Weiss had spent her entire childhood wishing her senses were different. Now, for the first time in her life, she wished they were sharper. Her scroll's flashlight cut only the tiniest sliver from the gloom.

"Is he close?" her father hissed at her. "Can you see—"

"No."

She couldn't smell much, either. All her nose seemed willing to tell her at the moment was that part of the building was very much on fire. So she dragged her father through the halls as quickly as she dared, heading directly for Klein's office, which was closest.

The door was ajar. The room itself, silent. Weiss pushed inside, her heart in her throat, and found it empty. As empty as the hallways—no sign of any staff or security. The former had hopefully fled. The latter...

"What are you doing now? He isn't here, and you damned well—"

Weiss shushed him. The sharp tang of Dust was stronger here, but she thought she could sense Klein underneath it. He'd been here recently. She whipped her head to one side and crept further down the hall, keeping to the carpeted center to muffle her footsteps. Father trailed after her, cowed by the hint that one of the intruders might be nearby.

The smell led her past wide arched windows—through which she had an excellent view of the far side of the south wing in flames—and all the way to the very end of the hall, where a pair of fine double doors marked the entrance to her parents' bedroom. So-called despite the fact that neither of them had slept in there in over a decade. Her father preferred to be closer to his office, and her mother kept to a guest room that overlooked the garden. Muffled voices came from inside.

"If they aren't here, I'm afraid I can't help you," said Klein, who had known the whereabouts of the entire household at all times since before Weiss was born.

Weiss went for her sword—but the voice that responded to him didn't belong to Taurus. It was smoother, softer, with an edge to it that she recognized almost instantly even though she hadn't heard it in months. The woman who broke him out. "One more question, then, and you're free to go." Weiss froze with a hand poised at the doorknob. "Do any of the staff have one of these?"

"The pay here isn't so generous as to include jewelry, madam."

"Mm. And what about the children?"

"What about them?"

She laughed. "Defensive, aren't we? Do they own anything like this?"

"Necklaces? Of course." A pause. "Are you looking for a duplicate? You'd be hard-pressed to find anything in yellow, here. It isn't their color."

"No? I think it would suit them."

Heels clicked. Weiss shot back from the door with her heart in her throat, grabbed her father by his tie, and dragged him behind a set of floor-to-ceiling curtains. The feeble light of her scroll flicked off. She could see faintly through the pale blue fabric—the intruder's footsteps glowed cherry red wherever her heels struck the floor. Weiss held her breath for a second... two... praying that this woman didn't have any heightened senses.

She walked past them without a second glance.

Weiss had to force father out from behind the curtain, once she was gone. "Klein?" she whispered. His head poked out of the room.

"Miss Schnee!"

Weiss grabbed his arm. "Come on. We need to get mother and Whit—"

"You cannot be serious!" Her father's voice nearly cracked with the effort of keeping below a shout. "That woman came within feet of us just now!"

"The garden is closer," said Klein.

Weiss hesitated for a moment, weighing her options. No way of knowing how good Taurus' senses were, or if hiding from him would even be possible—on the other hand, the house being on fire seemed to call for speed over stealth. So she summoned the knight and rushed for the stairs, taking them two at a time, moving just slowly enough to not leave father and Klein behind. Her summon kept up the rear.

The smell of smoke sharpened once they hit the ground floor. Weiss hurtled around a corner blind. In the yawning blackness further ahead, two twin points of gold burned like fallen stars. Her father clutched at his chest, falling against a vase and toppling it to the floor.

"Calm down," she hissed. "It's just Blake."

Neither that, nor the brief but fierce hug Blake gave her, seemed to reassure him. Frankly, seeing her alone didn't do wonders for Weiss' blood pressure either. "Where are the others?"

"Just back there." Blake nodded in the direction of the garden. "We found your mom. Or... she found us, really."

And there they were, just down the hall, tucked into a little alcove. Mother was clinging to Yang's arm. The instant they came in view, she dropped it and threw herself at Weiss. This hug went on much too long—it starting at all had been too much, really. Weiss disengaged as quickly as she could.

"Am I the only one who thinks we should be getting out of here?" father demanded.

She rolled her eyes. "No. We should split up."

Ruby looked to Blake. "Can you find your way back outside?"

"Easily."

"Okay. So you and Yang can get the rest of Weiss' family out of here and contact the police or the military or whoever. Weiss and I will find her brother."

