For a moment no one spoke and Will held his breath.

"Rose?"

"Where did you find those?" Kate cut in, pointing to the heels. The newcomer carefully placed them on the table, breathing heavily.

"In the pod," he wheezed. "It stalled just before I got in though, I thought we were working on the power problems."

"I am," Tesla snapped.

"Rose? What's going on?" Declan panted, apparently only just realising that it wasn't the usual gang gathered before him. "Why are you here?"

"What's in your hand, Dec?" she asked softly, eyes fixed on his clenched fist. Refocusing his eyes Will noticed something poking out between the other man's fingers. Declan looked down briefly, grabbing the shoes before hurrying around to Rose. The fact that the two had met didn't surprise Will in the slightest but the hand that rubbed soothing circles in the centre of Rose's back did. His hackles rose at the intimate gesture but he couldn't figure out why and it only grew worse as Rose leant into the touch, giving Declan a warm smile before plucking whatever was in his hand from his grasp.

Quickly her eyes scanned the contents of what turned out to be a note. The paper was thick, of the kind of quality Magnus kept on hand a lot of the time. He could just make out some black cursive across the page through the small gaps in their bodies but Rose shook her head.

"It was tucked into the shoes," Declan said as she passed the paper to the nearest Head of House, leaning forward to pick up one of the shoes gingerly. She inspected it carefully before looking back up to Declan.

"They're her size."

"Magnus was wearing them this morning," Kate put in quietly, causing everyone to turn and look at her. "They matched her top. I gave her a hard time about how painful they looked."

"I saw her in them too," Phillip, the South African said. The note was making its way around the table, each Head taking their time to puzzle over it. One or two sniffed it, another licked the corner before grimacing and even Mandy closed her eyes as if trying to pick up something from the paper alone.

"Who was the last to see her?" Rose asked quickly, looking around the room. Her eyes landed on Will briefly and he was fairly certain a small blush rose in her cheeks at the action. Then he risked a glance to Abby and his heart jumped into his throat. Her expression was more thunderous than Magnus' on a really, really bad day. Just what he needed, an angry girlfriend. Because dealing with a possibly dead boss wasn't enough.

No one answered, each looking pointedly at someone else.

Rose sighed.

"Henry?" Declan cut in swiftly, "Can you get the security feeds up?"

"On it," Tesla said gruffly and Henry quickly made his way across to the computers. Both men worked silently for a moment before a holographic screen sprung up in the middle of the table, the cube displaying the footage from some corridor to everyone in the room. They watched as Magnus strolled down the corridor, her royal blue heels matching the silky top she wore, just as Kate had said. On her face she wore a small smirk and in her hand was a tiny cell phone that she kept toying with. The perspective changed to follow her down another corridor and this time a soft hum filtered through the rather patchy sound.

"Why is Magnus humming?" Henry asked, sounding utterly confused but no one answered him, instead watching her progression through the corridors until she began to slow, glancing to her phone with another secret smile. Turning, she reached for a door knob and then the image on the screen flickered to black for all of a nano second. When the picture resumed, the corridor was empty, the door she'd opened swinging in the breeze.

"How the hell does she just disappear?" Daniel growled, eyes flashing brilliant red with his anger.

"What happened to the screen?" Mandy put in.

"Ze are right," Anya drawled. "Zere is somesing wrong wiz ze cameras."

"No, no the camera's are fine," Henry said distractedly, scratching his head. "I mean... It's... I think it's the power surges that keep knocking them out."

"They're on a completely separate grid," Tesla spat, shooing away Henry as he took over the rapid typing. "Any surges shouldn't have this effect."

"Which means it's deliberate," Declan said, looking down to Rose once more in question.

"It's bad, Dec," she whispered, swallowing before turning back to the group.

The note, having made it around the table once was now offered to Will. He stood slowly and took it from Paisley as she offered it to him. The woman smiled softly, sadness in her eyes and Will tried to return the gesture. She was his occasional drinking buddy since they'd come down here, having found of a fan of Guinness in her. They spent evenings sitting in one of the only bars Magnus had thought to create, drinking, joking and with Will watching as she hit on the abnormal he suspected was actually her long term girlfriend considering the way they always ended up walking out hand in hand. Will wasn't one to question anyone else's sexual games and put it down to just another quirk of working with such a varied group of people.

