A/N: SHE'S ALIVEEE! Welcome back to your daily/monthly/yearly helping of crack! I was gonna make this the "Avery languishes over JR and nearly ends his life over a pimple" chapter, but that's the next chapter. Last chapter needed some wrapping up. This chapter features: Marc, Bas, Joey, Rhaena, Ambrosia, Etta, Geneva, and others. Enjoy!

Quarantine: Day Three Part Two

Duca Marcello Giovanni Achille Savoy di Venice was in pain.

Last night, his grand attempt at romance had failed spectacularly. Instead of the beautiful Rhaena falling into his arms at his display of unbridled passion, she wept in dismay at the mess before her. Instead of sweeping her off her feet, he had managed to bring her agony. And now...oh, now she would not even look him in the eye!

In retrospect, trashing his room was not the best plan, but hey, he had limited resources to work with.

The maid who brought his breakfast this morning was not the beautiful Rhaena but another woman, an older woman who at once had probably been beautiful but now had years of hard work weathered on her dispassionate face. Marc would give anything to see Rhaena darken his doorstep, if only to tell him off and wave those delicate hands in his face. Last night, she was so riled up he thought she might smack him. The thought, thought it pained him to admit, caused more arousal than fear.

Now, his breakfast grew cold, untouched as he moped in the chaise near the window. The manicured lawns mocked him with their pristine greenery. Had he been home, in his estate on the Grand Canal, he would expend this energy by taking a vigorous walk through the city. Now, he could pace nowhere but the perimeter of this room and the spinning caverns of his mind.

Of course, if he was back home, he wouldn't be stuck in his hell hole of a country. If he was home, he wouldn't be alone. If he was home, he never would have been tormented by the beautiful Rhaena Salisbury.

Torture! Torture, he cried!

"Please try to eat something, Your Highness," Bas cajoled for the tenth time that hour, holding out a tray of tea and biscuits.

Bas was a good friend, but he was far too mother-hen-like at the moment. Overwhelming, like a pillow trying to smother him in his sleep. And Marc would know that feeling, because his older brother once hired someone to kill him that way. Even now, that story still got a laugh over Christmas dinner.

People were laughing now, the bastards. Right outside his door, ignorant to the suffering of the man inside. One voice - masculine, a bit higher pitched that either signified a twink or someone who had not reached puberty - was the ignition, his garbled strings of sentences met with a mix of laughter. A modern-day court jester.

Marc could use some cheering up.

Rising from the chaise, Marc threw his dressing gown closed and opened the door. At the end of the hall, a young man held court to half a dozen people, slouched on the steps in a ratty red hoodie and beat up converse. A wild head of curls obscured his face, but Marc could tell he was young, his second theory proving more true than the first.

"You! Silly boy who makes jokes!" he called over to the gangly mess of limbs that dared call itself a man. "Come here and help me a moment."

That head snapped up, revealing a pair of startled, dark eyes. There was a mark on his face near the edge of his lips. It moved when his mouth did. Quite distracting, but not in an unpleasant way. Marc had bedded a few men who looked like this, even if they weren't exactly his type. Definitely not as intriguing nor stirring as Rhaena.

"Me?"

"Yes, you." It was so exhausting having to explain himself all the time. No one back home would have confused his intentions. He beckoned the boy to follow him into his room once more, turning without checking to see if he had obeyed. But why would he not? It was not a surprise when Marc turned around, door now shut and the laughter silenced, to see his guest with his hands jammed in his pockets, confused as a deer in headlights.

"Tell me, what is your name?"

"Joey. Joey Yates."

"What do you know about seducing women, Joey Yates?"

Joey blinked twice, looked to Bas for guidance, then swallowed. "Ummm not very much, gonna be honest."

"Then you are the wisest man in the world, for you have never failed in your pursuits as I have. You have never felt the devastating highs and lows of falling in love at first sight!"

Marc threw himself back across the chaise and draped an arm over his face. He normally wasn't this dramatic, but when would he ever have the opportunity to be melancholy across this many seats? His brother was averse to clutter and embraced minimalism full force. All of the seventeenth century living pieces had been cleared out of the palace and moved to Sicily and...well...it was Sicily. Marc wasn't exactly keen on traveling there.

"Is he okay?" Joey whispered to Bas.

Bas shrugged in reply. "Honestly, I've stopped asking. Last time he went this hard, he had a love affair with a lampshade."

"She was beautiful!" Marc interjected, gesturing at the lamp in the corner of the room that clearly could not hold a candle. "Venetian glass stem, antique lace edging. Glorious."

Another victim of minimalism. Fuck Manuel and his tasteless passion for interior design.