Weiss nodded—but before she could take more than half a step towards the concert hall, her mother grabbed her arm. She bristled. "What?"

"I can't just..."

Her voice shook so badly that Weiss couldn't bring herself to stay annoyed. Feathers that had puffed up defensively lay flat again. "I'll find him. I promise."

"I almost lost you."

"I'm fine. Neither of them ever saw us."

"No. I... not that."

"Oh." A loaded pause stuck in the back of her throat, an echo of the terse silence that had fallen between them at the restaurant. What was she supposed to say? That she wasn't so sure about almost?

Whitley didn't have time for this.

"We can deal with that later, just focus on staying safe. I don't want you to get hurt."

Yang gently chivied her mother along, following behind her father and Klein while Blake led the way. Weiss squared her shoulders and turned towards the deeper dark of the manor, with Ruby right beside her. They didn't speak—though she worried the knight's footsteps would give them away anyway.

Up a flight of stairs they went, turning a corner and sprinting down a hall that lead to the heart of the building. Weiss sniffed the air and jolted to a halt, throwing out an arm to stop Ruby. Her nose itched and burned. She edged backwards, hoping to circle around—but it was too late for that.

Her silhouette appeared from the deepest shadows, where the light from Ruby's scroll couldn't reach. Only an outline, traced in scarlet fire, her eyes glowing like embers. "Funny," she drawled, making a show of looking Weiss up and down. "All that bluster on the news, and here you are trailing after your so-called family like a whipped dog."

"Go," said Ruby. "I got this."

The woman laughed. "Eager to play the hero, are we? How old are you?"

Ruby unfurled Crescent Rose.

Arrows thudded into the floor at their feet. Ruby dove one way, and Weiss the other—she could feel the heat of the explosion at her back. Her knight spent itself in a final reckless charge to knock the intruder off balance while she bolted down the hall. By the time the woman recovered enough to snap her bow in half and drive twin swords through its chest, Weiss was already halfway around the corner, and Ruby had placed herself between them.

Darkness swallowed her. She crept along the carpeted part of the floor, not daring even to get out her own scroll for the light. If Taurus spotted her now...

Weiss had to pull her shawl up over her mouth and nose as she got closer. The stench of the fire was getting painfully intense, even here in the central part of the building. It was a little easier to breathe once she finally ducked through a set of double doors and emerged into a cavernous space—all the smoke had risen towards the ceiling, pooling over the skylight and obscuring the shattered moon behind a cloudy haze.

"Whitley?" The hush of the room swallowed her whisper. She crept towards the stage, fumbling her way between rows of seats, stumbling every step in the pitch dark. A deep breath in... and now that she was so close, she was certain. He was in here somewhere.

She groped her way up onto the stage. "Whitley?" she repeated, louder this time. "It's me."

"Weiss?"

She pulled out her scroll and turned on the light. And there he was—crammed behind the machinery that lifted the curtains, curled into a ball with his arms over his head. He flinched away from the light. "Turn it off!"

Pocketing her scroll, she found her way over to where he was and grabbed his arm. "Come on," she whispered. "I'm getting you out of here." She tugged, but he wouldn't move.

"I can't!"

"Yes, you can. My team are here with me, they're right outside. We just need to get out the back and then—"

"They were here! I heard her shoes and then they were talking and I can't—"

Her feathers stood on end. "They?"

Something hit the ground with a dull thud. As if it had dropped from one of the balconies. Weiss whirled around, brandishing her flashlight frantically. Shadows jumped out at her. The silhouette of the piano, a forgotten jacket draped over a chair out in the wings—and a man, standing in the aisle.

"Whitley," Weiss said, very carefully. "I need you to stand up now, and stay behind me." He did her one better—he grabbed the back of her shawl and clung there between her wings.

"I knew you'd come here."

Taurus walked slowly, deliberately, each footfall echoing in the vast concert hall. Weiss edged back, nudging Whitley along with one arm, brandishing her sword between them with the other.

"We saw you go inside. Cinder thinks you came crawling back to daddy."

"That's not why I came."

"I know."

She edged around the lip of the stage. Still, he didn't lunge—just kept walking closer, matching her speed, keeping the distance between them steady.

"You're here for our father, aren't you? He's not here."

"I can see that. But you're going to help me find him."

