.

And yet, Jaime had not cared. He had betrayed her, Cersei, with all her culture and fine breeding, all their shared history and understanding, for the dream of his lost youth and the false beauty of a dumb slut.

How dare a thing like this exist. It is beyond inconceivable.

Father would have it flogged, Qyburn would experiment on it . But no, that was not enough. This imposter must be destroyed, Cersei decided. Destroyed utterly, until not one speck of it remains. As if it had never existed at all. Not one hair or drop of blood must be left to contaminate mine or Jaime's lives. I will deal with it, today. Kettleblack will do it. Or if he refuses, I will hire a sellsword.

Cersei's mind settled at this thought. It is done. She breathed in, let her breath out slowly as she gazed at the commoner bowed at her feet. Why did I let you scare me? You cannot take what is mine. I am the Queen, and you are no-one.

She reached down and took the proffered case containing the arrow from the girl's grubby hands. 'I accept your gift, on behalf of King Joffrey,' Cersei said. There was a faint warmth coming from the case even with the lid on, and she could feel a thrilling power emanating from it. Whoever this insidious whore was, wherever she came from, an arrow of such high quality deserved a better owner. As Cersei left the commoner in her dank little room, and re-locked the door, she kept thinking of how much Joffrey was going to love this gift.

I can't wait to give it to him.