"You could always try, I dunno, apologizing to her?" Joey suggested with a shrug. So many shrugs. Was there something wrong with everyone's shoulders. Perhaps the mattresses were not all as comfortable as the one Marc slept on, fit for a prince.

"To the lamp?" Marc asked, confused. Why would he apologize to a lamp. Besides, that was so long ago...

"No, to the woman you fell in love with last night."

"Oh, yes. That would make sense," Marc said with a pensive nod, mulling over Joey's words with the most exaggerated show of thought. That was the only way Marc knew how to communicate his seriousness about other people's words. And as a prince, he needed to show even the most common man that his words held value. Even if, in this case, Joey's idea was hopelessly flawed. "Only, she will not talk to me! She has removed herself from my service, and I fear I will never find her again!"

"Uhhhh...aren't we all trapped inside this palace?"

"Yes," Marc said with a huff, as if this were obvious and Joey were stupid. "I fail to see your point."

"That means none of us can leave, including the staff." Joey paused for effect, as if the words were supposed to mean something deeper. He then sighed and ran a hand over his face. "You can just go looking for her."

Wait a second...

...Marc and Rhaena...were in the same place! She breathed his same air, slept under the same roof, bathed in the -

As a man of honor, he could not allow his imagination to complete that image.

"What a marvelous idea!" Marc was suddenly full of energy, reinvigorated by hope and willpower. "We will start looking at once!"

"Ummm...we?"

"Of course!" Why should Joey be excluded now when he had provided so much assistance in such a dark time? "A search this long and hard needs a team of bodies dedicated to the cause, and what cause more noble to dedicate oneself to than true love?"

"Are you sure he's not on drugs?" Joey asked Bas once more, his hopes and dreams dashed when Bas shook his head, just as glum.

Doubts did not stop them from following Marc out of the room and into the hall, following slowly behind the path Marc tread in his Gucci loafers - both fashionable and sensible for walking long distances. And what a long distance they would have to cover! The palace was vast and there were many floors, some hidden from the guests and that belonged to the realm of servants. Marc had never ventured up those narrow, dark stairwells in the palaces back home, scared off by the snap of a cook's towel or a housekeeper's screech. Servants were very territorial when it came to their private spaces. Strange, how they would act so entitled when they got to traipse all over everyone else's home.

This palace was also not his home. Marc did not even know where to start. He needed a guide. And as honorable and faithful as this Joey character was, he was just as much an interloper as Marc.

"Perhaps the princess would help," Marc mused as he caught sight of her two floors down. He waved at her, trying to get her attention "Princess Addison! Princess!" He shouted and projected his voice as his teachers had taught him, speaking from the diaphragm and pushing the sound out instead of letting it get caught in his throat. Still, she did not seem to hear him, continuing on her merry way as her dress billowed behind her in the most vibrant shade of yellow. "Ah, perhaps she could not hear me."

"Yeah...that's it," Joey agreed with a wince.

"She is always dressed so spectacularly. The lines, the colors..."

"That would be the work of Talis Colberg, Your Highness."

"Astounding," he marveled, staring outright as Princess Addison sashayed down the hall with her cellphone in one hand and a coffee in another, blasting some song that had become popular to make dances to on the apps. "I would like to purchase his entire fall collection."

"I don't believe he has his own label."

"Really? What a shame!" Marc tried not to pout - put too many wrinkles on his face - but couldn't help the display of disappointment. His father and brother were always frowning, turning their faces into mimicries of the harsh emperors of old. Marc never wanted to be seen that way, even if his chiseled jaw and heavy brow lent to a more severe look. It did wonders for his short-lived modeling career, however. "We should fund one. Bas, look up how much it costs to start a fashion haus and then see if we can get that put in next year's royal stipend."

"Of course, Your Highness."

He wondered, briefly, if Talis would let him model or if that would be a show of favoritism.

"Shouldn't we get back to finding your girl?" Joey suggested meekly, as if loathe to interrupt. As if the mention of the beautiful Rhaena Salisbury could be anything but a blessing.

"Yes! Of course! Good man," Bas cheered, slapping Joey's chest as he passed him with a skip in his step. "Forward and onward!"

By the end of the day, Marc would have his lady love in one arm and the other would be clad in the most unique display of avant garde fashion the world had ever seen. Yes, he dared say it felt good to have it all.

Henrietta Swan was known for being reckless.

As a child, she liked to climb to the top of trees just to find which branches would break. She liked to dangle her toes off of high places and let her vision cross with vertigo, giving her mother and father heart attacks before shimmying her way back down. There was something about the thrill of it, of not knowing which step would be her last, that had her seeking higher heights and bigger drops. All this time, she had never fallen. All this time, she started thinking she never would.

