This has a bit of mild Felicity/Gemma in it, because I want to save Kartik for myself. Only joking.

I'm really not.

Just to warn anyone ... I don't think it's strong enough to be bumped up to mature, but just in case anyone doesn't like to read 'that kind of stuff'...

I wake in my bed in my room with Ann snoring peacefully besides me. I remember the events of the previous evening. How I was kissed, how I was stabbed, how I was carried, how I was kissed, how I was carried, how I was loved, how I was hated.

He left me, alone and moaning his name. I saw the flick of his cloak amongst the first few trees of the forest. I gaze down at my palms and they are scratched and grimy from the strenuous climb back up that blasted vine.

Ann is none the wiser, and I feel guilty, abusing her trust, and her ability to sleep so bloody deeply, like this.

But I do not act any different.

"Oh, Gemma, darling, say we can go back again tonight? Oh, please, Gemma, let's."

I offer no refusal, and so she smiles, and I instantly feel as though I can help her. Make her life more worthwhile. And I know that I owe it to her. I owe it to all of them.

Pippa and Fee meet us on the stairs, and are smiling brightly. After Evelyn vanished so suddenly last night, I forgot about her, and enjoyed myself. We ran around, as fast as our legs could carry us and faster, until we collapsed, gasping, under a rainbow sky and buttery sun. I made it snow, warm crystal snowflakes, and we revelled in it, swishing the powdery substance about until we were sleepy and giggly and exhausted. Our legs were shaky with the rush, and we lay like a flower, our heads at the centre, our graceful legs the petals. We held hands, the magic coursing through us, and there was no need to speak. We knew what we were all thinking. What we were all feeling. And I wondered, ironically, if magic was what it took for friendships to be forged. And I vowed to use all of the magic I had in me to leave us happy and warm and safe and alive. And free. Oh, so free.

There, we had what we wanted. What we needed. What we desired. Pippa was in love with a handsome prince who would visit her and whisk her away to be wooed. Ann was beautiful, her hair shining and her skin glowing. Felicity had a string of men come to pay calls on her. The most unsuitable of men. Stable boys and knights and sailors and blacksmiths and farmers and princes and pirates and lion tamers. None of us knew exactly what she would do with them, where she would go with them, what rules she would break with them. But we trusted her, and she trusted us.

I tried to think of what I was when I was there. I wasn't beautiful. I wasn't courted by a painfully gallant prince. I wasn't whisked away to frolic and fly with all sorts of men. I simply was.

Was what?

Happy.

The day seemed to fly by, each of us painfully nervy and jerky, desperate for the evening to come. However, by the time we were allowed freedom in the great hall, after supper, Felicity had decided that she couldn't wait.

"Gemma, darling, we simply must go now."

"How on earth are we going to be able to do that, may I enquire?"

She smiles wickedly at me, and leans forward, kissing me suddenly on the lips. I feel the blush starting to climb up my cheeks, turning them a delightful pink, which will contrast so beautifully with my blasted hair, I was sure. Her lips were soft and sweet and warm, and reminded me of Kartik. We were in the alcove, alone: Pippa and Ann were sitting elsewhere, excitedly discussing the events of the previous evening. We have no one to tell us to stop. The shadow embraces us, shielding us from view.

She breaks off, smiling still, and pulls me closer.

"We have no one to listen to. No one to obey." She whispers seductively, and I realise that it is not that she wants to kiss me, and it isn't that she wants to break the rules. She wants there to be no rules. She wants to create her own. And we know of a world where we could do that, where we could kiss like husband and wife and no one would be shocked and appalled and cross us off their Christmas card list. I want the same. And so this time I kiss her, and she giggles at my touch.

"Goodness, Miss Doyle, if Nightwing were to see you now!" She murmurs, and we collapse, still kissing, laughing together, loving together, living together. We delve deeper into the shadow of the wall, press against each other, our eyes open, mine reflecting the mocking amusement in hers. I feel her tongue press against my lips, and, after a second's hesitation, open mine. We are not so much kissing as exploring, testing the boundaries of ourselves, of everyone else. It isn't the kiss that we are enjoying; it is the fact that we are kissing in the Great Hall of Spence, with the teachers and pupils all around us, and no one any the wiser.

My arms are around her waist, and I murmur breathily into her ear, "My, Miss Worthington, you treacherous girl, what about all those other men that you beguile in the realms?" I giggle at 'beguile', and break away from the kiss, gazing at her pale face as she glitters with our wickedness.

"You can talk, Miss Doyle! What about that lovely gypsy gentlemen of yours, who took you and ravished you in the forest?"

I smirk, sit up, and lean against her, feeling our friendships in the way she plays with my hair and gently kisses my forehead. I know that it is no longer Felicity and Pippa, Ann and I, but Ann and Pippa, Felicity and I. And I cannot say that it saddens me.

"So ... I'm still waiting for an answer. About your gypsy boy?"

"He didn't ravish me." I breathe deeply, wishing, on some level, that I spoke a lie. That I had something to hide. I can feel the smirk settle on her lips, even though I cannot see her face.

"So, what exactly were you doing with him?"

I think for a second, and then close my mind and open my mouth.

"I was kissing him."

