"Well, we're here," Terrence reported, the first through the cave's gaping entranceway. Asha and Tink were close behind, Tink with the map (a gift left behind by Scarab during the group's hasty exit) and Asha twirling her quilled spear as she flanked the both of them. "It seems really quiet though," he added, sticking his head back out to meet them. "Wasn't there supposed to be a dragon guarding this place?"

"Kyto," Asha confirmed, nodding. "Banished by Queen Starlight and sent here to guard the fifth and most powerful of the bracelets. Not a pleasant creature to deal with. I'd say your friend must have been extremely lucky that he wasn't here. Which, of course, begs a more important question-"

"Where is Kyto now?" Tink interrupted. "And what happened to Bobble and Scarab?"

"Well, I can say they were definitely here," Asha went on, side-stepping around the two blonds and swiftly moving toward broken shackles firmly molded into the farthest wall from the light. "All of them. And wherever they went, they took the bracelet with them. What I don't understand is where they would have gone with Kyto."

"Something happened," Terrence called. "Over here," he added, pointing to several scorch marks lining the stone floor all around them. "And here. I think...yeah, Tink, this was definitely Bobble's power. But I don't think he was the only one."

"It's Shade," Asha agreed. "I recognize those burns. They're full of anger and vengeance. Each is distinct. A dragonstouch is a reflection of a Protector's innermost thoughts, feelings, and desires; who they really are inside."

"And you can tell the difference just by looking?"

"Of course," she replied. "My strongest talent is scout. I could spot danger from a mile away. And this, right here," she pointed to the marks, "spells out danger on so many levels."

"And what does that tell you?" Terrence asked. "How does that help us find the others?"

"Because," Asha said with a long sigh, already turning away from them and looking out past the forest to something that neither of the younger fairies could see. "They left the mountain by two different means; magic and dragon-back. This tells me exactly which way they went."

An unsteady rhythm of rain clunked against the rocks, soaking up the silence and sending it flying back into his ears. It sounded like it was above him, drawing ever-so-closer with each passing moment, ringing through every inch of the cave and rattling through his throbbing headache.

"Uh, Scarab? He's not waking up, you know. It's been over an hour. Exactly how hard did you hit him?"

Footsteps stormed through his head, dull at first but rapidly growing into a symphony of pain. He grimaced, struggling and wishing the ache away. He couldn't open his eyes, the ringing in his skull was too intense. Blood was rushing to his head and he felt light...too light.

He was upside down.

There was movement again. Someone was kneeling down in front of him now. Hands cupped his face, deceptively tender, but he could feel the boiling evil underneath the surface. He only wished he had seen it earlier, before he had wound himself up in this whole mess.

He refused to move, hardly daring to breathe as the moments dragged on. He didn't know what the Protector was searching for. A pulse? A flicker of conscious thought? Something clicked inside his head; an unexplainable sensation he could not begin to describe, and Scarab shifted away in surprise.

That was it. She was trying to read his mind.

Immediately he tried to force all of the fear and the anxiety away. Play dead, play dead, he silently willed. Nothing at all going on in here. Nope. Go back to sleep, brain. Blank emptiness. Head full of air now, please. That only seemed to increase his terror, his heart thumping his betrayal, and Scarab chuckled, her hands falling away and the weight in front of him shifting backward to join her counterpart.

"He's faking," she sneered. "He can hear every word that we're saying."

Now she was back, crouching down and getting much too close for comfort. "Open your eyes, Phineas. You can't hide from us forever. We're not one of your stupid dreams. We aren't going to disappear."

He squirmed, fighting to escape, but his wings were pinned to his back, his arms were bound by some kind of thick restraint, and his legs were roped together as well. He couldn't budge. He could barely breathe.

"Oh, would you look at that," Shade joined in now, his voice placing him somewhere off to the left of the cave. "Scarab, I think he's scared. Oh, he is. Not so haughty and tough without your friends here to save you, are you, sparrowman?"

"Phineas, Phineas, Phineas," Scarab sighed. She moved and now she leaned to whisper in his ear. "When I told you to run away and take the bracelets with you, I expected you would listen to me. You should have done as I said. You could have saved yourself from all of this. But no," she laughed, standing back up and stepping tauntingly away. "You had to be the hero that no one asked for. You came all this way to save me. It's touching, really. I didn't need you to save me, but I'm glad that you came, Phin. Truely, I am. And you know why I am glad? Can you guess yet?"

