She couldn't stop.

The box was in her hands and she couldn't stop herself from solving it. She didn't want to, she wanted to throw it into the darkness and grab Terri's hand and run, run to her sisters and their warm, safe arms. Tiffany watched her hands, felt every impulse right before she fulfilled it - it was as if she was trapped on autopilot, unable to do anything but witness her own role in this monster's machinations. Tiffany closed her eyes as the room shook, what little she could control, and tried to will herself free, to think about what she wanted to do.

She wanted to be home. She wanted to curl up in the big chair with her book and she wanted to tell her sisters about the last one she'd finished. She wanted to bring Terri and Elliot and they could all just have a nice mug of tea and be safe and far, far away from here.

She wanted her mom.

Tiffany's yes burned as she imagined her mom, the woman she barely remembered, who had tried to save her from her hands and her detachment. Her mom, who had given her pencils and taught her to write when she found it so hard to speak, who had wanted her to have a say in her own life, who had tried to help her. Her mom, who had been killed by the man who put this damned box in her hands. Tiffany could almost feel her hand running through her hair, saying her name...

Her eyes snapped open and she looked up at who was touching her, and the shock was just enough.

"Kirsty." It was the smallest whisper, but it meant the world as Kirsty put her hands over her sister's own. Tiffany looked at her, then next to her. "Joey." Joey didn't touch the box even as Tiffany couldn't stop herself from solving it, and instead started signing.

"Tiffany," she started, "Kirsty thinks there's a chance you might be safe from the Cenobites. You were forced to open the box the first time, right?" Tiffany nodded, her thumb tracing that damned circle. She could feel tears stinging her cheeks, the sparks stinging her hands, but she couldn't stop. "You got out of that alive, with Kirsty." She nodded again but then shook her head, swallowing and trying anything to reclaim control of her hands. Psychological detachment felt too clinical - this was a curse, she was damning the world and powerless to stop herself. Around her the room was morphing into something she couldn't see but felt, felt that horrible wrongness that the otherworld exuded. Why didn't they take the box from her?

Terri was trying to sit up, and Joey moved to help her.

"Tiffany," Kirsty said in a whisper, "we need the door open to stop Angelique." She finally stopped Tiffany's hand, but did not take the box away. It split, rising into two pieces she knew how to rotate. "And if we can't stop them from taking you, then we're coming with you together."

"Together," Joey agreed, helping Kirsty turn the mechanism. The world around them was cacophonous in its shifting, drowning out their words to anyone but them. Tiffany could vaguely hear the two Labyrinth-beings speaking, but in that moment her entire world was made of the two women kneeling in front of her, and then another hand was on the box. They all looked at Terri.

"Look," she said, "if we're all going to die, I'd rather do it here trying to stop the end of the world than whatever else was waiting for me out there. Even if I'm not part of this family."

"You are now," Kirsty said, and despite herself Tiffany smiled and nodded. Joey put an arm around Terri's shoulder. "Okay, we push it together on three. Ready?"

Tiffany nodded. So did everyone else.

"On my mark," Joey said, and Tiffany saw her swallow. Her voice was choked when she spoke again. "I love you, girls. One."

Lightning crackled at her fingertips.

"Two."

There was light seeping through the walls, and for a moment Tiffany thought the women before her looked like angels. She wondered if she did, too.

"Three!"

All four pushed down at once, and Tiffany let herself sob as the box clicked into place and the room's seams split apart.


No.

He had seen it happen - in the split second it took for them to press down he saw it, all four together. Around them he could see the cracks forming, cement splitting like dried skin and light bleeding through. He could feel his Gash approach.

The first chain burst into Terri's shoulder. Her scream cut through the mechanical groaning and straight to his soul. His own chains burst from the other side and sank into them and he felt it tear from her flesh and Terri sobbed in agony. He snapped his fingers and a chainmail net sank into the floor, a canopy to protect them for as long as he could.

More human than a creation of Leviathan. It looked at Angelique and she lunged at him. Her claws found his belt and ripped. His tools fell to the floor and blood spilled from his navel onto his cassock. The pain was fresh and new to his body and he winced despite how he'd missed it. He did not have time to reflect on that - he grabbed a blade from the ground.

