"Hansel."

Silence.

A little louder, "Hansel."

"Mmmmm." Hansel's head lolled to the side as the great debate to open his eyes waged in his head.

"Hansel!" hissed Gretel, pulling her legs back as best she could in the small space of her confinement to kick the joining wall of their cages.

Hansel flinched, eyes snapping open as he tensed for the coming threat. Blearily he glanced around his tiny dark world framed with wooden bars chopping up his view. He paused and lingered on Gretel as her soft smile filled him with gentle warmth. Her hair was a mess, dirt and dried blood caking the soft lines of her face, but the light of her smile was hard to diminish. His hand drifted towards the confines of his cage, testing the materials that were locking him in.

As far as cages went, it was well crafted, the smooth bars unwilling to budge even an inch. They weren't going to be breaking through them with sheer strength and long gone were the days that they might be able to slip between the bars. Slowly, Hansel pulled himself into a sitting position, mindful of the low ceiling and very aware of every bruise and scratch he had earned on his journey to this place. "Just like old times," he sighed, fingers snaking their way past the bars to entwine with Gretel's.

She huffed a small laugh; the universe a little less scary now that the other half of her world was in sight. "At least you came. Better late than never I suppose." She gripped his hand tightly, the closest to a hug they were going to get at the moment. It had never crossed her mind that he wouldn't do everything on his power to come, even as the days drew on. If there was life in his body, Hansel would come and if he never showed, Gretel knew it wouldn't be of his choosing. Whatever fate befell her after that would be far more welcomed than a life without her brother. They only had each other in this world and one would never leave the other behind.

She studied him, tracing every line she knew so well and every new testament to the hell her brother had been through recently. There was a bone weary tiredness that had settled beneath his skin, tinged with a new shade of self-loathing that he was so quick to grab a hold of. Hansel protected her from the world as best he could, like he was making up for the shortcomings of their parents. If often caused him to do things he hated, things that blackened his soul so they wouldn't touch Gretel. She always found out, but out of respect for the sacrifices Hansel was so willing to make, she held her tongue. He was hiding something now.

"They took some of the girls from the village," Gretel reported, falling into the familiar role of business first and piecing Hansel together later.

"I heard. They cursed the villagers that tried to stop them, it was… effective." People died all the time, it was a fact of life. In their world, people died horribly; there was only so much they could do but sometimes it pierced the hard outer shells the siblings encased themselves in. Sometimes the misery of the world became too much and they could do nothing but feel for the people they were unable to protect.

They shared a moment of silence, each slotting the carnage into the box of 'cost of doing business' in their minds. "They're doing something to the girls. They're not eating them or using them for magic, rather they're doing magic on them." The words sent a shiver down her own spine as she thought about the peculiar behavior she had witnessed, locked away in her tiny cage. The glimpses she caught between the bars, and the screams that pierced the night, were the stuff her nightmares were founded on.

"There are others, other girls from different towns…" The ones taken from the village had been young, probably younger than she and Hansel had been when they happened upon the candy house of torment. She hadn't seen those children since waking up in her cell, the unfortunate souls she had laid eyes upon had been slightly older; the images forever seared into her brain. The older children wandered around in a daze, lead on a leash like farm animals to their slaughter by the Lamiae; obedient puppets waiting for their masters' bidding. The real horror were the patches of silver that marred the girls' skin, spread out like a rash or infection of a gangrenous wound. "I think they're changing the girls into Lamiae."

Black magic consumed witches, rotted them from the inside out, but it was a choice made by the user. The witch chose to walk down the dark path of the black arts, any and all side effects were just collateral damage, but these girls hadn't chosen this. It was being thrust upon them, changing them from the inside out until there were only the monsters the Lamiae created; children sentenced to a living death.

Gretel's voice filled with sincere determination. "We have to stop them Hansel."

Hansel looked around his cage nestled in the thick of the Lamiae nest. He didn't disagree with his sister's assessment but his first priority in their daunting situation was getting Gretel to safety. "How do you propose we do that?"