He tensed but said nothing. He didn't know what to say and no words would come, pinned in his throat by the petrifying fear and nausea from hanging by his feet for such a long time.

"Tsk tsk," the animal-talent jeered, fully indulging in the tinker's anguish and enjoying it. "I thought you were more clever than this, Bobble. I thought you of all fairies would have figured it out by now. The whole plan. The reason for all of this deception and misery. You know why we did it, don't you? Why don't you tell us?"

He bit his tongue sharply. Yes, he did know why they had done it. Scarab had told him why herself, but that didn't make it right and there was no way he was going to say anything to either one of them, especially not when he had been practically on his head for who-knows how long.

"Hmmph, not very talkative tonight, are we?" Shade grunted.

"For the first time since I've met him," Scarab agreed. "It's astounding. Usually, he doesn't know how to shut up. And I do believe I told you to open your eyes, Phin. Face us or we'll do it for you."

He was trembling. He knew it and he was sure she could see as well. There was no way to mask his fear anymore. This was it. It was all over. He'd been betrayed by the most treacherous of means with no hope of escape, subject to just hanging and waiting for them to decide his fate.

Worst of all, no one else knew he was here. When it was all over, when the two finished hiding his body, Scarab would undoubtedly go back to the Hollow claiming that Kyto had somehow been the cause of his unfortunate demise and that there had been nothing she could have done to save him. Shade would use the bracelets to...to what? To bring himself back fully to the realm of the living? He was close, undoubtedly, and Bobble truthfully had no idea how, but it would not take much for him to cross back over.

He had a horrible feeling that it was part of the reason he was here.

"Do it," Scarab snapped. "For once in your life, do what you're told."

He obeyed, letting the world slowly spin into focus. He was indeed upside down, giving him an almost perfect view of Scarab's shoes. Struggling to distinguish the light bursts exploding in his eyes, he twisted, finding Shade leaning against a stalagmite to his left, his body glitching in and out of focus, a smug grin plastered across his face.

"Why..." he croaked, his throat raw but the hurt and dismay impossible to miss. "Trusted...ye...wh...y...?"

Everything swirled out of focus, black seeping around the edges of his vision. Exhausted, he drew a broken breath, the rest of his question lost as he started to sink back into oblivion. The bracelets were gone, their power siphoned from his body, leaving him drained and weakened to the point of uselessness.

He was useless.

Helpless.

Just like he always was.

Not good enough.

Not strong enough.

"Why?" Scarab spat. "You want to know why? You have no idea what it was like for us! The first of our kind! Misunderstood! Hated! Treated like curses! No one understood how it felt to have all of these powers; all of these abilities, just welling up inside, too powerful to control, too untamable to master. No, all the other fairies cared about was how we were going to help them. How we were so special because we could do everything that they dreamed of. They didn't care about us! They didn't care about our magic! They were greedy and selfish. They didn't accept us! They were never going to accept us!"

"So we made them accept us," Shade cut in. "We showed them that we were so much more than just pawns for their petty games."

"We destroyed the Hollow," Scarab growled. "We made them see the mistake they had made; and how do they repay us? By blocking our names out of the history books; by making it look like we never existed! That Protectors were never real! They wanted to 'protect the others' they said, but they weren't protecting anyone! They were only trying to silence us! So, we silenced them first."

"Asha was the first," Shade said, stepping forward now and counting them off on his fingers.

Scarab snorted. "She was naive anyway, so eager and excited to go out and explore the world. She didn't make it more than a day. Her boyfriend, Scorpion, however, was much more difficult to...persuade. I think he suspected us, but I played him, just as I played you. It was simple really. You are all the same. I just had to find what it was he wanted and the rest was easy."

"And then there was Willow and Falcon."

"Ugh, yes, them," Scarab groaned. "I'd almost forgotten about those two. Garden and animal, was it? A bit more promising. I offered them a chance to join us, but for some reason, they felt it would be betraying the Hollow...so I had to destroy them as well. And then the spell was almost complete." She glanced back to Shade. "After the Hollow betrayed us, Shade got...hurt. Badly. I swore I would do whatever it took to bring him back. I tried everything. Nothing worked. No matter what I tried, I could not bring back the dead. And then I found it. One way to save a life taken away too soon."

