Darkness.

Cold.

Pain.

A... voice?

"Chia. Hey, Chia, can you hear me?" A muttered curse, followed by a mumbled "Crap, she was hit harder than I thought." A hand, shaking her shoulder. "Chia. Wake up."

She opens her eyes slowly, glued shut from gunk (yuck), her head throbbing like someone's hit it with a twenty-pound hammer or perhaps a very large rock. "What –" she mumbles, "where –"

Her mouth, she decides, tastes like something just died in it. Possibly a cockroach that had been decomposing for over a day.

"Chia. Do you remember what happened?"

"What happened –" she frowns, eyes still barely half-open and bleary as she reviews the events of today. Yesterday? The day before? Shoving the matter of figuring out the current time to the back of her mind, she tries to call up what had happened before she passed out – was knocked out? Hmm. Another mystery to ponder.

Okay, so they had gotten off the train, there was a gondola ride, they went to the market, there were people – "People!" she exclaims. "There were people chasing us, and we acted as a decoy and we got caught – oh," she realizes.

I got us caught.

"And? What else do you remember?" Tam prompts.

Shoving that particular thought to the back of her mind (wow, she's been shoving a lot of her thoughts to the back of her mind in the past minute, it's probably getting crowded back there), she furrows her brow and continues, albeit a little more uncertainly: "I think... there was a gun? I was grabbed from behind and they threatened to cut off my fingers." A pause, as, belatedly, she absorbs this information. "Wait. They threatened to cut off my fingers."

Hardcore, which is impressive, but Chia would very much like to keep her fingers so she doesn't quite appreciate it.

"And then... I set off the signal, and they knocked us out. That's it, right? I think?" she adds again.

A relieved sigh. "Good. At least you didn't forget anything. Alright – open your eyes. Can you see clearly?"

She does, though it takes a lot more effort than usual, and, in the dim light of wherever-they-are, squints at the blurry figure in front of her. "Why're there five of you?"

"...not so good," Tam says. "I think it's possible you might have a mild concussion."

"A concussion?" she shrieks the last bit, because last she remembered, concussion are bad. Like, really bad. Coma bad. Concussions mean death. "Is this heavenly retribution for all of the times I bonked people on the head? Is this because I was a bad kid? God or whatever I'm so sorry please give me a second chance I don't want to dieeeeeeeeee," she blubbers, words turning incoherent and on the verge of dissolving straight into tears.

"Mild, Chia! I said mild!" Tam cuts in, interrupting her mental breakdown. "And I said it's possible! As long as we get you to medical attention in time, you should be fine."

"In time? What happens if we aren't –"

"That's what I was planning on talking to you about," he says. "We need to get out of here. However, as you can see, we are currently locked in this cell, tied up, all our supplies gone and cut off from the outside world."

And now that he says it, looking around, Chia realizes they are in a cell (though she definitely does not want to think about what kind of person actually has a dungeon because she's pretty sure only evil kings have them) and that their hands and feet aren't just tied up with rope but actually chained (wow, dedication – and also no wonder why she can't feel her hands and legs anymore).

"And I'm not sure what time it is right now, either, but judging by that –" he nods towards the tiny window showing the afternoon sun, "we've either been out for a short while or at least a whole day, though I'm betting on the latter. Point is, we've been gone for a while, our escape options are few and I'm pretty sure sooner or later Al is going to do something incredibly reckless and desperate, as is his nature. So," he says, fixing his gaze on Chia, "any ideas?"

She pauses, blinks, and then narrows her eyes right back at him. "Wait – aren't you supposed to be the planner?"

He bristles at this. "I'm not sure I'm should –"

"Yeah, but you're always the one who comes up with our plans –"

"Because I can't!" he snaps, then shrinks back, almost instantly regretting his outburst. "Because – because my plans never work and I always get us caught," he continues, voice smaller and glaring at the spot between his knees, "and every time we do get caught I just – freeze. And it's like – my mind is racing, churning out plan after plan but I can't help thinking 'what if I get this wrong and get everyone killed?'. And it's like I can't move, like I can't even breathe and I – I'm not as reliable as everyone thinks I am, alright? I'm scared. I'm not like you, Chia. I can't act on instinct, can't fight when the odds are against me or when there's a knife at my throat. I'm – I'm scared."

