We're back in business! It took a little work to figure out the best way to proceed, but I'm feeling pretty good about this chapter. Hopefully we'll be able to keep the momentum up!

Be kind and stay spooky, everybody. - Inky


She sensed it.

By the Labyrinth's mercy she sensed the box - not its presence but its influence, the energy that clung to those who had come within its reach. It wasn't in the museum at all - its only mark was that of the Merchant man - but she could tell that even if it was not close, the person who had been closest to it was.

Angelique held her head up. She could look haughty and still be inconspicuous, even as she breathed in the perfume of the lament Configuration. The box sang her home; she just had to find her way to it. She sniffed, just a little, and followed the direction of the scent.

It carried her through the building, away from the basement. Angelique wasn't horribly concerned; for his brutishness the Prince had seemed quite content to brood by his lonesome, and any scheme he might have concocted would be easy to snuff out in a moment. As she slipped through the crowd she kept her head up, walking as briskly as she could with sweat-soaked patrons and their grubby-handed ilk all around her. They began to gravitate away from her; even if they didn't know why, she knew their most primal selves sensed and feared her power.

Her fingers twitched with each step. The Labyrinth was so close she could taste the blood-misted air, and with the gift of a perpetual door to this wretched realm, her god-world would welcome her back with open arms. It did not matter if the Prince chose her, Angelique thought, for soon she would be a queen.

She didn't even notice the wretch until they collided, sending Angelique backwards. She stepped back and quickly regained her footing, just in time to glare at the human.

"Watch where you're gong, you little-!" She stopped when the young woman looked up with her; their gaze held for a moment, and it was all Angelique needed to see something familiar.

"Excuse me," a taller woman cut in, but Angelique tuned her out as she stared at the girl before her. This girl, this blonde little wretch, had eyes that had seen the Labyrinth.

She was so close. Angelique smiled.

"I'm so sorry, that was uncalled for," she said in her honey-voice, "I'm just in a rush to get home. Please forgive me." She walked around the young woman, leaving both to start gesturing to each other as she made her way to the door, where the sweet perfume of the Labyrinth called to her.


"I did miss you, Kirsty."

She couldn't completely suppress the incredulity in her expression; thankfully her unexpected companion seemed entertained by it, as he laughed when she looked at him with what must have been barely-restrained surprise. "Is it so hard to believe?" He asked, putting his hand on hers. She didn't know how she felt about this whole thing, and he really wasn't helping.

"I... don't understand why," she said after a moment, "when all things considered I've caused you nothing but trouble since the moment we met." Had he always been this expressive? The amused little smile seemed unfamiliar, the way all of him did right now. For the life of her Kirsty couldn't place why, especially when they were barely more than strangers to begin with, but somehow-

"That is true," he said, "your presence certainly seems to invite interesting times."

"That's a polite way of putting it."

"That being said," he continued, "Interesting is a welcome change after so many years of the same exploration. You've given me a great deal to think about since we first met. You've inspired ideas." Kirsty's eyes fell to the tools at his waist. "Only some along those lines."

"Not comforting."

"My apologies." Kirsty looked back up at him, trying to read his face. It was like staring at a page full of Latin.

"You're allowed to ask questions, Kirsty. I will not begrudge them." Why didn't he just read her mind for what he wanted to hear? "I prefer your voice." Oh.

"What... kind of ideas?" Mistake, she thought, she should have asked anything else. But the Prince did not show any signs of danger, no more than usual, as he contemplated her question.

"... When I was resurrected," he began, "it was not all at once. I was encased in a sort of sleep, I suppose, a healing rest. I had a great deal of time during that rest to think, Kirsty, about what transpired that night." He looked at her. "You surprised us a great deal, Kirsty, and we're not often surprised." She couldn't find an answer, so he kept on. "I believe you changed me that day. In so little time you changed everything I knew, showed my home to me in a way I had been blind to."

"I'm not sure I understand where this is going." That little bemused smile again, and Kirsty frowned. What was he getting at?

"What do you know about me?" What kind of question was that? "Not the man I was; as I am now. What do you think you know?"

"I..." she swallowed, sorting through memories, trying to find the roots of them. What did she know? "You... are the leader of a group of... Cenobites. An order of... scholars? Scientists?"

"Explorers, Kirsty."

"That was the word, yes." She frowned a little. "And you seek to... explore the limitations of sensation, beyond what we can imagine."

"Very good, but that is the order." Was he messing with her? "I am talking about myself." She searched her mind, trying to narrow it down, and suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

"Just that you're the leader, I think. I... don't even know your name," she said, voice quiet. He'd saved her life, and she didn't even have that to offer him? He didn't seem disturbed by it.

"You are not supposed to. Our names are private - the monikers you may hear are only there for convenience." They'd circled around the floor in the span of their conversation, and he let her go as she stepped back into the mirror's gaze. "And I am more than the leader of my Gash, Kirsty. I am the chosen Son of Leviathan, the leader of all Cenobites. I am the one who they answer to, the one who maintains order within the Labyrinth in the name of our creators."

He let the words hang in the air, and Kirsty felt a great weight in her chest as she realized the implications of what he'd said.

"And... I'm the one who got you killed. I ruined... everything for you."

"On the contrary, dear Kirsty." There was a danger in the softness of his voice. "You saved me. And I want to return the favor."


"That was her." Tiffany had been trying to sign that for perhaps two minutes, but her hands were shaking from looking that woman in the eyes. The Labyrinth had stared back at her; for that second they had looked at each other Tiffany had ben lost in the maze of pleasure and pain, strange wonders, that nightmare realm Channard had tried to sacrifice her to. She was still shaking now, even as she looked at her sister.

"Are you sure?" Joey believed her, or believed that Tiffany believed what she was saying. Terri had texted her that she'd forgotten her phone at the Boiler Room and needed to get it, so now they didn't even have a car. Tiffany nodded at Joey, biting back tears from how shaken the woman's stare had left her.

"She looked like Hell. I saw it in her eyes. She has the same eyes as the Cenobites." The Labyrinth, that awful Labyrinth where Channard had almost made her his permanent plaything or left her for dead; she didn't know which was worse. "If she's out there, then Kirsty's alone with the other Elliot. What if he hurts her?" She swallowed even as her throat burned. "What if she already hurt Kirsty?"

"Tiffany, Tiff," Joey put her hands on Tiffany's shoulders, "the Captain promised he'd keep an eye on her, remember? We'll know if anything happens, and if Kirsty could handle him before, I'm sure she'll be okay when we find her." Tiffany took a breath; Joey was right. Kirsty was the one who'd faced them more than once, and even if this was only half of the Cenobite she remembered... it was the Cenobite who gave up his life to save them. She had to remember that.

"We should follow her," Tiffany signed, "and try to figure out where she's going. Maybe we can stop her from coming back. Maybe when Terri comes back..."

She couldn't finish the thought, however, because Joey's phone buzzed. She grabbed it and immediately put it on speaker. "Hello?"

"Joey, Tiffany, are you still in the museum?" Tiffany did not like the tone of the Captain's voice.

"Yes, why?" Joey didn't either, from the way she was frowning.

"One of you needs to find a way to the Boiler Room, and do it quickly. I can't get to any of you without a phone, and that other entity from the Labyrinth... I'm afraid she's following Terri."