"A Duality Spell..." Bobble breathed. Oh no...

"Exactly," Scarab's eyes gleamed. "A special spell that only the most desperate of fairies can perform, the act of actually ripping one's soul in half to save another; a magic not without its risks. But you know all about that, don't you? After all, I helped you do it."

No...

"Unfortunately, my spell did not work the way it was intended," she went on. "Perhaps it was because my soul was already too tainted with the taste of vengeance, but Shade was not cured. But it gave me an idea; if one soul could be split to save a life; how much stronger could a fairy become with the lifeforce of more? And it worked! He's almost here now!" She beamed up at the taller fairy. "Five souls, that's all it would take and Shade would be back for good!" And then she frowned. "But Clarion and Spurn grew too clever for us. Clarion suspected me from the start, refusing to even set foot in the Haven-the place where my power is the greatest-and I was only able to partially corrupt Spurn before I lost my opportunity. His sister was far too protected. I could never go after her without raising suspicions and forcing our existence back into the light. And that was that, the last of the Protectors. Just one shy of success. But then you arrived; the anomaly, the one that not even we could understand and we realized we had one final chance."

Bobble gulped.

"But we would have to be much more careful this time. Clarion had connected the dots between the fairies who were sent for me to train and the lack of Protectors returning to the Hollow. She made sure you would never know about our existence. She lied to you; made you think you were the only one, so that way I would never be able to reach you. But that plan failed. For some reason I cannot explain, the balance shifted and for the first time in three hundred years, I sensed the arrival of a new magic-bearer. And you were perfect." She laughed. "So trusting and so stupid. You didn't know me, but you didn't even suspect that I might have ulterior motives. You really thought I wanted to atone for my past mistakes and so I played my role perfectly and you walked right into my snare. Clarion didn't save you at all, in fact, she only made it all the easier to trap you.

"A-and the b-bracelets?" he gasped. "W-why them? My...my powers were...gone...the fire...the visions...why...any of this?"

"Ah, now isn't that a clever question!" she exclaimed. "You see; I lied to you about that as well! The bracelets don't just contain immense power as I lead you to believe, they are the source of all Protector magic! They can, as I said, drain a fairy-multi-talented or not-of their abilities...but their very will to live as well. You thought you were using them to fight back against untamable magic, but in reality, you were only giving us more and more of your power every time you held them, draining you until you had nothing left. And we were so close! Only a little more and we would have succeeded. You just needed to hold on to them a little longer."

"So...w-when ye told me to run..."

"You would have flown back to the Hollow," she confirmed. "And by the time you had gotten there, you would have been powerless and Shade would have had all he needed to return. I really am sorry, Bobble. I didn't want it to be you. I tried to warn you. I tried to save you, but you didn't listen to me. You chose to be a hero instead. Noble, but stupid. I should have expected nothing less of you, Phin, but now you leave me no choice. I didn't want to hurt you, but now you know too much. Shade?"

"With pleasure," the sparrowman agreed, stepping up beside her, the bracelets already in position.

"Wait, no!" Bobble cried, struggling wildly against the vines restraining him. "Stop! No! Don't do this, please! What about the Hollow? Don't ye want to show the Hollow how important Protectors are?!"

"Oh, we plan to," Scarab admitted. "But we don't need you for that. You've already served your purpose perfectly."

The bracelets sparkled to life and he cried out, fighting with everything he had, thrashing for the freedom that he needed. "NO!" he begged. "No, don't!"

"Goodbye, Phineas."

Light exploded from the season's symbols and he screamed as the magic encompassed him, hotter than fire and stronger than a thousand hammers blistering across his body and ripping every ounce of magic from his being. There was a sound of pure terror and it was a long moment before he realized that they were his own shrieks. He squeezed his eyes shut as the pain threatened to suffocate him. He felt so weak...

So empty...

So cold...

And then there was silence.

The light abruptly faded and he waited, expecting to feel nothing at any moment.

But no, the pain was still there, raging across his body, so what had happened? Why had everything stopped?

A gust of wind whizzed past his face and the loud clatter of metal hitting the ground rattled through his pounding head.

"NO!" Scarab screamed suddenly. "What do you think you're DOING?"

Wait...what?

"Uh," came the snide and very familiar voice from across the room, so angry and determined that Bobble would have laughed if he had the strength. He knew that voice! He would know it anywhere! "I believe it's called stopping you."