Far away and long ago there had lived three little girls.

Ten Seville did not think of herself as an irrational creature, but time and isolation had taken their toll upon her. Like wind rustling leaves old and wet, revealing the worms lurking beneath, so had her old grudges been unearthed. With needle sharp teeth the past nipped and gnawed at her mind until she felt as if she would grow mad.

The eldest was only eleven years old and she had been a hard child long before the supernatural world had dug its claws deep into the meat of her soul. Her guardian called her Dez, and she was tall and lanky with thick brown hair cut short and left to the caprices of humidity.

Ten wasn't her real name, just as she could never truly claim Dez, but she couldn't remember what her parents had christened her. She had been Isilda, Laure and Anna. Elizabeth, Marilyn and Sylvia. She had called herself a thousand things, had worn the cloaks of a thousand lives, but not a one of them had ever felt as appropriate as that simple number. So she had been Dez once, long ago, and she was Ten again and perhaps that was how things were supposed to be.

Onze was only a year younger, and she was asthmatic and round and seemingly always crying, leaving the coltish Dez to wonder just how she had ever survived the brutality of their training. The last little girl was eight but she was small for her age, a scrawny doll with huge eyes the color of honey. She spoke little and moved about as quietly and as quickly as a mouse. Their handler had dubbed her Treze.

?Unlucky little Treze,? muttered Ten with more than a small bit of disdain. The name tasted of decay and bad memories, but as of late she had uttered that accursed number too much. She shook her limbs free of the sheets that had snared them in the daylight and turned her eyes to the ratty mirror fixed above its rattier dresser. Her mirror twin?s eyes were the same shade of murky green and just as cold, and when she traced the pale slug of her tongue across her lips, so too did her reflection.

Somewhere out there Treze might sit on her own bed, or so Ten wanted to believe. Maybe she made faces at her reflection too. Maybe her hatred for Ten was as big and bright as Ten?s was for her.

Doubtful.

Three little girls, each baring scars both visible and deep down, planned their escape by the stench of a tallow candle. Dez was determined. She was one of only a few children to have clung to her humanity throughout their hellish training. She wanted to go home. Onze was crying. They were both excited and hopeful. Little Treze, however, remained stoic, her pain so deep and so constant that it had melted into a one note baseline. Dez wondered if her soul still throbbed the way her own did. The way Onze's did. They were reluctant at first to include Treze in their plan at all because she was their abductor's favorite pupil, but she was the only one allowed to roam outside of the city and they needed her. So while their guardian, Lucretia Enrathi, rutted in her room with her flavor of the week lover, the trio plotted by candlelight. If Treze could lead them to Sines then perhaps they could catch a ship. Treze nodded in agreement but remained silent.

Ten slipped into a pair of blue jeans, pulled a faded old Smashing Pumpkins tee over her head, and cracked the knuckles of her in-tact hand one by one ?Stupid girl,? she muttered to the version of herself that existed only in that memory. ?If someone had taken you aboard, then what? You?d have been murdered or worse.?

The memory was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday, and it had played almost nonstop since Ten had remembered to remember her cohort a few years ago with the crumbling of the True Black Hand. She knew it was foolish to reopen ancient wounds, knew it was absolute madness to drizzle salt into the gashes, but she had to or, she felt, it would eat her alive.

Nathan couldn't breathe. He felt as if he had been slugged in the gut by an eighteen wheeler. George was talking to him on the other end of the phone, he understood that much, but he couldn't reply. Two days had gone by since he had gotten the news and everything had just..stopped. Reality shifted in and out in scraps of skewed horror. No sooner would he tumble into something resembling a man with a good grasp on his tattered nerves, the sounds around him would grow louder, or the colors brighter. Everything seemed trapped in fast forward before slowing back down.

Back on Earth, they still hadn't found his son.

"The cops are still out looking for him. Said they won't rest until he's found," his ex-wife's new husband explained, "I wanted to go, Nate, but Beth said someone should wait here in case Henry comes back."

"That's..." Nathan wanted to say Beth, but he doubted he could keep his anger from blighting her name. She had left the gate open and now their boy was gone. Nathan sighed and turned his blue eyes, red from crying and ringed with worry, to the pencil he clutched in his left hand. "Thanks, George. I mean it..just..please keep me updated, okay?"

"Yeah," and George sounded tired too. "Sure thing, Nate."

Nathan hung up the phone and fresh tears fell from his eyes. Henry was gone. His son, his little man, his everything. He went through the gate and someone must have grabbed him. He went through the gate and someone must have grabbed him. He went through the gate and someone must have grabbed him. He went through the..

A beeping sound grabbed his attention and Nathan reached for his phone when a flashing box on his computer screen caught his eye. A notification. Quickly he hit the ENTER key.

<FRIEND10 WANTS VIDEO CHAT. DO YOU ACCEPT? TYPE YES OR NO>

It wasn't a messenger that Nathan had ever seen, and he quickly closed out of it, but another box promptly appeared in its place.

<FRIEND10 WROTE:
:
:
Hey! Don't close this one! Henry says he misses you!
:

Nathan stared at the screen in disbelief.

<FRIEND10 WANTS VIDEO CHAT. DO YOU ACCEPT? TYPE YES OR NO>

He didn't hesitate.

YES

Nathan didn't hesitate when a new notification box popped up. A spike of anger dug in deep when he once again glimpsed Ten's ash pale face, but relief rushed in headlong soon after. Suddenly there was Henry, sleepy and agitated for it, but alive and unhurt. Nathan lifted his hands and then lowered them when he remembered that he couldn't simply push through the screen and retrieve his boy. Nathan looked like hell and he knew it, but he put on a smile that wasn't entirely faked.

"H-hey, Buddy. Wha-whatcha know?"

"I wanna go home, daddy. Aun' Ten says I have to stay with her right now."

Henry didn't seem too distraught, but it was possible that the three year old didn't quite comprehend the severity of the situation. He was just hanging out with Aunt Ten. It was all that Nathan could do to keep from gritting his teeth.

"You're okay though?"

Henry nodded, unaware of Ten's grin spreading just inches behind his head; or the razor sharp feeding teeth slipping through her gums. Nathan shut his eyes tight. He could hear his heart pounding loudly in his ears. Keep it together, for the love of...

"Daddy? I hope you feel better."

Nathan opened one eye and then the other, and there was Henry smiling groggily at him as the child's abductor lowered him to his feet. "Go to bed," she said, though not unkindly, "and you'll be home before you know it."

