I threw off the covers and bounded out of bed.

Well, if I was going to be here, I was going to get shit done. I tried not to think about the fact that moving faster would not hasten my freedom from this place. If I were smart, I would be doing some fast adjustment to my new forever-home. I'd get used to the vaulting darkness and the deep wood and the golden lamps…

I quickly brushed this line of thought aside. Curse another time. Freeing Warren and raising support in the meantime. I didn't have to think hard about that course of action. What was left of Tiernan was too terrifying to allow control of the faerie throne, regardless of how I disliked the end result.

I bolted to the closet, swinging it open. It seemed unfazed by my haste: it provided a line of swim suits. I laughed flatly at it. "Aren't you having fun today? So what will I really need to wear to meet my estranged family, asshole." I was surprised by the caustic tone of my own voice. The wardrobe squeaked disapprovingly.

I sighed heavily and rested my hands on top of it. "I'm sorry," I admitted grudgingly. "Shouldn't take my annoyance out on you." I felt my throat catch. Damn. I wouldn't cry because I had been overly mean to the fucking furniture. Besides, the swim suits had been a bit too cheeky. The wardrobe caved its doors around me in the strangest facsimile of a hug. "Thank you." I whispered too it. I was honestly so tired of throwing vitriol around. It was as exhausting as the sadness I used it to hide.

"Miss?" Marie called to me. "You may wish to check the door before you rush off to your family."

My grip clenched on the roof of the closet and then I took a deep breath and counted to ten. "You're kidding me. Ah – wardrobe? Would you let me go." The moment I was released I calmed walked to the door and jiggled the handle.

"Locked." I said the word numbly to myself. "Well, that's one more thing to figure out." I feigned a deep calm I didn't feel. This was just another item on a grocery list, nothing to be alarmed about. I robotically turned to the bathroom and walked in to face Marie.

I leaned on the counter before her. "Okay, anything else you'd like to share? Any more nuggets of wisdom from the future?"

If a mirror could purse her lips and shake her head, Marie somehow did it with her silence. I growled. "Oh, so you couldn't wait to talk when it came to the scary dragged into the water scene but now! Now you're silent. Well fine." I reached over the counter and pulled her off the wall. Marie screeched in indignation.

"Madame –"

"Nuh uh. You listen here. Either help me or I'm sticking you into some corner to collect dust." I was so done, and I wasn't going to play games with Marie or deal with her selective tongue.

Marie was silent and then she said, "I'm not infallible but I have a feeling that you ought to wait until you have had two visitors to leave the room to find your family. That's all I have right now."

I crumpled on to the bed and sighed in relief. "Thank you, Marie. I'll put you back into the –"

"Actually, if I could sit on the armoire for a while?" She requested this sheepishly and I studied her. "It's just… I've never actually seen this part of the room. It's a lovely change of pace."

I was about to say that I was of course glad to move her and that was more than alright when I heard a knock on the door. "Gladly, just be quiet, please?" Marie made a hm of agreement and I rushed to place her on the armoire before the doors swung open.

Through them strode a furious Rowan. I braced myself and ducked her furious advance, rushing towards the open door which promptly slammed shut. Well, there went a possible slightly advanced escape.

I saw the fire sparking at her fingertips when she turned to face me. "You promised to get away."

"I had no choice in the matter!" I responded reflexively. "I want nothing more than to be anywhere else! Talk to Tiernan, he was the one who dragged me here!"

She didn't seem to hear me. At Tiernan's name, her anger flared and she hurled a fireball at me with a growl. I dove aside, narrowly missing the thing.

I scrambled to my feet and tried to feel for her magic like I had managed to do with Arion. It was much harder to focus in the real world. I kept barely getting a beeline on it before she'd hurl another flame and I threw myself into another part of the room.

"Shit! Marie! Get help!" I yelped as I threw myself across the bed and landed poorly on the other side. Rowan stalked her way around the bed and I finally looked closely at the woman.

The look in her eyes was wild. She felt like a woman who had been stripped down to nothing more than a raw nerve. She had been nothing but cruelty when I had met her before, but there had been a courtly fury to her. This was gone: what was now left was little more than a festering sore.

Moments later, the doors flew open for a second time and Rowan was pulled out by guardsmen. "No!" Rowan howled. "No! I will not allow her to steal Tiernan away from me!" I heard her voice soften from where I stayed behind the bed, not wanting to confront who I suspected had come with the guardsmen. "Tiernan, please," was the most I could decipher.

"Later, my dear. Now go rest. I'll deal with her for the mean time." I heard him say. There was the wet sound of a kiss before I heard footsteps receding from my room. "Grace, my dear, do come out."

I froze. I wanted to burrow under the bed and just say fuck it. The icy tones in his voice slid under my skin. I took a breath and stood, raising my chin in my most superior manner. It was all I could do not to recoil from the feeling of something licking against my skin when I saw Tiernan.

"I am surprised at you Grace. Calling for help? With your mirror none the less? How unlike you." He stalked towards me and I had the sinking realization that short of leaping up over the bed, I was trapped in this corner.