Silence, during which Tam just glares harder at that spot on the floor and Chia stares in shock because, with how calm he always was in every situation, she had always assumed he was just – like that. More mature, more levelheaded, a strong foundation that couldn't be shaken by anything.

Right, she thinks, guilt welling up within her at not even having thought of it before when he's her best friend, he's human too.

A pause as she considers what to say, then just decides to screw it because overthinking things was never her forte anyway, and so she just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind – maybe because it was always there, anyway, lurking just underneath the surface whenever she saw Tam pull off yet another amazing thing.

"Thinking," she declares, shattering the silence into pieces (and so what, if she shatters it and doesn't breach it gently? That's just her, and that's how she does things), "is scary."

Tam looks up. "What," he says, expression changing to one of annoyed confusion as he shoves the hurt back down behind its mask (he has a mask. Had she even noticed that before? Or was it that everyone has a mask, and she had just never bothered to look deeper?).

"It is!" she insists, plowing on with all the tact of an elephant in a room of glass sculptures. "You have to constantly think about all the risks and probability and the 'what-ifs', and you have to decide which one is safer and more likely to succeed, and all the while you have to consider worst-case scenarios and the point is, it's terrifying. It's something I can't do – if I ever tried to, I think I wouldn't even be able to make a complicated plan without tacking on a bunch of maybes and generally being uncertain to the point where I wouldn't be able to carry it out, or gain anyone's trust on it."

"And sometimes – sometimes," she says a bit more quietly, "the fact that I don't think at all scares me too. Sometimes I get a little bit too reckless and get us in trouble and I think, 'if I had been more careful', 'if I had been less stupid'. Sometimes, I feel like an idiot," she admits. "Sometimes, I really think I am one, and I'm scared that I'm the one tripping up the team, that I'm going to be left behind."

Tam's expression softens. "Chia, you aren't stupid, no matter what anyone tells you –"

"Nuh-uh, mister, this is about you!" she says, pointing a finger at him. "The point is – the point is, thinking is hard, and scary, and an amazing thing when sometimes it's easier just to not think at all." She takes a deep breath. "What I want to say is – you're brave. It is amazing and incredibly brave that you can think of the worst things and still find the best way out. You are amazing and incredibly brave for managing to do all of this. So, please – don't put yourself down like this. If you ever do, come find me, and I'll knock all of this nonsense out of your head again. As many times as it takes."

Another stretch of silence, and, having said all the things she needed to say, she nods to herself in satisfaction – not bad for an impromptu, improvised speech.

"Chia?"

"Yeah?"

"I –" Tam begins, mouth opening and closing like a fish, before shaking his head and simply offering her a genuine smile. "Thanks."

She grins right back. "What are best friends for, right? Though," she adds after a moment or two of consideration, "maybe this is why we're best friends. So I can keep you from thinking too much and you can knock some sense into me when I need it."

"Balancing each other out, huh?" he asks.

"Yeah," she nods. "As long as we keep doing that, we're gonna be okay, I think. So – keep doing that. I'll keep you from overthinking, you keep me from doing anything overly reckless. Promise?"

"Promise."

She squints at him. "Hmm. Pinkie promise?"

He rolls his eyes, but laughs. "Alright. Pinkie promise."

She nods to herself again. "Okay. Now we just need to get out of these cuffs so we can actually do that –"

A clapping sound suddenly rings through the darkness, from behind the...door?

In a flash of movement, it's flung open, revealing one Hwa Yara standing behind it, an old rifle slung over her shoulder and grinning victoriously like she's just won the lottery. "Oh, that was so sweet – I'm going to hold that one over you for the next century or so, Tam."

He groans. "You were there this whole time? And you didn't bother to open the door and help us?" He glares at her accusingly. "How much did you overhear?"

Her grin widens. "Guess."

"Nevermind," he grumbles with a sigh. "Just get us out of here already."

After a few moments of fumbling around with a lock picker, both Chia and Tam are free of their cuffs and out of their cell, looking up another spiraling stone staircase to what must be the rest of this place – wherever this is.

"Well," Chia says, spinning to him, hand outstretched. "Pinkie promise?"

He shakes his head with another laugh (for once not even looking that bothered that Yara is witnessing all of this) and hooks his pinkie around hers. "Pinkie promise."