They'd switched positions, now—him standing on the stage, her backing down the aisle.

"Why would I do that? You tried to kill me last time we met."

"Don't act like you've never thought about it. Grabbing that lying throat and squeezing until his eyes pop... it wouldn't be hard."

I don't want him dead, she thought. I want him kneeling in a cell, his money gone, his connections broken, powerless and alone as he realizes just how deep a pit he's dug for himself.

But she shouldn't say that with the microphone on, and anyway there was no point encouraging Taurus. "I'm not a murderer."

"Of course not." He chuckled, and a chill went down her back. "She wouldn't like that, would she? She wants you housebroken. Like her, and her parents."

"Excuse me?" Weiss spat, so acidly that Whitley flinched.

"When she ran away, I didn't think she could sink any lower—but at least she never asked me to be some human's pet with her."

"Oh, spare me. You don't know anything about me. You don't know anything about Yang. And if you knew anything about Blake, then you'd have noticed she doesn't tolerate anyone who acts like he owns her."

He snarled and grabbed his sword. Weiss threw a glyph between them and shouted, "Run!"

Whitley bolted. She stayed right behind him, wincing as she felt Taurus tear through her barrier. They stumbled out the main doors of the concert hall and into the reception area. It was a little lighter in here, with windows unobscured by smoke, but the smell of the fire was much stronger.

"Left!" Weiss shouted, propelling Whitley down the hall where the scent was faintest. Another glyph shoved a suit of armor onto its side. Taurus swore as it came crashing down in front of him, then vaulted over it.

Whitley's foot snagged on carpeting, and he went down with a yelp. Weiss hauled him upright and then whirled to block a swing from Taurus, stumbling with each blow, struggling to track the movement of his sword in the dark. And then, all of a sudden, she wasn't. There was light behind her, and shadows that swung wildly across the floor as the source of it shook. "Whitley, keep running!"

The blade of Taurus' sword flashed red. Weiss blocked—and the force of the blow knocked her clean off her feet and into her brother, sending them both to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Whitley's scroll hit the wall and shattered. The light vanished.

Weiss rolled upright, grabbed Whitley, and took off in a dead sprint. The air turned thick and hazy. Whitley started to cough. She could hear Taurus' footsteps right behind them. They rocketed around a corner. One more hallway, and they could get out through a side door and—

She skidded to a stop, frozen in cold dread.

At the other end of the hall stood the other intruder—the woman he'd called Cinder. There was no sign of Ruby. Three arrows were already nocked in her bow. She drew back.

Weiss hurled Whitley through the nearest doorway and dove in after him. The explosion blew the door off its hinges and knocked them onto the staircase behind it. She dragged herself and Whitley back to their feet and set off, filling the air behind them with glyphs in a desperate bid for time.

They hit the landing one floor up. Weiss tried to rush out of the stairwell, but the door handle scalded her when she touched it. They kept going. The third floor was worse, with smoke pouring through the crack under the door. So they climbed all the way to the fourth and finally escaped the stairwell, raced down another hall, passed Winter's old room and then Weiss'.

Arrows flew. She pulled Whitley out of the way, but he hadn't been the target—they stuck in the ceiling, then detonated with a bang and a shower of rubble that blocked off the rest of the hallway. Dead end.

Cinder collapsed her bow into its twin blades and sauntered closer. Taurus followed, tapping his fingers against the grip of his sheathed sword.

"Stay back!"

"You could just leave, you know," drawled Cinder. "We don't have time to deal with you. Do we." She glared at Taurus, who sneered back.

"And Whitley?"

"It seems like a waste to make a second trip to kill him once he takes over the company." His grip on her shawl tightened. Weiss flared her wings, blocking him from their view.

"I won't let you do that. Fight me if you want, but you'll lose our father if you do." Whitley flinched. "Good luck convincing anyone in the White Fang to follow you after that."

"The White Fang are cowards and traitors," Taurus spat. "They abandoned me the moment I tried to strike a real blow against the Kingdoms."

"So you aren't working with them." Weiss looked at Cinder, wondering for the first time at her complete lack of visible traits. Ilia had been like that too, but—"Is she even a faunus?"

Cinder scoffed. "It's adorable that you think this world is kind to any children no one will miss."