Gretel slid closer to Hansel, her voice dropping to a whisper, "They leave at night, most of them. They take the girls and they don't come back till dawn. The numbers will be more in our favor."

He tapped the wooden bar with his foot. "Doesn't matter if we have the numbers or not, if we can't get out of here."

"I've been thinking about that." She had been relieved of any weapons both actual and possible before she had woken up in her cage and hadn't been able to acquire anything useful in the days that followed. "I'm hoping you have something useful in your repertoire for a magical assist."

"Gretel…" The word hung in the air, a silent apology. It was a request for forgiveness, for being too weak to master his gifts, for not being strong enough to keep them when their value could produce their freedom.

She held his gaze, trying to navigate the stormy grey of his eyes to find the secrets buried within them. The sinking feeling that started in her gut spilled out onto the floor, threatening to steal the floor out from beneath her. She had left her most prized possession in the hand of a man she barely knew, knowing that it was Hansel's only chance to get his powers under control. Really looking at him now in the muted glow of torch light, he didn't look like a man that had a gift under control; he looked remorseful, like he had somehow personally failed her. Her heart started to pound as her brain tried to reconcile the facts as she knew them. Hansel was a danger to himself and those around him if his abilities were left unchecked. Kapsar had promised to help him with that, offering safety until Hansel demonstrated control yet here her brother was, looking anything but a master of his heritage.

"Hansel, what happened?" She was hesitant to ask, afraid of one more chip against them.

"Gretel, I tried… I…" The words got caught behind the lump in his throat as her fingers slipped from his to dance up his hand on their path to his shoulder when they stopped abruptly at the tattered remains of the cloth he had tied around his wrist. He desperately wanted to pull his hand back as she began to unwrap the fabric but she needed to see the monster he had become, even if he couldn't bear to see the disappointment in her eyes.

The cloth slipped off his wrist as easily as it went on, no longer strong enough to contain the lie Hansel was trying to perpetrate. For a moment he forgot how to breathe, his eyes cast down unable to watch disappoint over take his sister's smile.

Her hand hovered over the mark for a moment before swiping over the skin. Harder and harder she rubbed, trying to remove the stain but it refused to budge. "What did you do?" she demanded, fear and anger putting more of a bite in her words.

Before he could answer the door to his cage was forcibly removed and rough hands wrapped around him yanking him from his captivity. Gretel could only look on in horror as two warriors latched onto his arms holding him securely in place in front of their queen. The queen's head dipped in close to his neck as she took a long whiff of the exposed skin, switching to her sense of taste as her chin reached his jaw line. Her tongue slithered from his chin to his ear as she reassured herself of her earlier findings. Hansel struggled in the tight grip of his captors trying to put any sort of distance between him and the lead Lamiae, but their claws refused to allow him to move and inch.

"So it's not a trick," the queen hissed, her fingers seductively making their way from the top of his head to his chest. "I had been promised the feast of a lifetime and now I find you severely wanting. You're just another mongrel now, a deliciously handsome one, but useless to me none the less."

"My queen," interrupted a Lamiae walking into the room. She bowed her head in submission upon standing before her queen. Raising it, brought her features under the full scrutiny of the flickering torch, giving Hansel a very clear and up close encounter with what Gretel had been talking about. This wasn't a Lamiae standing before but a teenage girl, her skin a patchwork of silver, like the scales on a snake. Her hands were gnarled with the razor sharp claws of the Lamiae erupting from her fingers, while one eye was swollen and oozing as swirls of purple wormed their way through the white parts of her eye.

The queen snarled but didn't shift her piercing eyes off of the hunter. "Kaspar wishes to speak with you."

A twisted grin carved through the menacing marble of the queen's face as her eyes danced with delight. "All of my problems and disappointments in one place. Bring him and her," she ordered, turning to Gretel left forgotten in her cage. "I could use some entertainment this evening to make up for what has been denied to me."

The queen stalked out of the room, her warriors obediently following with the siblings firmly in their grasps.