"Henry!" Nathan shouted without thinking, and the little boy turned slowly. Nathan's heart stopped. "I love you. Please don't forget that. I love you, Little Dude."

"I love you too, Daddy." Little Henry kissed the palm of his hand and blew his father a fumbling kiss before disappearing away from the reassuring light of the computer's screen.

Silence passed between them, and Ten looked back to the panicked man on her screen with an almost cruel calmness. "Given it any thought?"

Nathan dropped his head into his hands. "...why do you want Mona?"

The woman seemed to consider his question at least. "Mm. I don't think there's enough time in the world."

If he could distract her then maybe he could buy some time. Nathan knew she wouldn't hurt Henry unless he refused to give her what she wanted. Maybe there was a way to save his son and his sister. Maybe..

"Try me."

She sucked air between her teeth and let it loose in a hiss. "Nope. The clock is ticking, Mister Kay. You want a story, go find Mother Goose."

Ten was true to her word. She knew Nathan wasn't lying because he valued his son's life, and no seasoned actor could have broken down the way that the man had when he'd given Ten the address to his sister's house. Across the pond news sources reported that little Henry Kay had simply shown back up on the stoop of his apartment, and his mother and stepfather were absolutely elated. It was, however, a bittersweet victory for his poor beleaguered father in Cambridge.

Before he had finished typing out his sister's information, Nathan, exhausted physically and emotionally, had left Ten with a parting scrap of smartassery.

You'll have better luck getting candy out of her head if you hit her with a hammer than you will getting emotions from her..

One night and nearly one day had come and gone and those words were a chicken bone caught in her brain. She pondered them over as she packed her suitcase, casually slipping sandwich baggies of Seville soil beneath her tees and sweats. Long after she had harangued a young mage into figuring out where Rhy'Din was (and tasking the girl with getting her there. Safely.), Ten still wondered what Nathan had meant.

Did he think she wanted an apology? Some emotional breakthrough where she and Treze would hug and get their pwecious feewings all over one another?

The portal hissed and flickered, and the light that shot in and around her made her skin tingle and her bones hum. It was almost becoming unbearable when the portal disappeared, revealing a lovely, lush landscape; autumn calico as far as the eye could see. Beautiful.

Onze never returned, but Dez remembered. Treze had abandoned them and then tattled to Lucretia their whereabouts. She looked just as beat up as Dez, but the little girl was convinced that it was for show. If it hadn't been for Treze then they might have had a chance. They might have gotten away. Dez asked her over and over again why she had betrayed them, but the stupid girl only watched her, neither denying nor confirming, with her big sad eyes.

Another voice broke through. She recognized it as her own. She was just a little girl. She didn't betray us. Don't you know that? She was scared and she ran back to the only home she knew.

...if you hit her with a hammer..

It wasn't about right or wrong anymore. It was beyond that. The damage had been done, and Ten had to get Treze out of her head. It made her slightly sad to think about it like that; getting rid of the thing that had kept her going for the last few years. Slowly scaling the small, rocky hill where the Nexus had deposited her, Ten took in the scenery and fingered the ball-peen hammer hanging from a denim belt loop.

Whatever Nathan had meant, candy or catharsis, Ten was ready.

------------------------------------------------

Rhy'Din was a melting pot the likes of which Ten Seville had never seen. She saw human beings with animal heads rubbing elbows with lovely, delicate seeming elves. Dragons appeared as commonplace as dogs, minotaurs tended bar, and mermaids swam freely around docks laden with fishermen. Aware now of where Treze lived, she kept the address close and decided to take her sweet time getting there. After all, a few firebugs were on a rampage, and if the address Nathan had given her was correct, then Treze lived in Seaside and Seaside was a war zone.

Better to let things calm down. Better to just take in the sights and sounds.

The Red Dragon seemed as good a place as any to snag a room and get some grub. Besides, Ten had never fed from an elf before.

Parts of Seaside were still in shambles from some mad firebug's attacks, and at first Ten had feared that her little friend's home may have been destroyed. It was a relief, a sincere one, when she found the house intact, though it shouldn't have come as too much of a shock. Even armed with Treze's address, Driftwood was a hard house to find. A rocky outcropping flanked one side, a small army of various trees the other, and the front was shielded by a small rock fence bordered on both sides by even more trees and bushes. If Ten had not been looking for it then she never would have found it.

Driftwood itself was large but by no means was it a mansion and the moonlight revealed it for the painted lady that it was. Nearby in a small paddock, a horse with fur the color of a pearl watched her with beady, distrustful eyes. Her clan had a knack for speaking to animals- that was what had calmed the huge shaggy mastiff that had greeted her from behind a window with bared teeth and flattened ears- but the horse seemed oddly immune to the strange tongue she spoke. It knows why I'm here. It knows and it sees. But that was silly. Horses, Ten knew, were notoriously stupid.

She curled her maimed hand into a fist and knocked, but no one answered. She had expected that. Treze had most likely abandoned ship until the fires- metaphorical and literal- died down throughout Seaside, but someone had to have been tending to the animals and so Ten preceded with caution. The front door would not budge, but Ten found a side window that was more accommodating. The large dog was waiting on the other side to receive her, and as she drifted from room to room, the furry beast kept at her heels. As she climbed the splintered steps to the next floor, voices from above gave her pause. For a moment Ten thought that someone else was in the house, an old woman or man from the sound of it.

The voice cried out for food in Portuguese and in the next breath it cursed in perfect English. Ten looked down at the dog looking up at her right as a loud Squawk!! filled their ears, followed quickly by another, this one higher pitched. Parrots. Just parrots. She was not wrong. Two huge cages sat nestled in the landing's alcove, and two parrots watched her with their beady eyes. One was a rainbow of color, and the moment it saw Ten it released a screech that would have turned the devil yellow. The other was as large as its cousin but colored a bluish purple and it seemed happy to bob its head up and down and remain relatively quiet. What kind of psycho keeps birds? Ten gave the macaws a wide berth and even the monstrous dog seemed reluctant to venture too close, despite the squawking rainbow's coaxing.

"Come're puppy. Cachorra. Here puppy puppy puppy."

It sounded almost sweet. Ten shuddered and the dog rushed ahead of her the moment she opened the door nearest the stairs. "Me thinks a gearhead liveth here." Ten didn't think it was Treze's room, unless Treze really really liked cars. She snatched a teeshirt from its drape over the bedpost and gave it a sniff. "A man," she blurted, her nose twitching like a hound's. Treze's shacking up. Ain't that sweet?" She rolled her eyes. While the dog tried to wedge herself beneath the bed, Ten abandoned that room. Whoever lived there held no immediate interest for her. The next room, however, yielded a treasure trove of clues.