I decided to hold my ground and shrugged nonchalantly. "Not enough room to properly evade her and dance." I thought it would be best if he remained unaware of my new skills. It was a paltry advantage seeing as that was something I could debatably do, but I hoped it would be enough. "Besides, I didn't want your little treehouse burning up."

"Mm." He continued his slow prowl. He considered Marie on the armoire. "An interesting little mirror." He mused to no one in particular. Then his eyes cast themselves back to me. I loathed the way my skin crawled. I locked my jaw and started a stream of internal cussing. The more I directed the curses at the prince the better I felt.

He smiled at me, something which did little to calm my lurching stomach. I could have been sick and I tried not to show it. I could practically feel the color sinking away from my cheeks though. He reached for my face, snapping out to grab my chin. I shrieked and grabbed his wrist, preparing to my best to break as many of his bones as possible before he could do whatever he planned. His hand slipped down towards my jaw and neck so he could get a better purchase on me.

"Stop!" I almost couldn't believe my ears when Marie's voice broke into the silence.

Tiernan halted his movement which gave me time to loosen his grip and slip away to the other side of the bed. The prince glared at the mirror. "What?" He said, voice dangerous soft.

Marie was quiet now. She dared not respond under that gaze. "Leave her be," I called out, hating myself. I didn't want that focus on me. I also couldn't bring myself – pain that she was – to wish that look upon Marie. She may be a bit foolish and silly, but not deserving of Tiernan's wrath. My words weren't enough to draw him away. He reached towards the mirror.

That was more than enough. I stomped on the floor and raised my arm regally; an unmistakable start to a military style dance. His whole body was jerked away from her, so that he was forced to look at me. His snarl raised my courage. He could be shaken.

Not for long, however. He stiffly righted himself and gave me a stiff grin. I saw the glint of mischief in his eye. I should have continued my dance and hurled him out of the goddamn room.

He flicked his fingers and Marie was flung across the room. She shattered with a choked wail. My heart lurched for her. I screamed and lurched towards her only to find myself locked in place. I wanted to throw it aside, to rush to her. I felt the dance of his magic easily, I knew I could just tear it to tatters.

"Not yet," Marie whimpered. I knew she spoke to me. Tiernan just laughed, probably taking it as her dying words. I just had to get him out of the damn room and I could have the liberty to fix her.

"You bastard," I said through gritted teeth. I didn't have to fake my anger.

"Be kind, Grace." His lips curled maliciously.

"Leave my room." I growled. "You have no right –"

He was suddenly in my space and put his finger to my lips. "I have every right." He declared icily. "Don't forget that that," he gestured towards Marie, "Is what happens when you are insolent." I met his eyes, searing my anger into his gaze. His eyes softened into a leer. "But I will leave. I look forward to our next meeting. Tonight. Perhaps you would do me the kindness of being more malleable."

It was not an option. But he strode through the door and they closed as he passed through them. I felt my body relax and from than moment I bolted to Marie's side.

I scrambled for the right dance. It needed to mend, it needed to make her whole. She hadn't deserved this but Marie softly said, "No, no, no," in a moan until she managed the word "Look." I jerked to a stop.

"But, you need fixing." I cried.

"Fffffffffffffine," she sighed. "Tired. Look," Marie breathed.

I gazed into her shards – the three largest of which showed scattered images. I walked down a corridor with a pool at the end. I was not dragged in. I dived in. That section went dark. I gazed at the other two, one flashing an image of Heart with a shade standing behind her. Another showing a wine glass with a crown seated around it. These too went dark after flickering kaleidoscopically. "Thank you," I whispered for her last gift of an attempt at a helpful vision.

My throat caught. "Marie, I'm..." I hadn't saved her. Even trying to tell myself that she hadn't wanted to keep going on didn't make my failure easier. I'd barely known her, but she hadn't deserved that fate. Anger lit in me like a furnace.

"Fuck this," I declared. I turned to the door and felt for the lock. I grabbed to enchantment, a delicate little thing. I felt it spin, like a complicated couples dance. So I moved with it, keeping my movements intentional, swinging through its patterns as it demanded until I soon heard it click and the door creaked open.

I nodded at the door. I couldn't do anything for Marie, but I could get started on my tasks. The first seemed fairly clear: I had to find Heart. To do what, I didn't know. The second, I was mulling over in my mind. I had to find the passage with the pool at the end and dive in. Fine, I could roll with that. The final: the wine and the crown evaded me. It was likely allegorical and she had a margin for error so for all I knew that could be a combination of signs that would make sense later.

I prayed that they would make sense later. I prayed that they wouldn't be like the wild conglomeration of futures that Marie had presented to me the first time she had "shared" her gift.

I decided not to think too long about it. Things couldn't get much more out of hand, and I was having a major 'fuck it' sort of day. With my renewed boldness I decided to go for the more absurd of the two tasks set before me.

"Let's go, scary fucking hallway. Ready or not, here I come." I walked through the door and I was off.