"Does it hurt?" Angelique laughed, and that was not a laugh, and in the blinding light of Leviathan the Prince could see how her mouth split so wrong across her face. "They opened the box, there's nothing you can do to save them now!" He snapped and two hooks caught the sides of that hideous grin and he willed them to pull. She struggled and yelled as they tore at her mouth.

"You are the one who forced them to open the box," he said, trying to maintain his calm even as chains ripped into the ground beneath him, "and it was your wish that the door would open." The ceiling was starting to crumble overhead and power beyond power sparked around them. There is no chance this will hold, he thought. A hook shot past his net and he heard Joey cry out. Left shoulder. He snapped again. One of the hooks in Angelique receded and another struck the one on Joey. The chains surrounding them strained on his mind. Another of his Gash's grasped at them and bounced off, but the chain it hit pulled back into the darkness.

Angelique ripped the other hook from her jaw and tossed it to the ground. She lunged forward and he was knocked back onto the ground. A chain dug into her back.

He tried, desperately, to reach out to his Gash.

"Pathetic," she snarled. The chain pulled back but she sank her claws into the ground, her other hand digging into his chest. His open wounds burned against her claws and he winced - there was something wrong about this pain, about everything about her. They are innocent, he thought, she is the one who called you.

More hooks claimed her and she was pulled off him. The Prince forced himself to stand and looked to the sisters - within the chains they held each other. To the end they chose each other.

Kirsty was looking up. He followed her eyes to the mechanisms on the walls, glittering like the Lament Configuration. They were still sparking and shifting, still waiting for the box's instructions, still under Angelique's spell.

Perhaps...

"Kirsty!" He called back, "The shape of Leviathan!" Angelique ripped free and he brandished his blade. They collided and the knife found her flesh as her claws found his.

He prayed she'd understand.


"Leviathan?" Kirsty could barely keep up with what was happening - the light was leaking through the chains in rays and daggers and hid him in shadows and blinding white. She looked back to her sisters, and the box in their hands, shaking and sparking. If she didn't know better she'd have thought it was overwhelmed trying to open the door.

The floor beneath them split open in four lines, triangles of crumbling cement. They began to rise and groaned under their own weight, falling back to the ground.

The room's too big, she thought, looking up again. She squinted, and at last she found some order in the light and the cracks in the walls. They stretched past the mechanisms and into each other, familiar patterns facing inward instead of out.

This room was not an extension of the Lament Configuration. It was a Lament Configuration.

One of the chains protecting them flew back and clawed into her shoulder. Kirsty cried out and bit her lip, tears spilling down her cheeks with the red warmth down her back. It burned the way looking at the light burned. She could think of nothing else.

Her hands clenched. Fingers and cold metal. Her sisters. The box.

The box.

"Tiffany!" She wasn't sure how she managed to speak, but she looked up at her sister. Through the white-hot burning she could see Tiffany's eyes, and she squeezed the box. "We need to solve it again, quickly!" She looked from Joey to Terri, both holding their own wounds and fighting to stay close. "Hold on to me, both of you!"

Her hands started moving, as did Tiffany's, traversing the box for answers. The shape of Leviathan - the diamond he'd dropped in her hands. If it stopped her from opening the door then-

Joey reached out and turned a mechanism. The sparks danced white across their fingers. Below them the earth groaned again, struggling to lift, that same white light spilling out as the cavity grew larger.

Desperately Kirsty tried to remember, willing her hands to repeat what she'd seen only once before without hands. White and sharp, she thought, like a star, how did you turn something so dark into a source of light?

She could only just hear the struggle behind her as she followed the path the box laid out. Chains and blades clashed with metal, the wet sound of flesh being carved, all but drowned out by the room tearing itself apart. Growls and snarls and curses filtered through and she could barely hear the Prince over Angelique's monstrous sounds. She looked up at Tiffany, entrenched in concentration, and Kirsty flinched at a cry of pain. She looked over her shoulder.