There was no rhyme nor reason for how it was decorated, but it was nice in a way and the air was redolent with the ghosts of spices, flowers and soap; beneath that, copper. Ten traced the shoulder of an old paper and plaster mannequin. Treze. The discovery held more importance than Ten believed it should have. She pawed through the girl's closet, her wardrobe and trinket boxes. She gripped a smiley face button so hard that the pin bit into her palm. She closed her eyes and let it take her back.

Ten opened her eyes and there was Treze. She still appeared fragile but the years had made her sturdier somehow. She sat Indian style upon her bed, but her eyes were looking beyond the old Hammer horror film playing on the television across from her. Every so often she would shift her weight as if something was missing, and as clear as day Ten could see the large, jagged scar that marred her flesh from the heel of her left hand almost to the elbow. How did she get that? It feels like I should know.

"Treze," she muttered, but the scene began to crumble around her, eventually falling into the waters of an older memory.

She couldn't remember what the fight had been over, but Treze had started it and Treze had finished it. Limping away from Dez, the waif left an unspoken threat languishing in her wake while the older teen lay broken and bloodied upon the floor. Treze had taken a licking too but Dez was in worse shape. If Lucretia found out about their skirmish then she was likely to skin the both of them. During the summer months the Chatterlings seemed to tilt more towards aggression, and though they couldn't rightly take their anger out upon their handler or the vampires they catered to, they could certainly anchor it to one another. Lucretia had warned them. Lucretia had reminded them of how disposable they were should these 'disagreements' continue.

Ten pocketed the button, along with a handful of beautifully embroidered patches, each one baring the image of a feather stitched in black and veined in gold. She had no way of knowing that Treze affixed one, usually out of view, to whatever outfit she wore. She simply knew that the gold and black feather was the sigil of the former Sabbat Cardinal Cosimiro, and that they may have held some sort of sentimental value.

When she finally left, she made sure the dog and the birds had fresh water, though she didn't bother with the horse. There was something eerie about the creature, something that Ten couldn't put her finger on. No matter. As she sauntered away from Driftwood, she sorted through the pilfered treasures hidden away in her pockets; the smiley face button and the patches. A picture of a blond man with blue eyes and a boyish face. She clung to that one most of all.

There were monsters in the world that didn't possess sharp teeth or fur or cold, dead skin. These monsters had been human children once. Most had suckled at their mother's breast, had felt the sun upon their face. If they had not laughed, they had certainly cried. Chatterlings still appeared as children though, but their hearts were black and their humanity in tatters. They were still mortal, but what then makes a monster if not the darkness of the human heart? There were, no doubt, more vicious Chatterlings in the world than Treze, and Dez hoped never to meet those particular beasts. She feared Treze and she hated her, and, by proxy, she hated the little boy who the younger girl had taken under her wing. The same grubby tyke who knew nothing of their world thanks to the pains taken by Treze to make it so. Lucretia had even given up on separating them, which only served to incense Dez further.

"Everything was about the True Black Hand back then. When I heard that your sister was gonna help this kid escape I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Lucretia wasn't doing her job for the ''cause'' so why couldn't I?"

Ten's eyes lingered upon the face watching her on the computer screen from thousands of miles away. Nathan Kay's facade was a blank slate and Ten found herself possessed by the strange fear that perhaps her story had bored the man.

That was until one blond brow ticked up. "So you were pissed off because she hadn't helped you escape when she was what, seven? Eight? You've admitted yourself that she had been scared then....soooo, wow. Sorry not sorry, but you're kind of an idiot." He sounded bemused and he looked exhausted, but what could Nathan do? She knew where his son was. Grin. Bear it. Try to kill the bitch later...preferably before she got to Mona.

Ten didn't seem bothered by the insult. She shrugged her shoulders, sighed a long suffering sigh, and reached up to adjust the computer's spherical little camera. "I know it doesn't make sense, but let me get to the good part, alright?"

"I really hope someone brings you back to life just so that you can choke on your own vomit."

"Right. So. I was stupider at sixteen. Trust. It was maybe a week before the little runt was supposed to go to the underworld for his training when Treze ran off with him. I trailed them well enough. I was really boss at that. The problem was Treze was incredibly quick and wouldn't you know it, the damned kid was gone when I got there."

Nathan held his head in his hands, his fingers tapping out a rhythm against his cheeks. He sighed softly and closed his eyes. She wouldn't stop. He'd asked. He could have simply turned his computer off, but part of him wanted to know why this woman hated his sister so badly. Besides Henry, what had Nathan sold Mona up the river for? He asked for the story, hadn't he?

Ten didn't skip a beat, and her tone was chipper as she held up her mangled hand to the camera. "You don't corner wild animals, see?" And as Nathan's eyes opened, as the realization of his sister's handiwork registered in his stare, Ten's smile went wide and wicked. "I was punching her in the head as hard as I could when she bit off my fingers. Shook her head like a rabid dog and the pain, dear god, it was.."

Nathan held his hands out in front of him. "Seriously, shut up. Shut up. Want me to know what a monster she is? I know. I've known worse."

"You don't mean me, do you?" She lowered her hand and made sure to look appropriately shocked.

Nathan's face grew grim. "No," he muttered. "Not you."

Ten seemed genuinely hurt, and her voice grew darker; almost a growl. "You and the boy act as if you love her. How does it feel to love something that can never love you back?"

"I can't speak for myself, but she loves Bart."

Ten laughed and laughed. "No, no she doesn't. That's the sad part about it. Love had no place in the True Black Hand. It has no place within us now. Oh, she can pretend at love. She can even convince herself, but at the end of the day she's still that nasty little girl who didn't think twice about biting my fingers off."

"But she helped that little boy."

"Monsters are capable of kindness. True monsters anyway. You for instance."

Nathan blanched. "I'm not a monster."

Ten leaned closer to her camera, her eyes wide. "Oh but you are. How many of our kind did you kill for our blood? Don't lie to me. You'd be surprised at how fast word travels about you when you're doing something wrong."

"And what you're doing isn't wrong?"

The Old Dragon ran her tongue across her razor sharp feeding teeth, drawing beads of borrowed blood across the surface of the pale pink flesh. "I'm doing what you and Lover Boy are too afraid to do. Deep in your heart of hearts, Natey, you both know that one day she'll remember what she is and turn on you. It's..."

But Nathan was gone with the touch of a button.

