Once they had settled, Sam cleared his throat. "Um, thanks—thank you for seeing us today." He trailed off, frowning, most likely struggling with how to address the strange cloaked figure. "Our...friend, said you might know the answer to some of our questions."

The shadowy figure leaned forward, placing gloved hands on the table. Long, slender fingers encased in leather. They looked delicate, which Natalie found surprising.

"I know the answers to many things, though I can't promise I'll share them. You may ask your question."

The voice was butter smooth, and undeniably feminine. Natalie's eyes went wide, and beside her she felt Sam shift. To his credit his voice did not sound in the least surprised.

"We're looking for a woman, and there are rumours she was last seen in the palace, perhaps the dungeons even." He glanced over at Natalie, who dipped into her pocket and brought out the newspaper article. Nervously, she pushed it across the table, so it sat in the center facing the hooded figure.

The woman named Sunshine reached out one gloved hand and slid the paper toward her, her hood tilting forward as she looked over the article and the picture. Natalie swallowed hard, wishing her throat didn't feel so tight. Dread sat in her stomach like a leaden weight and she wanted to throw herself across the table and seize the woman's cloak, get her to spit out the answers. What if she said Natalie's mother was dead? What if she'd never seen her before?

Slowly the figure looked up. "What is your business with the woman?"

Natalie's heart leapt. This Sunshine person obviously did know something, and her mother wasn't dead, that much was obvious in her answer. She glanced up at Sam, who nodded slowly. They had agreed not to tell anyone else about the necklace, but it didn't hurt to tell at least part of the truth. A very small part. Of course, Natalie looked like...one of them, right now. And her mother was very obviously human, so she couldn't admit the woman in the picture was her mother.

"She's a friend," Natalie said. "She's been missing, like the article said.

The woman in the cloak shifted. "Do you have any idea how incredibly dangerous it is to have this on your person?"

Natalie bit her lip. Silence stretched out between them.

"Be sure not to show anyone else that picture. No one can know you have it." The woman called Sunshine slid the article back across the table, and Natalie grabbed it and refolded it before depositing it back into her pocket, feeling relieved. Her story seemed to have satisfied the woman.

"She is at the palace, as you say." Gloved fingers tapped the table, and the hood swayed slightly, as if the woman was tipping her head to one side, assessing them. "How much do you know about her and the key?"

"Not much," Sam said, his voice low. "That's why we're here."

The woman drummed her gloved fingers on the countertop. "Not many know this, but the person who created the twin keys was not from our world."

Natalie could feel the others reacting to this, shifting on the seat beside her, and Jewels breathed, "What?"

"She was human," the woman said, fingers still drumming the table. "Is human. And the queen has her." She shook her head, the hood moving back and forth. "And the reason the queen continues to hunt humans, she believes one of them has the other, that the sorceress left it to someone she knew."

Now it was Natalie's time to shift in the booth. Her mind was reeling. Surely that couldn't' mean her mother, could it? Her mother had been in the army, she hadn't been magic. And there was no such thing where she was from.

Was there?

Doubts were staring to creep into the edges of her subconscious. It wasn't like she knew anything about her mother. And she couldn't very well say there was no magic in the human world when the key had brought her here. She could no longer say anything was impossible, could she?

"So that horrible woman is keeping her locked up to try to find the location of the second key," Sam growled.

The tapping hand stopped. "Careful Samuel, she has people everywhere."

Sam sat up, gripping the table with both hands. "How do you know my name? Did Serena...?"

"She did not," the woman sounded amused. "But I play my part as both a purveyor of information and as insider at the palace for a certain group we have in common."

Sam sat back in the booth, brows raised. "Do you now? And how do I know you're not just saying that to put me at ease? Get me to put my guard down?"

"For what purpose? You came to me with something you wanted, I asked nothing from you." There was a sharp note to the woman's voice, and Sam nodded slowly.

"Very well. We—"

He was cut off as a loud, brassy bell tone rang out somewhere in the distance above them. They all sat in shocked silence for half a second, and then the bell tolled again, and Jewels said, "The alarm!" just as the cloaked woman across from them sat suddenly upright, her gloved-hands smacking the table.

"Get out the back, all of you." Her voice was low, urgent, the smooth tones had all but fled. "My men will get me out, but if they catch you with that picture—"

There came a crash from somewhere beyond the curtain, the distinctive sound of wood splintering, and an angry shout went up from the bartender.

"Traitorous pigs, get out of my bar!"

The sound of steel being drawn from scabbards followed, and the crash of glass. It sounded like chaos shortly after that, chairs and tables being knocked over as men launched themselves at one another.