"So, what? Someone was cruel to you and now you're out for revenge? Maybe it was father—I wouldn't be surprised. But unless my brother somehow wronged you as a toddler, then there's no reason for you to be here."

"Me?" Cinder tilted her head. "Is that what you think this is about? My, he did train you well. Here you are, ready to lay down your life to protect his scion like a good little pet."

Weiss flicked Myrtenaster's chamber to fire. "Funnily enough, I don't appreciate those comparisons from you any more than I do from him."

"You don't really expect us to believe that you love him, do you? Daddy's golden child? The little prince, handed everything he wants while you ripped yourself apart for scraps? Please. You might fool those friends of yours, maybe even yourself, but you won't fool me."

Whitley's grip on her shawl came loose. She grabbed his arm to keep him behind her—Cinder's weapon was still split apart, but Weiss had no idea how quickly she could switch to its bow form.

"Don't act like you never wondered." Cinder sauntered forward, heels clicking slow and steady, at odds with Weiss' heartbeat. "What it would be like if he wasn't there, sucking up everything you needed like a parasite..."

"I didn't know."

"Whitley, don't—!"

"It's not my fault!"

"What?"

"How was I supposed to help when nobody told me!" His voice cracked and wavered. Weiss whipped her head around, mouth dropping as she realized that he was trembling from head to foot, edging deeper into the dead end like a cornered mouse. "You can't! You can't let them, you didn't even let me try!"

Surely, he didn't think—

But Weiss had made a fatal mistake. She'd taken her eyes off Cinder.

Arrows hit the ground at her brother's feet. There was no time to think—Weiss dived at him, shoving him bodily out of the way just before the world went white. She slammed into the ceiling, aura flickering and then shattering as she came crashing back down to the ground. All the breath whuffed out of her.

"I told you this was pointless," said Cinder, voice tinny through the ringing in her ears. "We could have had the old man by now."

"Get up!" Taurus snarled.

Weiss was already on her elbows. She pushed herself shakily upright, glancing back to find Whitley pale but unhurt on the floor behind her. Her attempt at a scathing retort came out as a hoarse croak as she recovered her breath.

Taurus' lip curled. He pulled off his mask and tossed it aside. Her own scar itched—he was staring at it, as if willing her to make the connection. "I'm sure she's told you that you can't hurt them like they hurt you. But you don't have to let her make you feel like a monster just for fighting back."

"Don't you dare pretend that was her fault. I hate my father for what he did to me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hurt Whitley for something he had no control over. I'm not like you."

"No? We'll see how long that lasts when she decides you don't love her enough. Nothing's ever enough for her. Maybe you'll look for me, when she runs off to hide behind a new human. When that boy grows up enough to grind us under his heel."

"Is that what you think? That you loved her, and she wanted more? If love is controlling someone, punishing them whenever they disagree with you, then nobody loves me more than my father." Weiss lifted her chin. "You didn't love Blake. But I love my little brother, and I will not let you touch him."

His face twisted. "Fine," he spat. "If you're so desperate to bow and scrape for your family, you can die with them."

Cinder's bow bent back. Taurus' hand clasped around the hilt of his sword. She was trapped on the fourth floor with nowhere left to run, too exhausted and outnumbered to fight, fire creeping in on every side. So Weiss wrapped her arms around her baby brother, and hurled them through the nearest window.

She hit the glass shoulder-first, shards stinging her arm and cheek as she tumbled into the frigid sky. Her wings stayed tightly furled against her back as she jumped, protecting themselves instinctively—and then, with a snap like wind filling a sail, they opened.

Pain lanced up her back. She wobbled, her left wing cramping under the strain and sending them into a lurching mid-air tumble. Whitley screamed. The wind snatched the sound away—she could feel it clawing at her, ruffling her feathers with icy fingers. She stretched wide to welcome it, and the spinning stopped.

It wasn't flying. The ground still rushed towards them, but their fall had slowed. That was all they needed... until she caught a whiff of the lawn coming to meet them and realized that there were strangers in the grass. All those burning roses in Mantle had meant something, after all. Her aura was gone, and Whitley's inactive—it would only take one lucky shot.

She pumped her wings once, twice. Nothing. She felt like a child flailing to cast a glyph for the first time, all wrong angles and worst timing—and then she tilted them just so, and something snapped into place. Something so natural and obvious that she could hardly believe she hadn't known it all along. Newly strengthened joints held firm against the roaring wind. Weiss dragged Whitley higher into the sky, inch by painstaking inch, watching dark grass roll away into nothing. They soared over the edge of the cliff the manor overlooked, over the rim of Atlas itself, and the world fell open beneath them.