Ten hissed and closed her eyes. "...an inevitability."

A voice came from behind her. "That was pretty lame, Tenfoil."

Ten spun around and stared at the bad man standing by her bed. A vampire, tall and lanky with a long face, slicked back dark hair and beady eyes. A Lupin the 3rd looking dude with a thick Texas drawl, though Ten knew that Davis was older than that, but she couldn't have told you what clan he belonged to. "Too much diatribe?"

"Way too much. Feel that way about this whole thing." Only his mouth moved when he spoke.

The woman studied him for a moment with narrowed eyes and a teaspoon too much thought. He was right. Everyone seemed to be right. Nathan Kay had even been on the right track when he accused her of wrongdoing, but he had missed something crucial; these days everything about her was wrong. She frowned. "Leave me alone, Davis, and stop calling me Tenfoil."

The man locked eyes with her and shook his head. "Nope. Don't think I will. What happened to resigning yourself to scholarly pursuits? Think killing this girl is gonna bring back the Hand? Think it'll give you purpose? That's kind of a narrow view of the world. That's not really like you."

"She screwed me over," but as she said it she was reminded just how idiotic it sounded. There's a part of that story that I can't remember.

Davis turned around on his oxfords, polished to a shine, and headed back towards the door. "We go around killin' everyone that screws us over then I guess nothing'd be left but trees."

Ten was growing angry. Her delusion was just that; a delusion. She wasn't unaware. But the gnawing in her head grew worse everyday. It was beginning to consume her. "Get the hell out of here Davis!"

She heard the other undead monster's laughter bounce around the hallway. "Get outta mmyyyyy rooom! I'm tellin' Momma!"

Ten didn't find him even a little bit funny.

Davis removed the towel from Ten's head and stepped back to admire his handiwork. "You can look now."

She did.

And she screamed.

"Davis!? What have you done to my hair!?"

Her auburn locks had been her dearest, most consistent friend, and that that flimflam man had dyed them every color of the rainbow. She wanted to throttle him. It had startled her so badly that her feeding teeth had slipped free. Davis seemed chuffed by her reaction, but he knelt before her, took her hands into his (so that she wouldn't peel his face off) and he flashed her a smile.

"You have auburn hair, Tenfoil."

She looked like a panicked animal. "I *had* auburn hair before you ruined it, you sorry son of a--"

He shook his head. His hair, thoroughly pomaded, did not move. "Alright, so auburn hair might be a bit more subtle, I agree.."

"You think!?"

"Shhh, just..shhh. That Bart Guy knows you have auburn hair. Get what I'm sayin'?"

As he released her hands and gave a pink lock a tug in passing, Ten tried to see her first dye job ever through new eyes, but her gaze continued to shift to the reflection of Davis' grin behind and beside of her head. "If anyone cares to look into Mona's disappearance, they'll be looking for the girl with the hair that a Lisa Frank poster vomited on." She admitted it with not a small amount of defeat.

Davis nodded gingerly. "I mean, yeah, sure, you could just make it to where no one sees you, but who knows how much radar that might ping. This place is crazy. Just last night I saw a man with a deer's head snorting coke off of the belly of a..."

She held a hand up in an attempt to silence him. "Just shut up, alright? Hand me my gown."

He pulled the garment, a lovely but subdued brown affair, from its hook on the back of the door and passed it to her. As she took it, he eyed her expectantly. Ten was not unaware. "...what?"

"You know, some vampires still 'knock boots'," air quotes and all, "if you ever wanna try.."

"Get out, Davis."

"It'd be bloody but.."

"GET OUT DAVIS!"

He bowed his head, a wolf playing at sheepish, and made an almost vaudevillian show of shuffling out of the room.


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Ten cleaned up well, and the gown suited every curve she possessed, but pretty meat was pretty meat and Rhy'Din was a veritable freezer. When it came to things like gala appropriate makeup and all of the rigmarole that came with dolling up, Ten found herself utterly lost. Reluctantly she allowed Davis back into the room, and she soon became glad that she had. He could barely write his name, but Davis Chestnut had an uncanny eye for color. He laid out a pallet of colors before her and she put them on with brush and sponge, and the end result was bizarrely beautiful. She would never have admitted it aloud but she and Davis made a pretty good team. As he buckled her shoes for her, Ten took another stab at guessing his clan if only to pass the time.

"Toreador?"

He snorted and shook his head. "Seriously? Because I can put colors together? Kinda insultin', Tenfoil."

"Then what is it?"

"For me to know." He eased his long form into a stand and slipped her evening gloves up her arms, mindful of the missing fingers on her left hand. "I had a lot of sisters."

Ten frowned and fell back into her chair. "How do you remember them?"

Davis chuckled. "You might be older'n but I'm not. Not much makeup back then, but dress-up ain't changed too much."

Ten seemed to consider what he was saying, and then "Brujah?"

"Not particularly, no. Now try not to up your dress before the Yule Ball. You've still gotta kill your little friend."

Davis brought Mona the pajamas that Ten had rustled up for her, which made him wonder if the Old Dragon was keeping her captive or having her over for a slumber party. He'd heard that, long ago, royal captives in Europe were often treated like guests..but Ten's hospitality had stalled at the sleepwear. The cell where Mona had been placed was one small room with a tree busting out through the bricks on one side, the trunk of it so large that no one could hope to squeeze past the wood and the stone without stripping the skin from their back.

The cracks would allow the sun to shine through, and for that Ten had ordered a battered old trunk be chained to the tree's largest root. The beams of sunshine would still hit it, would still terrify, but if Mona was smart then she wouldn't let that scare her away from using the box during the day. Davis had barged in brandishing a stake behind his back. He had expected Mona to go for his throat, and there was even a bit of fear when she stopped her pacing and stared him dead in the eye.

But she didn't attack him. She took the clothing he offered without a word and Davis turned his back as she slid out of her Yule kit and into the two sizes too big pajamas. Davis was a man who feared very little, for better or for worse. Most things were afraid of him, and with good reason. But it was Davis' turn to be afraid. His eyes darted nervously to the camera nestled in the boughs of the tree.

Mona had done nothing to him, but there was something fundamentally off about the girl; something that ruffled the feathers of the Beast within him. He heard the soft sounds of her bare feet padding against the cold stone floor and turned around. She had carefully folded her clothing and was placing them, one article at a time, inside of the chest chained to the tree. She can't be that stupid, thought Davis. She has to sleep in there..