She feigns shock, gasping melodramatically at my audacity. I struggle into a sitting position, grin foolishly at her, and repeat it, louder. "I was kissing him!"

"Miss Doyle, you disgust me. No, I cannot even look at you! Get out of my sight and never darken my doorstep again! Apart, of course, when you are to take me into the realms once more."

And of course I will.

I see her immediately. She is back, like nothing happened, sitting on the tree branch and singing softly to herself. I wonder what it must have been like for her, alone and lonely, all those years. I wonder if I can even help her at all.

"Evelyn!" I smile, race to her. She glances up, and smiles, just like mother. This time, I am the one to embrace her, and she responds, holding me tightly. She looks no older than me, and yet I know that she has been alive for 32 years. Half of her life, spent solitary and hurting, only able to glimpse her mother in snatches of dreams and half dazes. I wonder at her bravery, her cheerfulness, her hope that something will change.

Hope.

"You must finish telling me, Evelyn. Now, quickly, before you leave again." I giggle, watch the other girls, with their freedom and carelessness, watch them dance and dream and drink and dive and die.

Die.

No, that is wrong.

I force my mind to focus on my sister, trying to tell me something.

"...Hate is such a strong word," she is saying, and I frown at the sudden mention of the word that has been plaguing my every waking hour. And every sleeping hour. Love hate love hate love. Hate.

"What?" I ask. She turns to me, smiling slightly, and repeats her sentence.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because, Gemma, I told mother, in the letter that I sent her, I told her that I hated her. That hatred bound her to the Winterlands for all eternity. I have reason to believe that you will be able to free both her and I. Please, Gemma. Please do it."

"I don't know how, Evelyn! I would if I did," I quieten, embarrassed at my outburst. Evelyn takes my hand, gazes into my eyes.

"Gemma, there is something that you must realise. I cannot tell you it, for you must come upon it in your own time. But believe me when I say this, you are far greater than you think you are. Do not lay your trust in pretty things, Gemma."

I don't know what this means. I don't know what to say.

"Gemma, mother and I have left the world. We cannot forgive or curse each other any more. That is one of the powers of the world that you live in. The world that was mine. You have the power to forgive your mother, and you have the power to free us both."

I understand then. It comes to me in a rush of clues, half heard conversations and spidery handwritten notes. I know.

"Gemma, it should be easy for you to do. It must be easy for you to do."

But I realise that the feelings I have towards my mother have changed since her death. My mother, who treated her daughter so cruelly, who did not listen, would not care... the mother that sent her child away, and was too weak to bring her back... the mother that her daughter abandoned, convinced that she would not be missed. My mother was not the woman I thought she was, and I do not know if I can forgive her any more.

"Gemma, please ... you have to."

"I ... I forgive her."

But she smiles bitterly, and turns my head so that I am gazing deep into her eyes. "Gemma, you must mean it. With both head and heart. Please. Let it go. I need you to. I want you to."

"How can I? She was cruel."

"But she has changed. Don't you see? How kind and loving she was to you, how much she altered so that she could be a better mother this time around. She learned from her mistakes."

"But her mistakes came at a great cost! Your life."

"Some mistakes are greater than others." And it breaks my heart when she says this.

"I need to see her." I decide, firmly and finally.

"You know where she is."

I step from the bough, onto the springy grass and the sugar petals. I hear nothing, not the sound of the laughter, the rush of the waterfall, the soft sweet singing of my sister. I approach the vines, swing them softly to one side, and face my mother.

She is alone, cold and dead and broken. Her hair is electric red, her eyes painfully sharp. Her lips are the colour of blood and her skin the colour of snow.

"Gemma? Have you come?" She whispers. I nod, scared to approach her. And then I see it, rising and forming and taking shape, and, oh God, it's come for me, it has, finally, I know it, and I feel the darkness overpowering me, feeling the inky hatred pulsing through my veins, reaching every little part of me, until my vision turns black and my eyes are dead.

I want to scream, but find I cannot open my mouth. I am falling, hard and sharp and fast, through every fear and every sadness and every pain and every injustice ever in the history of time itself. I feel the anger of a thousand million people, the sadness of orphans, of childless mothers, the fear in every infant's nightmare, the monster under the bed, the monster right in front of me.

I can hear my mother screaming at the top of her voice. "Gemma, they play on your weaknesses! Don't let them in! You have the power to block them! Use it!" But I cannot. The blackness is swirling around me, the faces of a hundred thousand broken hearted, hopeless and dying, sickly and wounded. I feel everything. I become the blackness itself.

"Gemma, they will take over! They will take you over! They will turn you into another wretched feeling, a feeling of hate and fear and sadness and pity. Do not let them! Oh, God, not my darling daughter. Not my darling Gemma!"

Yes your darling Gemma.

But suddenly I am lurched back to the white sands and piercing light of the Winterlands, to Felicity's frightened face and Pippa's irritating screams. I have no time to gaze once more at my mother: Felicity drags me through the vines, closing off the world of terror and blackness and death.

"What happened? Your eyes went just like Fee's did." Pippa's arms are around me, and I realise that she is my friend too. As is Ann. As is...

But there is no sign of Evelyn.