Growing up, Weiss had tried not to think about what flying would feel like—and in the many moments where she failed, she'd imagined it would be peaceful. Serene.

It was not. She hurtled through the air, spinning between the black void of Atlas, the sea of stars above, and their ruddy orange mirrors down below. Every second her wings didn't crumple against her body and send her plummeting back to Remnant, Weiss had to rip from the teeth of the frigid wind that whipped around her. Her ears filled with its primal, never-ending roar. Something bloomed in her chest. It grew until she ached with the pressure of it, until she opened her mouth and roared back with everything she had.

"Are you insane?" Whitley shrieked.

Weiss erupted into laughter. The starlight illuminated her brother's face just enough to see the whites of his eyes, his mouth slack with shock. He was staring at her, like... she wasn't sure. She didn't think anyone had ever looked at her like that before. Could only imagine this expression on her own face, in the early days at Beacon when every kind thing her teammates did left a mile-long crack in her world. She hugged him tighter to make sure he wouldn't slip.

"You have to put me down!" Self-preservation kept him from squirming, but he had her arm in a vice grip that got tighter the closer they came to the ground.

It occurred to Weiss that putting him down would involve landing. She looked down—all of a sudden the glittering web of Mantle's streetlights seemed much less pretty.

"I don't know how!"

"You what?!"

She dipped a wing and entered a dizzying spiral. The ground rushed up much too fast. Desperate now, she flared both wings and cupped the air, gritting her teeth as a searing ache took hold in the muscles there. And when it was still too fast, she did the only thing she could still think to do and flipped around so that her feet would take the brunt of the impact.

There was a sickening crack, and the next thing she knew she was on her back with Whitley on top of her, gasping for breath as a white-hot spike of agony lanced up her right leg.

"Weiss?!"

She squinted her eyes open. The world was still spinning. A weight pressed down on her bad ankle, bringing with it a wave of nausea. "Whitley... you have to get up."

"I'm not leaving! You can't make me—"

"I'm not," she groaned. "Just get off my leg, please."

He scrambled back, wide-eyed. "A-are you...?"

"I'll be fine. Believe it or not, I've had worse." Slowly, gingerly, she sat up. Shook out her arms, wings, and good leg. No pain would have been a severe overstatement, but at least nothing else felt broken. "I need to get back to the manor."

"You must be seriously concussed if you think you're going anywhere but a hospital."

"My team—Ruby was supposed to lead off Cinder. If something happened... I have to go back." She tried to stand, flaring her wings out for balance. The muscles in her back screamed in protest. Weiss tipped forward, and would have fallen on her face if Whitley hadn't grabbed her arm.

"Fine," he sighed. "Father probably informed the military by now. They'll be arrested or gone by the time we get there."

They began an awkward, shuffling walk towards the nearest shuttle station, with Weiss leaning heavily on his shoulder. A lump formed in her throat. "About father..."

"What?"

"I recorded him. I wanted to show people what he's actually like, before the election."

"Oh, so that's why you came back. I thought you were trying to get back in his will."

"You should hear what he said from me, before it comes up on the news. He, um... he wanted me to get him out of the house when the lights went out. Without looking for you and mother."

"Is that it?"

She stared at him. It was hard to do, with her arm around his shoulders like this—she could only see his profile, and a slight frown that could have meant just about anything. "I know you probably won't believe me—"

"Of course I do."

"I—what?"

Whitley rolled his eyes. "I don't know what else you expected him to do."

She wasn't sure, either. Not throw himself in the way of Taurus and Cinder, certainly, but... something.

"I'm sorry."

There was the stunned disbelief that she'd been expecting—Weiss remembered with a pang that she was talking to one of the only people in the world who knew what those words meant to her. "I thought you'd hate me like he does. I thought he treated you better. And maybe he does, but... better doesn't mean good. I should have realized you were hurting, too."

He gaped at her a moment longer, before his eyes narrowed and he looked away. "I'm not saying anything for your stupid microphone."

Weiss had forgotten it was still recording. She reached under her shawl and switched it off, to keep limping beside Whitley in silence.