Mona pushed by him as if he wasn't even there and settled in the shadows by the door, drawing her knees to her chest. Davis tried not to show his unease, not with Ten watching from the other side of the camera, but he still made damn sure that he kept his eyes on pretty little Mona.

"Do you speak English?" She was Portuguese or Spanish or something, and he only knew one of those. But Mona didn't answer. She just stared at him, stared through him as if she was aware of every slimy thing Davis Chestnut had ever done.

He looked from her to the door and quickly back again. Mona sat just a few feet away from it. Davis tried to conjure up what charm he could while inching closer to the exit. "You're really pretty, you know that?" Again he was met with silence. I'd be pretty pissed too if some stranger kidnapped me.

Mona turned her upper body to follow him as he moved, and when he placed his hand on the door, she jerked her body forward like a snake; just enough movement to startle Davis, and when he looked down into her face he saw that she was grinning up at him, her sharp little feeding teeth on display.

He couldn't have left that cell fast enough.

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When Davis informed the Old Dragon of his visit with Treze/Mona, she had laughed at him and refused to take her eyes off of her computer screen. The light from it gave her face an eerie glow. "Of course she's creepy, Davis. Sabbat bloodnippers are."

Davis blinked as if he wasn't one hundred percent sure what she had just said. Then it hit him, and his anger and his fear rolled together and left his fists shaking at his sides. "You kidnapped a Sabbat dog? You're kiddin' me, right Tenfoil? That'd be..that'd be.."

"Stupid?" She spun her chair around so that she was facing him and placed the tips of her index fingers against her chin. "I don't think so. It isn't like she's still Sabbat, and besides..stupid would be assuming that I care about my place in the end result of all of this. As you've so cheerfully stated over and over again, even when I've threatened you if you didn't shut up, I'm going to fail at this Golconda thing."

Davis watched as she slipped to her feet as fluidly as a snake and she crept closer to him, her grin growing more devilish with each step. "Y-you might not.."

Ten shook her head and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "But I probably will. And just so you don't think I'd waste my time on some sorry piece of neonate cannon fodder, let me enlighten you, oh Great Hunter." She stabbed a finger toward the computer screen and the forlorn image of Mona Oliveira. "Treze grew up. Sort of. Wouldn't you know she got the ol' Death Hickey? Joined the Sabbat right there in Portugal. Got recruited by the only Cardinal in recent history who likes to keep just three paladins. You're a bookish boy, Davis. Tell me, do you know who I'm talking about?"

Davis knew a great many things. Traveling had been a lifeline, the one thing that he could hold onto, and each country had happily revealed its mysteries to him. But the knowledge tourist knew little of Portugal..which bothered him all the more that he still knew exactly who Ten spoke of. His face was an expressionless mask. "Cosimiro Santamarina." The name was like powdered lime on his tongue. "That girl in there is The Sun Cat, one of the Ministry of Enlightenment."

Ten clapped as if Davis was a student who had answered a question correctly (and perhaps in some ways that was exactly what he was). "What a clever little boy you are. The Sun Cat, that's an old one. You just forgot to slap 'former' in front of Ministry. So, now that that's out there, let's get down to brass tacks, okie dokie?"

Grim Davis Chestnut did nothing as Ten moved even closer, but something dark and wanton stirred within him when she pressed her body to his, and even clothed he could feel the chill of her skin. "Okie dokie."

She brushed the tip of her nose across his own and grinned. "Good. So I figure that not many people know what Golconda is. Only nerds like you and me. You seem like a braggart, Mr. Chestnut. I mean you'd known me for all of an hour before spewing out that you'd killed not one but three whole vampires who'd went 'round the ol' twist trying to get a piece of that enlightenment pie. But the thing is..who else can you tell about that?"

"No one," he admitted dryly, "no one."

"Exactly. You're going to help me," it was not a suggestion, "and maybe I'll let you kill what's left of Treze when I'm done with her OR I can mail you with a bow on your head to her brother and Tegan Milburn. Before you say something you'll regret, Davis, let's put something into perspective. Who do you fear more? Little Mona, or do you fear the bitch crazy enough to kidnap one of the Minist?rio de Ilumina??o?"

Davis pushed her away from him and took a few steps back, his eyes narrowed. He spat at her feet and then grinned his most audacious grin. "Fine fine, darlin'. Whatcha want ol' Davis to do?"

Ten laughed as she walked backwards, her hands held out in front of her. "That's simple enough. Anything I ask, darlin'."

"Haaagh! Hoh!" Nathan Kay wasn't entirely prepared for the ginger tea that Bart had fixed him to have quite as much 'heat' as it did, but once the honey's balm hit, he sank into his seat at the kitchen table, glassy, hungover eyes drifting over the spread of scrambled eggs, pancakes and bacon. "Geez... ya got any fruit, maybe?"

Bart was in no state to answer. His pupils had dilated to the size of dimes as he sat lotus on the couch, staring at the little piece of paper torn from the Inn's registry reading Ten Seville. After a while, he started to look blearily around the room before wrangling his breath, straightening his back, and letting out an informed "Huh." before returning to his blank-slate, face-tripping stare.

Nathan had shoveled about half of the pile of eggs into his mouth as he awaited a reply, before taking a glance at the birds, then back to his plate with a sigh. He closed his eyes, muttered a quick prayer, then scooped up the rest of the eggs with his bacon. "Anyway, thank you for breakfast. I--" He huffed and wiped at his eye with the heel of his palm, blotting out his reflection in the maple syrup with a forkful of chocolate-chip-blueberry pancake. "Man, this has been awful. Henry's gonna be messed up for life, from this. Poor kid." Bart had given him one of the most blood-curdling looks on his initial refusal to eat, and so, begrudgingly, he laid into the pancakes, chocolate staining the corners of his mouth as tears ran down his cheeks. "Zeez're wrewwy gup, man... Aughhuh..."

Like a mantis, Bart slowly unfolded from his seat, drifting to his feet as if haunted. He straightened with his head dangling, letting his weight distribute of its own accord. As he looked up, Batata the Cantankerous Harlequin Macaw trotted back and forth on his perch, turning his head to center an eye on the Ecstasy Cultist. The pair remained still, locked in each other's gaze, until the bird bobbed his head and uttered "Trumpet Butt--WAAAK!" Bart smiled slowly and pressed his palms together, bowing to the parrot in gratitude before turning his beatific gaze over to Nathan. "Hey... we have more blueberries, kumquats and kiwi in the fridge... It's gonna be okay, man."