He was pinned against the wall and a clawed hand was torn down his chest. She wanted to run to him - please don't let him die again - but turned back to the box. Tiffany turned something, Kirsty pushed a piece, and they heard an unfamiliar click. Corners, it had been turning corners. She started pushing, rotating, and the box grew thinner, paler, the seams melting together. The open walls collapsed into themselves and the light pouring through them snuffed out, though the hole in the floor remained. The chains guarding them receded - but so did the ones coming for them.

"No!"

All four looked then, and Terri screamed. Kirsty would have as well, but what she saw in the figure before her was so terrible, so unnatural, that it silenced her.

She could not find the words to describe what Angelique looked like in that otherworldly light, pulsing and bleeding and terrible, but the image was one she knew would haunt her dreams. Hooks and chains hung from her with thin ropes of her human skin and the tatters of her dress, and she looked at them with monstrous eyes and a scowl too large for her face. When she spoke, Kirsty barely heard the words in the many voices that came from her.

"You insufferable girls!" She took a step forward, hellfire in her gaze. "I did not come this close to have my world torn from me by more insipid, worthless mortals!" She was coming closer as the chains and light receded around them, the door closing, and Kirsty saw the figure behind her.

The Prince was on his knees, head down, gripping his chest; his sleeves and tunic were torn, his cassock clinging to him in stripes and patches. He looked up; his eyes met Kirsty's, and then he looked at Angelique. One shaking hand lifted, palm open, reaching for the Princess. She did not look at him, instead concentrating on Kirsty, who felt all this creature's sickening energy focus on her.

"I was going to save you for later," she snarled, "but I should have broken your neck when I had chance!"

The beast lunged for them and Kirsty closed her eyes and blood splattered across her face. A terrible yell hit her and knocked the air from her lungs; when she opened her eyes she saw Angelique on the ground, clawing at the ground near Kirsty's legs as dozens upon dozens of chains sank into her back. They pulled her towards the gaping and glowing hole in the ground.

"Thank you," she heard, and looked up at the Prince again. His eyes were closed, and the one chain he controlled was shaking while the others held strong. "By Leviathan's mercy," he whispered, struggling to breath, "thank you."

Tiffany grabbed her shoulder, and Kirsty looked at her. She pointed towards the door, bleeding light from beneath, and Kirsty saw three familiar figures silhouetted in the dark. She squeezed the box, almost complete, a little tighter.

Angelique screamed. Kirsty closed her eyes and covered her ears; she was sure the others did the same, but it did little to drown out the sound of her agony and anger as she was dragged into the Labyrinth. Kirsty opened her eyes; Angelique was swallowed by the light and the earth, struggling and clawing at the ground, cursing and growling until Kirsty could hear no human voice, only guttural, visceral sounds. Her claws disappeared, and the world fell silent.

Her hands shook as she reached for the box again. Tiffany reached a hand out; they looked at each other, then at Joey and Terri, who were still holding onto them and watching in shock. Slowly their hands reached out as well, and each one turned a corner piece and watched the Leviathan Configuration become complete.

The four slabs of concrete fell to the ground with a crash that made all four cry out, and the last of the chains receded into the darkness. The door was closed. Slowly the world around them began to shift; the transformed room morphed, creaked, as it slowly undid itself. They never leave a trace behind, Kirsty couldn't help but think, even as her heart and mind were racing to understand what had happened.

Terri spoke first.

"Is... is it over?" Tiffany gave a weak nod, and Joey hugged all three of them. Kirsty, somehow, found it in her to let out a small laugh.

"Yeah," she said, forcing herself onto her feet despite the pain in her back, "it's over." She looked at the Leviathan Configuration, then at the Prince. He'd managed to stand, and despite the dark she could see the quiet look of relief on his face. "One last thing to take care of, I think."

"Outside," he said, starting to walk forward. "I do not think staying here while this room rebuilds itself would be wise."

Kirsty nodded, and looked to her sisters. Tiffany and Joey were already up, holding each other tight; Terri had put an arm over their shoulders, a tired smile on her face. She looked at Kirsty and smiled, and Kirsty smiled back.

"I agree with him," Terri said, shoving her hands in her pockets and wincing, "let's get out of here. My back hurts like hell." Kirsty nodded, looking to her sisters, and all of them made their way for the stairs up, to where reality awaited them.