Sunshine shot to her feet, one hand going out to snatch at the curtain. Before she could reach it there was a pained sounding grunt, and the curtains were ripped aside as someone fell through them. The burly man who had led them to the booth sprawled backwards, his upper torso landing on the table. Natalie shrieked. There was blood bubbling up from his throat, and he was making horrible choking sounds as he clawed at his chest, trying to gasp in air.

"Shit, shit!"

It was the cloaked woman, she was moving fast, tearing away the curtain to reveal the bar in shambles. There were men fighting other men, most of them dirty and unwashed, the patrons of the bar. They fought with broken bottles and rusty daggers and short swords, but it was hardly a fair fight. The men they were railing against were soldiers, cloaked in chainmail and black livery. Natalie's mouth dropped open for the second time that night. She recognized the pattern on the shields they carried, the black square with the red slash through it. All that was missing was the red writing that said "Worthhill" across the side. Mallory's father's company, the tile factory on the hill. How was that even possible?

What the hell?

The soldiers struck down anyone who approached them, the polished steel of their swords glittering under the gas lamps. Just behind them, there was movement in the door, black slinking shapes, accompanied by a guttural barking sound that set Natalie's teeth on edge and sent a shiver dropping down her spine.

Threshers.

Two of them entered the bar, light glinting off their oily black hides, tails thrashing the air behind them. That awful whistling sound pierced the air, even over the shouts and screams filling the bar.

The woman in the cloak swore again, and went to retreat back into her booth. It was Sam that moved now. Jumping to his feet he pushed Natalie in the back. "Out of the booth, quickly," he raised his voice over the noise. They obeyed, filing out, and Sam lunged forward and caught the cloaked woman's arm before she could hide behind the curtain. "It's no use, they'll find you there sooner or later. Into the back room, quickly." He shoved the cloaked woman ahead of him, and she stumbled slightly. Now that she was out in the open she was considerably less impressive looking. She was short, for one thing, and her cloak was faded and patched in places. Still, Natalie didn't have a lot of time to look her over, as they were pushing their way through the fight. Sam went first, dodging blows from both bar patrons and soldiers. He had picked up a chair now, and used it to batter a soldier blocking the entrance to the bar out of their way.

"Get to the door," Sam shouted. "I'll be right there."

Natalie spotted the door in the back wall behind the bar as soon as he'd said it, and she made a beeline for it. Jewels came behind her, half dragging the woman in the cloak, who kept looking over her shoulder and yelling about her men. Gwen followed, and the blond woman's teeth were out, Natalie noticed, the needle-like fangs completely emerged. Gwen ducked a blow from a nearby soldier and turned on him savagely, clawing at his face. He fell back with a shriek, hands over his eyes.

"The door, Gwen." Sam pushed her toward them, and Natalie took a breath and caught Gwen's hand, tugging them both through the door after Jewels.

The door led them through a narrow, dirty hallway and down a set of stairs into what looked like a cellar. Here there were barrels and barrels stacked up on one another, and racks of blue glass bottles, no doubt full of spirits. The entire place smelled strongly of ale, and Natalie held her breath for a moment before giving up. There was the crash of a door slamming, which made them all jump, and then Sam was there in the doorway, holding the door shut with both hands.

"They're trying to come in," he yelled. "Jewels, grab a barrel."

She jumped forward, grabbing the nearest barrel of ale, and together and she Gwen rolled it toward the door, pushing it up against the wooden surface with considerable effort.

It seemed to work for now, the door shook as someone battered at it, but they didn't seem to make a lot of headway against the heavy wooden barrel, and at last the blows stopped and the noise on the other side began to escalate.

"There are too many soldiers," Sam said grimly. He turned back to the rest of them, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his hair, looking around the room, brow furrowed. "Is there a way out of here?"

"The window." The cloaked woman's voice seemed to have changed. It was higher pitched now, and shaky with fear. She flinched back when Sam frowned at her. "What?"

"You sound familiar." He stepped forward. "I'd like to know who we're helping escape. Let's see your face."

"Now is hardly the time." The woman took a step back.

Gwen growled and reached out, grabbing the woman's hood and ripped it back. The woman behind the cloak didn't look at all familiar, but judging by the thunderstruck expressions of the others, they knew exactly who she was.

She was a full head shorter than Gwen, with honey blond hair and a splash of freckles over her nose and cheeks. Her face was young, and she had wide blue eyes. She looked, Natalie thought incredulously, nothing like she would have expected. Perhaps the name Sunshine was less ironic than she'd first thought.

"Oh," Sam said. "You have got to be joking."