Nathan sniffled for a moment, wiping his sleeve across his mouth to collect the dribbling river from his nose, and belatedly noting the smear of chocolate across it. He harumphed in frustration, still sniffling and holding his sobs to a quiet breath as he looked back to Bart. "Really?"

"Really." Bart snapped his fingers and shot a point to Nathan, looking for all intents and purposes like the Cool Guy that his younger self had so wished to be. He slipped on his sneakers and grabbed his leather rally jacket off of the coat rack, swinging it around and slipping his arms into place in a smooth motion. "Take some kumquats with you. We're gonna swing by your place to check on Henry, n' then we're goin' to Scotland."

"Scobwumb?" Nathan took a hard swallow of the last bit of bacon before washing it down with his tea, then set to shoveling the rest of his breakfast into his mouth. He set the dish in the sink, got a paper towel, and went to the fridge, making a little bundle of blueberries and the frightfully sour little citruses. "What, are we driving there??"

"Ohh, that's right!" Bart pulled his sunglasses from the front pocket on his jacket, flicking them open and sliding them into place as he opened the door to the bright gleam of the late morning sun. "You haven't gone on a drive with me yet, have you?"

(Nathan Kay used with permission)

She called her Treze. That opened some doors that time had shut. Mona's eyes went sleepy and she slid from her lean against the door, her cheek picking up a few splinters on her way down. Treze. Azar?o pequeno Treze. Lucretia Enrathi's raspy voice was ringing in her ears. She shook her head as if to dislodge a bee from her mouth. She still didn't remember her captor, not by Ten or Dez at least, but she remembered the teenaged girl who had tried to kill her when Mona was just twelve years old. I bit her fingers off. Chomp chomp gone.

Mona glanced to the long silvered scar marring the flesh of her forearm like a crudely drawn lightening bolt. It had been so long ago and so many people had tried to kill her since. Ten had not been the first nor the last, but Mona had often wondered about the young girl who had left such a brand upon her.

"You should come in," said the spider to the fly, "I won't hurt you." I am starving.

"And if I hurt you?" The voice sounded uncertain.

"You and me, I think we should talk."

And the door slowly began to open.

Mona couldn't afford to lose so much blood, but she had to get out. She cradled her wounded hand against her shirt and brushed by Ten as if she wasn't even there. She wouldn't look back because she didn't want to see Ten collecting her fingers, if anything was left of them other than dust. The pain was nothing compared to the Beast's incessant cries, or what she imagined them to be.

The ghouls she passed did nothing to stop her, and the one she cornered seemed almost surprised at what was happening to him. Any other time she would have let him live, but she was starving and he was too shocked to scream. In the end Mona had dropped his rapidly cooling body to the ground for Ten to clean up. This was her mess, every last bit of it, and the very least the woman could do was tidy up after her guest.

It wasn't long before Mona felt the first tingle of blood knitting flesh to flesh, but if she wanted her fingers back then she would have to feed more, and there just wasn't the time. Mona quickly stripped the dead ghoul of his clothing, and after she was dressed in his too big tee and jeans, she used her own soiled shirt to wrap her wounded hand.

Judging by the accents she had heard, she decided she was in Scotland, but where she didn't know. Some part with hills, too many idiot eyed sheep and not enough trees. So Mona began to wander until Ten's tower was a speck over her shoulder. She passed old barns and abandoned churches. She could smell the acrid scent of peat moss fermenting nearby. Eventually she stumbled onto a road just an hour or so before daylight and came across a green sign that announced STERLING in white letters.

Mona found refuge in a house shaped like a pineapple, the locks on its doors laughably easy to snap off. It was cold in there but it was safe, and she had already willed herself to sleep half an hour before the sun came up.

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She made it to Edinburgh a quarter after eight the next night, one pocket of the dead man's jeans filled with a tourist's folding money and a wrinkled ticket to Paris come midnight. Mona had never visited the UK and she was sorry for it. Edinburgh was beautiful, with its castle overlooking the city and its cobbled streets. People from all around the world wandered around. They were mostly college students there to attend university, and Mona fit right in. Most of the stores were closed by then, but there were pubs open, and many a mortal seemed eager to buy the pretty girl with the hurt paw a drink, even if the alcohol was wasted upon her. Mona lead one boy to the hostel where he was staying and he was so drunk that he hadn't noticed the blood birthed by their clumsy union; in fact he was so blitzed that he didn't notice when Mona bit into the inside of his thigh, and it was doubtful that he would remember her as little more than a freaky one night stand come morning.

She left him passed out sometime after eleven, and with her ticket in hand she hopped a ride in a smoosh faced car to the airport. People were quick to step out of her way, though they hadn't a clue why, and before Mona knew it she was on a plane heading for Paris. First Class and no questions asked.

Mona hadn?t been to Paris since Napoleon?s great great grandfather was just a twinkle in his own father?s eye. Like most of the world, the years had changed the City of Lights, but it was a kinder change as far as Mona was concerned. She understood the language without using her disciplines, and once more she found herself relying on the (often reluctant) kindness of strangers. Mona found a dress in a department store on the verge of closing; a garment made of green silk with a red sash around the waist and a plunging neckline. One look in Mona's eyes and the pretty young shop girl was more than happy to pay for it herself. The girl had been so sure that she had seen Mona on television before.

Her fingers were growing back slowly but surely, and where two wounds had once oozed there were stumps now, the skin shiny and tight. A few more feedings and those digits would be right as rain. With the help of a store window and her own reflection, Mona managed to turn her dark locks from 'street urchin' to 'stylishly tousled', and then she was off again. She doubted that she would run into her old gang, an extremist group of Anarchs who called themselves The Order of the Crimson Fang (because those sorts were always destined for short, violent lives), but there were still vampires aplenty in Paris..and Mona was determined to keep under the radar until she reached Spain. Spain was Sabbat territory. Paris, however, was Camarilla through and through, and they would have little love for her, former paladin or no. Introducing herself to whatever Prince ruled the city wasn't something she fancied doing.

By the time the sun breached the horizon, Mona was safe and sound in the darkness of a train's luggage car, curled up at an unnatural angle inside of a large orange suitcase. The owners of the case, unaware that its proper contents had been tossed out of the train, obliviously retrieved it and lugged Mona all of the way to where they were staying in Madrid. They were so eager to see the sights of the city that they only unpacked a few suitcases and ended up leaving Mona's unmolested. As the sun dropped down, Mona awoke and a few well placed hits served to pop the suitcase's lid open.

It wasn't until she was in the hall that she realized where she was. A boutique hotel, and Mona only had to look at the lush red and gold paisley carpeting to know what it was called. The Hotel Gustar. It's progenitor was dead.