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

Rushing up the long spiral stone staircase, shoving past a barred iron door and racing down the long, carpeted hallway behind it, Tam nods to the rifle slung over Yara's back, asking, "Where did you get that?"

"One of the rooms back there," she replies, nodding to down the hall where they came from. "Gun display cabinet. Smashed it open and yanked out the one I was most familiar with."

Ah, vandalism, then.

Oh well. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And besides, if it's on the properties of the guy that had given Chia a concussion, kidnapped them both, and is planning to track Kaya down for whatever nefarious purposes, Tam supposes that he can excuse it.

"But are you sure it works?" he presses, and in answer, she slings it off, cocking the rifle and lifting it up to her eye-level.

"Well," she mutters, "let's hope it does. I do need something to defend the three of us with, after all – DUCK!"

"What the –" he swears and Chia yelps, as, on the other side of the hall, three people appear and commence firing almost immediately, Yara yanking the both of them out of the way into a slight alcove just as the bullets thud into the floor, embedding themselves in the luxurious dark red carpet with its golden embroidery and leaving smoking black holes.

"They're shooting at us now?" Tam asks, leaning out to dart a glance at their opponents before ducking back in as a bullet 'zings' right past his face.

"Well, if it makes you feel better –" Yara leans out as well, hurriedly returning fire with the rifle, and Tam hears a howl as it hits its mark, "– they aren't aiming fatally."

"It doesn't!" he choruses along with Chia.

"Hmm," she notes, her rifle goes off another two times and is answered by two similar pained cries – but quick as a flash, she's already off and down the hallway, leaving nothing but wind in her wake, her disappearance followed by several thuds and grunts. "You can come out now," she calls.

Warily, Tam follows a hesitant Chia over to where two men and a woman are lying on the floor, a darker shade of red seeping into the carpet beneath them. Chia gulps audibly. "You didn't... kill them, did you?" she asks, prodding the head of one of the men with the toe of her boot.

Yara shakes her head with a snort. "No, just out cold. And shot them in the foot – it'll heal easy. Killing them would probably be messier – and take a lot more work," she frowns.

That would imply you've killed someone before, Tam thinks, and wisely does not say.

I am surrounded by two crazy, absolutely terrifying women, he also does not say, mainly because it would not be wise to do so when, as aforementioned, he is surrounded by two crazy, absolutely terrifying women.

"Well," Yara continues, flicking the safety back on and slinging the rifle over her shoulder again, "now let's get on with escaping, shall we? We do still need to find a way out – unless you want to just smash through the glass of a second-story window and leap out."

Chia darts a glance out the window, showing the sprawling scenery of the more well-off districts of Altissia below them, and lets out a squeak of "No thank you. I don't think getting thrown out of a window would feel nice."

"You throw people out of windows all the time," Tam points out.

"It's self-defense!" she protests, then looks at Yara. "Right?"

"Absolutely," she nods seriously.

I never should've let the two of them meet, Tam thinks once again, despairingly. They're going to torment me for the rest of my life.

They move on, taking turn after turn in the winding hallways that all look the same, Yara leading the way with the same sure swiftness that Chia had exuded leading them through the streets before – though Tam isn't quite as sure of Yara's sureness.

All the same, though, they manage to make it to the main hall with its grand stairwell, large double doors standing just at their left on the floor below from where they're coming out of what must be the second-floor's right hall.

Tam blows out a sigh at the sight that greets him because of course – coming from directly opposite them, which would be the second floor's left hall, is their welcoming party – one unarmed man and two very heavily armed guards.

Yara opens with a friendly "Let us go and no one will get hurt."

"I'm afraid I can't do that," the unarmed man smiles – patronizing and oily as a snake.

Alarm bells go off in Tam's head – and while he doesn't quite like to trust his instincts as much as Chia does, he instantly dislikes the man in front of him, what must be the master of the house, and therefore the reason for much of their misery.

His smile, Tam thinks, is the fakest one he's ever seen.

But no doubt about it – this man is dangerous. Perhaps even more dangerous than Mrs. Rivyet, or the man they had faced on the train. Not just something that Tam thinks or can feel, but something he inherently knows.