This was her biggest climb yet, taking the palace stairs by twos with Geneva Hollander by her side. Most people didn't know who Geneva was but, then again, most people were stupid. Etta recognized a twin flame when she saw one. And a rival.

Not that life and death was a game that required rivalry. More like a puzzle. A puzzle assembled in a dark morgue missing half the pieces, the other half missing somewhere in Cameron Garcia's corpse. Together, she and Geneva would be the ones to put that puzzle together, Etta could feel it.

"Hey!"

Geneva and Etta both turned to find Agent Ambrosia Raine sauntering towards them with hands in her coat pockets and murder in her eyes.

"You left this."

Agent Raine pulled her hand out of her pocket and with it, a bumblebee headband. Just how deep were those pockets?!

"Oh, thank you!" Etta heaved out sigh, laying the gratitude on thick. Better to disguise the jump in her pulse, the quickening of her breath. "I couldn't find it anywhere down there!"

"Funny. It was right under the autopsy table." Agent Raine's tone was flat, no humor to be found whatsoever. It reminded Etta so much of her mother.

"That explains it," Etta said, keeping up a wide smile. Better to disarm with kindness than lower oneself to anger. Anger rouses suspicion quicker, or so all the great mysteries claimed. "Dead bodies freak me out. I didn't go near it."

"But you sure jumped quick to going into a basement with one all by yourself." Ambrosia narrowed her eyes, glaring at Geneva the hardest. There was a history there Etta was itching, dying to know. She had to bite down on her tongue to keep the litany of inappropriate questions from escaping. Then, those eyes snapped back to Etta. "Why are you here, Miss Swan? You weren't on the guest list for Prince Avery's party."

"No, I wouldn't have been," Etta agreed easily, disarming Agent Raine with the truth. "I'm Alissa Bianchi's plus-one."

That name usually opened a lot of doors and shut a lot of mouths. The Bianchi family was right up there with the Kangs as tech lords of Illéa. How Alissa managed to tolerate Etta's antics since kindergarten was beyond Etta's comprehension, but she supposed it had something to do with bringing excitement into her otherwise sterile and boring life. They were supposed to attend Avery's party as a joke (well, at least it was a joke to Etta. Alissa actually thought the prince was hot...ew.)

"I don't know what you two are up to, but I'm watching you," Agent Raine warned. Coming from anyone else, the threat wouldn't be as menacing, but Etta could only imagine what those talons of nails could do. "You should stay with your friend, Miss Swan. I shouldn't have to warn the both of you about running around with a murderer on the loose."

Neither of them said anything. There was nothing left to say. And it wasn't like Geneva was going to run after her girl and kiss her like they did in the movies. Etta hated those movies. They bored her to tears and were terribly predictable. Geneva and Agent Raine made much more interesting enemies.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Geneva hissed once Agent Raine was out of earshot, slapping Etta repeatedly on the arm.

"Cool your jets!" Etta took a step back and inspected the bee emblem on the thick band. With a swift twist, she removed it and flipped the jewel upside down, revealing a tiny hollow cavity. From inside that cavity fell an even tinier black dot. Etta held it up to Geneva with a smirk. "We have everything we need right here."

"In a ball of lint?"

"No," Etta sighed, annoyed. Perhaps Geneva Hollander was not the twin flame Etta hoped she was. "I thought you were supposed to be good at this?"

"Just get to the point."

"It's a listening device," Etta explained, careful to put the tiny spec back into its hiding hole for safe keeping. Wouldn't want that ending up in the wrong hands with a murder on the loose. "I started it up during Prince Avery's botched autopsy. It's been recording all night, even - "

" - the secret meeting with the King." Geneva finished, gaining new respect for Etta. She could see it in the way it lit Geneva from the inside, a spark of fire ravenous and growing. "You just keep this stuff on you?"

"Yeah, just in case."

"In case of what?"

"I don't know, stuff!" Etta pouted and cross her hands over her chest. She hadn't made a list of every single scenario a listening device might be required. Who did that? Weirdos, that's who. "Do you want my help or not?"

Rhetorical question. Geneva wanted Etta on her team; she could feel the curiosity and ambition rolling off of Geneva in waves. Geneva needed this, and so did Etta. The reason why didn't matter. The how didn't matter. The what ifs didn't matter.

All that mattered was the case, and being first.

"I have to say, you're not afraid to get your hands dirty," Geneva said with a smile.

"The truth doesn't work in black and white, just shades of grey."

"Doesn't get much greyer than this."

No, it really didn't.

Etta didn't think she would ever be able to top solving a murder inside the palace. Her whole life would be a downward slump from here. This was the top of the tree, the highest limb. Somehow, that didn't scare her. All she had to do now was jump.

P.S:Drop your unhinged Halloween special ideas in the comments (I'm only half-kidding).