Mona knew this because once upon a time she had been married to him.

Mona liked to leave coincidences to Bart and his kind. There were too many going on in her world to keep her comfortable, so after she fed from the Italian chef in the hotel's roomy kitchen, Mona wasted no time kicking rocks. The less she looked at the better. They had not been legally married, of course, but Bakar Barinaga had once done her a good turn, and now wasn't the time to ponder his life and death.

She rushed from one of the hotel's service exits and crawled into a delivery truck, sitting right next to its rightfully perplexed driver. He looked as if he couldn't figure out what had happened. "?Qui?n eres?" To which Mona looked him in the eyes and answered "Awe." Whatever had transpired between them must have done the trick, because the driver's gruff mouth pulled into a pleasant smile.

Along the way to Lisbon, the driver happily told her of his wife and children, that they would never believe he had met her..if he could just put his finger on who she was. Presence was a hell of thing. Careful deflection had kept his rapt attention off of her, but by the time he dumped her off at the Pra?a Martim Moniz, she was exhausted. He was reluctant to leave her, but another look, one meant to evoke fear, sent him peeling away, the squealing tires of his truck drawing the curious eyes of onlookers. With her head down and her hands crammed into the pockets of her stolen jacket, Mona disappeared into the crowd.

Lisbon and the rest of Portugal was Sabbat ruled, and Mona walked the city's narrow streets with a bit more confidence. She knew the Cardinal who ruled there, and if forced to face her then she would. Dona Emilia was as close to an ally as she would find, and though Lisbon was not her home, traveling south did not appeal to her right then; not with an obsolete warmonger sitting her mestre's seat. She just wanted to get back to her home in Rhy'Din with her dogs and horse and her Bart. She especially wanted to get back to him.

The thought of him made her sad. She was so busy thinking of him and staring at the street below her feet that she ran into someone. Startled, she quickly looked up with a desculpa ready to leap from her tongue for the stranger when the man laughed. It was low and husky and it broke Mona's heart.

I was just in one of your hotels, Bakar.

The Basque man looked exactly the way she had remembered him, and his eyes were filled with as much warmth as his melancholy would allow. Even dead he is sad. Mona couldn't believe her eyes, and a thought leaped up like a startled rabbit in the back of her mind. Maybe Bakar wasn't dead. Vampires faked their deaths all of the time. For a split, ecstatic moment, Mona's heart soared, but paranoia made her reach out and grab his arm. Terribly cold but as solid as she was.

Without a word, without hesitation, Mona threw herself against her broodmate and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her face in his chest, breathed in his scent and squeezed her eyes shut. He enveloped her in his arms, his lips stretching into a smile framed by his beard.

"I have missed you so much. I was waiting for you to come home."

His voice was like gospel to Mona's ears and she was crying when she looked up at him. Her tears had stained his white button up white. One day she would write Ten Seville a card. If she hadn't kidnapped Mona then this reunion wouldn't have happened. "You're real," she said with near childlike awe, and she lifted a hand to brush her knuckles gentle along his cheek. "Bakar. You're real. I thought you were dead."

Bakar frowned and disengaged from the embrace, but he kept one hand against her back as if he feared the very thought of breaking contact. "Since when has that stopped anyone?"
_________________

Somewhere inside of her own body, Mona screamed to be let out. She was helpless in her frenzy, and it hurt to look out through her own eyes to see what the Beast was doing. Bart had hit her, but she hadn't felt the pain, and try as she might she couldn't free herself from the monster's chains. As the bat missed its collision course with her head, Mona was hit with a tidal wave of awareness.

Nothing had went right after cutting those fingers off.

Rewind Europe

She had been so hungry. By the time she reached Paris, she was absolutely famished. The sounds were too loud, the lights too bright. Everything was a blur after killing the shop girl and stealing that dress, but the girl's blood hadn't been enough. The couple in the hotel in Madrid would have been on her menu had they not amscrayed before nightfall. The driver that had ferried her off from the Hyatt (how had she mistaken that for one of Bakar's hotels?) had pushed her out of his delivery van the moment her feeding teeth came into view. Smart man.

The Beast had already taken control by the time she reached Portugal, and it hurt to think that her reunion with Bakar had been a product of her human self, hidden away like some deformed child in the attic of her soul.
She was in full blown frenzy when she made it to Rhy'Din, but The Beast knew its way home, and she had faded away until the pain from Bart's lucky strike pulled her from oblivion.

Everything was growing fuzzy, and Mona wondered if this was the end. If she had finally reached her point of no return. That didn't bother her as much as it should have, but the idea that she might murder Bart hurt her more than she could handle. Another swing, another hit, and her right arm felt loose and slightly mushy. There was blood in the air, her own and Bart's and suddenly she was looking down at him, her body straddling his waist. He had his hand on her forehead and he was pushing with all of his might, but her teeth were still just inches from his throat, snapping and gnashing at the air.

Abby was quite in touch with the Cobweb these days. Roaming the grounds of the secluded funeral parlor-turned-home, she often let her fractured mind free to tune into it. Very little of it interested her, because she had long ago learned mentally ill vampires were quite predictable in that they weren't predictable at all. It usually ran the gamut from pleas fit to break your heart, laughter hinged and unhinged, and nonsense. There was so much nonsense, and Abby already had an overabundance of the stuff in her own existence to stomach another's .

Rounding her rose garden with her impossible child upon her hip, his grubby hands buried in her mane of dark red hair, Abby was just about to take little Godric inside to eat when something interesting sparked across her consciousness. She stared down into her son's violet eyes, her lips pursed together as she listened. Yes, very interesting indeed.

The Fitzroy boy would have to know of this, of that much she was certain. It involved her dark haired little friend, and Abby was fond of Mona. She really enjoyed the cut of her jib. As the diatribe ended with only her and several hundred of her fellow Malks baring witness, Abby hurried up the stairs to the back door, placed the boy in his highchair and immediately plucked the phone from the wall. A ringadingding.

"Yes? Barky? I think I know what might have gotten into Mona."

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***The following taken from play with Bart Fitzroy.***

"Thanks, Orson." Bart made sure to give one last wave to the cab driver as he ambled onto the sidewalk, his blinking still a little out of sync and his focus still a casual stumble of a thing as he made his way to the door of the Teas 'n Tomes. He sucked in a slow inhale as the bells clamored in his entry, blowing it out slowly as he pushed his hands, palms down, toward the floor to calm his nerves. "Hokay..."