Yara, if she is fazed, doesn't show it. "Let me rephrase it, then." Rifle unslung, safety off, cocked, aimed – a fluid, practiced motion with nothing but the slight sounds of ruffling fabric and the louder two clicks. "Move, or I'll shoot."

"I'd very much like to see you try."

Tam sees Yara grit her teeth, eye twitching in annoyance, but that's all the movement she gives before her finger squeezes on the trigger and the gun goes off with a loud "BANG!"

This, she does not flinch at, the bullet clinking to the floor even as the sound of the gun going off still resounds, the single line it's drawn on the man's cheek already welling with blood.

"Consider that a warning," Yara says coolly.

The man claps, seemingly unbothered. "Wonderful! You're much better than I thought." His smile turns sinister. "Now let me show you what I can do."

Backlit by the giant floor-to-ceiling windows on their right, afternoon sunlight streaming in and throwing their shadows on the floor, the three of them watch in amazement as the man's cut slowly closes on its own – the blood clotting and drying, the wound scabbing over, then fading to bruised purple, pink, white, and nothing at all, his skin smoothing over like it had never even been there.

Silence.

Spluttering on his words, Tam chokes out a "What?" as Chia gapes and Yara furrows her brow, the only outward sign of confusion she shows.

"Let me introduce myself –" the man grins, showing teeth, "Argus Arcturus Landfel. It's a pleasure to meet you. How's Shu Anya doing? I assume she's the one who directed you here."

Tam watches as the confusion on Yara's face clears up, rearranging into calm as understanding dawns – though what realization she's had, exactly, he doesn't know.

"Well," the man spreads his arms. "Realize who I am now?"

"What –" Chia begins.

"– or, to reintroduce myself," Argus interrupts. "Argus Arcturus Landfel, one-hundred and forty-eight years old, wisher of the ninety-ninth Star."

The way his wound sealed up. The way he says he's over a hundred years old. The way he says he's the wisher of the ninety-ninth Star.

All of it, painting a giant, undeniable picture that Tam absolutely does not like.

"You mean you're –" Chia starts.

"BANG! BANG! BANG!" Yara's rifle goes off again – this time, aimed right at his chest, blowing blood-soaked holes through his upper right shoulder, his torso, his hip – which, as the seconds pass, Tam watches slowly close up again.

The man – no, the monster in front of him, doesn't even flinch at the pain.

"Immortal," Yara says softly. "He's immortal."

Argus begins to clap slowly, each one resounding loudly in the hall, echoing off the walls. "Very good!" he grins. "So, as you can see, if you erase the Starcurse, it will also reverse my wish. Which would be detrimental to me. Therefore, I've notified every single person looking for your Star-friend that you're currently in Altissia, as well as locked down all the ports. Nothing personal, I reassure you –"

And then the giant window on their right shatters with a shower of glittering, tinkling glass shards, and a blur of white wings and light and two people come tumbling into the room.

"What is –" Argus begins.

Yara shoots him directly in the face with her rifle, spattering blood and brains on the floor. "Run!"

They do.

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

"You shot him in the face!" Tam screeches at Yara as they run down the stairs, bullets pinging off the marble right at their heels.

"So?" she retorts, rifle bouncing off her shoulder blade as she takes the steps three at a time. "What else was I supposed to do? It was the only way to guarantee he would regenerate the slowest!"

"You could've killed him!"

"And I would say good riddance," she mutters under her breath, turning to Kaya and Allioni. "And you two –" she glares. "You do know you're the person everyone is targeting, right?" she directs the last part at Kaya.

"Well, in my defense, you shouldn't have told us where you were and then expected us to stay out of it," she replies. "You do know it's us we're talking about?"

"Fair," Yara grudgingly relents.

"Uh, guys, you do know they're still shooting at us?" Chia reminds them, then yelping and dodging as a stray bullet sails overhead and ricochets off a nearby chandelier.

Which begins to creak and sway dangerously like it's about to plummet to the floor.

"Faster!" Allioni yells as they reach the bottom of the stairs, because the chandelier is very big and has a lot of crystals and it would probably end very very badly for them should it plummet to the floor before they get out of range.

"Go go go go go –" Almost tripping over herself in her haste, Chia rushes towards the grand double-doors and shoves, Tam adding his strength to hers –

They get out and slam the doors back closed just as the chandelier drops to the ground and shatters with the sound of a thousand glass bottles on the inside.