He nodded in thanks and took the note, returning to his seat and sinking into it before opening the note.

"Has anyone else had problems with power?" Rose was asking the group. "Anything that doesn't make sense?"

Will paid no attention to her, instead running his fingers over the smooth, thick paper. It had only one message, nothing on the other side. Only the words 'For Vienna' marked the page in black scrawl that belonged to a different era. It meant nothing to Will so he shrugged, passing the note to Kate who still sat next to him before turning his attention back to the table.

"Could this mean someone has taken her?" Sandra asked.

"No," Rose said quickly, cutting off any other talk. "If she was taken I'd be able to hear her still."

"Maybe they blocked you?" Declan offered.

"How?" Rose countered. "No one has been able to do so for centuries and I highly doubt there are any vampires left on this planet. I'd have sensed them before now. No one is thinking of her outside of this city. No one is plotting torture or trying to keep her hidden. There is no mention of her in anyone's mind!" By the end of her tirade Rose was red in the face, hands balled as she glared at those seated around the table as if daring them to contradict her.

"Let's try and stay hopeful," Declan said softly, his hand once more rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. "We don't know anything yet."

"Yeah, we should find out more about what is messing with the camera's first," Mandy put in, flashing the other woman a small smile.

"I thought the Serb was working on it," Samuel said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to where Tesla was working in the corner. "I mean, the power issues and everything."

"I was," Tesla countered through gritted teeth. "However designing a method to stabilise and regulate the power of a facility this size is a rather sizable task, one I'm simply dying to see you take on."

Samuel rolled his eyes but Will caught Rose's smirk at her friends behaviour.

"Here, I have a question," Daniel put in. "Where was Magnus going?"

"That's our residential wing," Will put in. "The door she was opening was to her bedroom."

"Having a nap in the middle of the day?" Declan asked sceptically. "That doesn't sound like our Magnus."

"She wasn't going to have a nap," Tesla said, sounding exasperated. "Did no one see the phone in her hand?"

"Well why was she going to her room to make a call?" Will countered. Then the vampire did something completely unexpected. He blushed. Well, as close to blushing as the undead could get, Will supposed. He looked down sheepishly, avoiding everyone's gaze as he cleared his throat.

"Shewassupposedtocallme."

Will's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"What?"

"When we spoke yesterday she said she'd call me around 11am," the other man admitted, still not meeting Will's eye.

"Why?" Henry asked, cocking his head. "You send reports every few days. Was there something new? Did you figure it out?"

At that Tesla looked distinctly uncomfortable, his eyes flicking to Rose momentarily before he was fiddling with the cuffs of his suit once more.

Rose sighed and shook her head, a tiny smile flirting with the corner of her lips.

"We were just... going to chat," Tesla said, sounding embarrassed beyond belief that he had scheduled a phone call with Magnus. Will couldn't figure out why he seemed so uncomfortable but a small voice in his head told him not to push the issue. It took him a second to realise that the voice was in fact Rose. There was an interesting blend of joy, curiosity and down-right jealousy in her mental tone, giving him even more reason to not inquire after the phone call that never happened.

Will shook his head and turned back to Rose, trying not to think about his boss and secret phone calls to the man who'd been actively pursuing her for the better part of a century.

"Well that doesn't leave us with much," Declan said, brow furrowing.

"Perhaps we could all send out some feelers?" Cassandra suggested. "See if anyone has heard about any planned attacks on us? Or even to see if people think she's still alive."

"This better not be another faked death," Kate muttered angrily under her breath and Rose actually chuckled at that.

"While I appreciate that you'd all like to believe that Helen is alive and well... I want you all to know that I fully intend to exact whatever revenge-."

"Oh."

Everyone turned, looking to the man who had interrupted Rose's adamant speech with such a simple phrase.

"Oh," Tesla said again, eyes not straying from the note that had finally made it to his hands. He looked up, straight at Rose.

He walked slowly towards her, ducking around to pick up one of her shoes. He looked at the shoe for a moment before rereading the note.

"Oh."

"What have you done now?" Will asked, the tension around his heart dissipating slightly. Perhaps this was just some hinkey project Tesla had accidentally left running and now Magnus was perfectly safe but trapped in... in another dimension or something. It was Tesla, God only knew what kind of madness that man could create.

"Technically, not my fault," Tesla said, frowning in Will's direction. "But, I, ah... I think I know why she's disappeared?"