Low and behold the ginger cat was already lounging about. A leg draped over the arm of a battered chair and her back flush with the other, Abby looked for all the world like some smug usurper, if said cad dared to wear a green tee and frayed, nearly indecent denim booty shorts. Her mismatched eyes lighted upon Bartholomew Fitzroy, and her smile with all of its teeth stretched across carmine painted lips. "Barky. I knew you'd come when I mentioned I had news about my muffin." Those strange green peepers narrowed, but what was said was said, and she shrugged to herself.

"Hahwhuwhat!?" He tried to split his congenial smiles to the cashier with his utterly befuddled and a bit nerve-wracked glances to Abby, with every ounce of his brainpower keeping his attention off of her shorts and short-al area. Still, he scooped up his pot of tea and stack of macarons on a tray, carrying them to the coffee table across from Abby and dropping himself into a nearby seat with a flumpf. "Well, I mean, your muffin's sure been through some stuff this month..."

"Just to be clear," and Abby sank down deeper down into the seat, one long leg crossing over the other. She did not remove her eyes from the Mage. She drew a circle in the air with her pointed finger. "We're talking about Mona, correct?" Then with her head inclined just slightly, she wrapped a few dark red locks around that finger, over and over again.

"Yeah, of course." It might have seemed a bit soon for him to be pouring his tea, but all the same, it came out in the lovely amber-brown tone of a well-steeped pot as it careened around the cup. He dipped a single lavender-flavored macaron into the tea and took a bite as he leaned back, teetering for a moment, then shook his head as he faded back to 'rightness'. "I don't think I know anything about your other muffins, or really need to know."

"Yes. Well. I'm part of a..network, shall we say, of people like me. Usually it's just silly things. Pleas for mercy from murderers and gods and the like, but just last night I heard something quite, mm, telling." Her eyes grew wide for a moment before settling back into their squint. "A man was bragging about killing one of the Ministry of Enlightenment..which, as I recall, our mutual little friend was a part of until very recently. I suppose he thought no one in our network would care, to think such a thing so loud." The Malkavian eyed Bart then, waiting for his reply while her hands drummed against the scraggly cloth of the chair's arm.

"... Ohhh okay. I dunno why that explains why there were all these weird little guys in suits causing a ruckus in Mona's head, but I figure it does, somehow." He still blinked a little slow as he reached for his tea, each movement of bringing the cup closer and taking a sip a deliberate, sluggish affair. "Maybe he did think someone'd care. If he's bragging, he's probably just starved for attention." He sighed and rubbed his eye with his free hand. ", I'm wasting energy empathizing with this dickbag."

"You are, Bartholomew," she nodded her head in agreement, "you really are. My sort, we can do a great number of devilish things. We can drive a sane man bonkers." She leaned forward, her arms resting upon her knees, and her smile would have beatific if not for the sinister shine of her eyes. "Mona would easier than that, don't you think? Besides..he did say, or thought, whatever difference the distinction makes..that he would pin it upon a member of the now thankfully dead True Black Hand." Then Abby sat back again, restless thing that she was, and held up ten fingers. "Your number girl, I should think. He even mentioned Mona's name, though he used Ramona. So there you have it, dear boy."

"Oh, that's cute." Bart's nose scrunched in disdain as he took another sip of tea, a tender little motion that made him appear a bit more like an easily-bruised little boy and not a crazy wizard nursing a concussion. "I kinda wanna go puff up my chest and beat some sense into this guy once my concussion straightens out, but then again, he sounds kinda pathetic. Probably just needs an inch more of proverbial rope before he hangs himself." He shrugged, bobbing his head back and forth as he looked into the light's gleam on the top of his tea. "But, I figure I can hand 'im that inch, too."

His odd behaviour had not gone unnoticed. She sniffed at the air and moved forward again to place a hand against the top of the boy's head. There was no rhyme or reason for that touch, but her flesh was cool. "You might want to wait until that concussion sorts itself out. "Abby was a great many things, 89% of them terrible, but she had never quite shaken her maternal instincts and she couldn't fight the worry in her eyes, not when it had such a freeze to contend with. "Let him gloat for a few days more." She drew her tongue across her top teeth. "It softens the meat as it were. I can't give you a name, understand. I don't know it."

He fell still beneath Abby's hand, part of it from nervousness, and another part letting the motherly comfort sink in, accepting a gift freely given with a cat-like blink of gratitude, even as the words jumbled in his precociousness. "I've always got time. Maybe some more stuff'll come out, too." He swallowed down more tea, leaving a pale ripple of leaves and liquid at the bottom of his mug for a moment, pondering. "I'm... mad he tried to mess with Mona, and kinda mad he tried to rope Ten's conf-- uh... conf--" Bart grunted and shook his head with a frustrated smirk. "... nutty ass into it, but I've gotta be honest that I don't have revenge in me. It might make me a ****ty friend, but there's stuff I wanna do here, like get the house fixed up and make sure Mona's gonna be okay." He set his cup down, nodded for a beat, then reached for the teapot, once again taking it slow and measured as he poured. "He needs a good smack in the face, but I don't... think I'm the one to do it."

The gingersnap slowly stood up, and when she stretched her shirt parted to reveal a sliver of pale pale flesh at her belly. Eyes closed, she continued until a satisfying *pop!crack* reached her ears, and only then did Abby drop her arms to her sides. "Then let this Ten girl know of it and let her deal with it. He already believes he's murdered Mona, and no doubt believes that she's murdered you. You're both alive..more or less. Don't get any deeper into it." Her nose twitched. "Hmph. You know, better yet, don't tell the Ten girl. Let her find out on her own. Now.." She peered down her nose at him. "Gather your tea. I'm walking you home. "Abby's tone left no room for debate. "We'll get you nice and comfortable and I'll fix you some chicken soup."

"Ugh, yeah. I think we've all had enough vengeance for a while." He huffed as he teetered to stand, moving slowly with weak nerves as he got to his feet and gulped down the tepid mug of teain a few swallows. His shoulders slumped forward, showing the wounds to his pride, yet he was bright enough to nod in agreement with Abby as he carried the pot and mug to the busbin and grabbed up his handful of macarons for the walk home. "Yeah, I can't argue with getting a bowl of your chicken soup.
Stuff sets you right. It's phenomenal."

"Of course it is, Bartholomew. I was given a gift in the kitchen. God does so love irony, mm?" As watchful of the Mage as a hawk, Abby lead the boy and his bruised brain out of the tea shop, the little bell's jingling marking their retreat.