~Crista

I wait in the hallway motionless with my hand against my chest, feeling my heart beat widely. No. No. This can't be happening. For all we did... there has to be another way. Who are we to let some fairy tell us what our fate is? What does he know?

And then it hits me. That shrill voice I've heard before, many times. "Stay away from the man with the answers."

I turn back down the hallway. Zaria thinks she knows who the man with the answers is, but I don't believe her. I'm not giving up.

Lifting my skirt and carefully stepping my weight from foot to foot, I walk back to Zaria's room without making a sound. I have no idea where Axil and Tyrian went. A small part of me doesn't even want to know. It looks like I won't have to be intervening in any fights.

Creeping up to her door I put my ear against the wood to see if I can hear anything, but I only hear the quiet steps of her pacing back and forth. Plucking up my courage, I raise my hand to the door and knock.

"Zaria," I call out still softly, hoping she'll be able to hear me. "Can I come in?"

A delicate wisp of magic seeps under the door frame, swirls around me, then around the doorknob. The whisp brings a slight breeze that cools my hot face. It turns the knob and the door cracks open.

I slip inside and see her face red as a tomato. She's been crying. I search my brain for something to say... anything, but for some reason, my brain lands on—

"Cool trick."

"I'm sorry," she says, disregarding the comment. "I just needed to speak with Lucy for a moment, alone."

I nod. "I get it. Future seer and all."

She quickly nods her head and sighs.

"Listen, Zaria... I have a plan and I don't think you're going to like it."

She playfully rolls her eyes. "Lucky for you, bad ideas are the only thing I think could possibly pull us out of this." I can't help but smile at her attitude. "What did you have in mind?" she asks.

"A while ago, we heard a voice and I think you heard it too."

"Which one?" she asks flopping on her bed

"Stay away— "

"From the man with the answers," she finishes for me. "Yes. I heard it."

"You think it's Tyrian," I say. I struggle to find the right words. How do you tell your best friend that you think the man with the answers is the same man who murdered her mother and almost her? Lucky for me, Zaria is better with words than I am.

"You think it's someone else?" she asks. "Who?"

I press my lips together, unable to utter his name in front of her. If I tell her, I'll have to explain why I think John has the answers and I'm not sure if that's a conversation I feel like having, or a conversation she deserves right now.

"It's not... well... it's not a person I think you'll want to see."

"At this point, I'm really past doing the things I want and don't want to do. Out with it."

"IthinkweneedJohn," I blurt out as quickly as possible. And though my words were jumbled, they were coherent enough for her to understand the word that mattered most.

"John," she repeats as if she's tasting the word in her mouth. A bitter taste.

I sit down next to her and squeeze my hands together. Before I know it, the whole story is just bursting out of me. "He's been in my head. He's told me answers to questions I wouldn't even know where to start. He's the one that told us to turn around. He had said you weren't chasing Eden, so we decided to come back home... and that's where you were."

"John's been in your head?" she asks mostly to herself. She looks at me, a new flame of anxiety in her eyes. "How? There's the magical barrier. His magic can't escape it."

"Well..." I start, not knowing entirely where to go from here. "I'm not sure if the magic he's using is evil. I don't even think he knew he was doing it," I say honestly, and I even catch myself by surprise with this revelation.

"How could he not know he's using magic?"

I take a breath, praying that she could possibly understand. "Do you remember when you were back in Flesherg? You would tell me stories about how you got out of situations that seemed impossible to get out of. It would have taken a miracle, or in this case, it was your mother's magic protecting you. It was you protecting you, and yet you had no idea it was magic."

"I still don't understand fully," she says putting her head in her hand. "I mean, how did I carry my mother's magic? She was dead."

"Ah, but that's the thing about magic. Many people have it, and they just don't know it. Someone in the family inherits magic from the Fae and even once they depart this life, there is a little bit that still gets passed down. The gods know when you need it and they allow the impossible to become possible." I take her hand. "See, when your mother died, a little bit of her magic held onto your soul and the rest went back to the Crystal Cave. This regenerates and powers the cave with magic of all kinds. But the bit that was left with you kept you safe. It was her last token of motherhood she could offer you."

"So, you're saying John is using the not-so-bad power he inherited from Eden?"

I shake my head. "Not quite, although it could be possible." I choose my words very carefully. "I think Eden awoken something inside of him when she communicated with him, almost like a switch. I didn't even know there was a possibility of him having magic. I was never close enough to him to be able to sense it and when I did catch a glimpse, I had always thought it was just you."

"What if he doesn't have magic and it's still just Eden digging her claws into him?" Zaria asks, and I have no answer. Her question is something that I've thought over time and time again. And if it is Eden, that means she knows everything. She'd know my thoughts and dreams, what I'm scared of and what I wish to keep hidden deep within me. And still, I always came back to the feeling that it was different. No, this communication didn't feel as though someone was picking my brain apart, no. It felt like someone trying to understand me.

I look up at Zaria and by her face... something tells me I didn't just say all that in my head.

She takes a deep breath and squints her eyes like she's in pain. I would be too if I were in her shoes. I hold my breath and wait for her to say something. My heart drops when she smirks. She shakes her head and sighs again.

"You're right," she says. She opens her eyes and they seem to twinkle with an intensity I haven't seen in a while. "This is a very bad idea."

She stands and walks over to her closet door. Pushing her hangers aside she reaches up towards the ceiling and pushes through the wall. It makes a slight thump and she waits frozen in case anyone heard. We wait in silence for a few moments but no footsteps sound. She ducks her head out of the closet and motions for me to come.

I get up and join her. Her face is smug as she points to the ceiling. There is a perfect square hole right above our head filled with darkness and critters I can only imagine that I wouldn't want running across my feet.

She reaches out and grips my arm. "You believe John is the man with the answers?"

I shrug, torn but decided. "I do."

"Then let's go ask some questions."

-Zaria-

Everything inside me screams that this is a mistake, but my mind has been screaming a lot and at this point, I'm used to it. Hadn't this been the very thing I tried to convince Lucy of? And this time, I have an alibi.

Could John possibly be the man with the answers? I guess it could be possible. I've always known John for having answers, but they were usually comments I decided against acting upon. Except... when he had asked me to run away...

I wanted to listen to him. I wanted to think of a possibility where we could make it work even if we were hanging by a thread.

You should have listened to him, a small part of me whispers.

No. I quickly shut it down. No. I physically shake my head as I crawl my way through the very tight tunnel. Crista's crawls trail close behind. I can hear her stop every now and then looking through air vent holes, exploring the castle from this vantage point.

"I'm guessing you've never been in here," I say to break the silence. No one is around us.

"No," she whispers, surprised. "Did you find this when you were... you know... still a criminal?"

I sigh. "No," I tell her, saying a silent prayer that perhaps one day I won't be questioned for my past anymore. "Lucy showed this to me. It's how we left... well... it didn't all go to plan." My mind wanders back to Willow and her drawing. "That little girl, Willow. She got herself into some trouble. It's all taken care of now, but I had found her and plans to escape by way of this tunnel failed."

"What trouble?" she asks and there is a bite in her voice I didn't expect.

"Wrong people, wrong time. If I wouldn't have found her, she would have poisoned the queen."

Crista gasps. She grabs my arm and pulls me to a halt. "How could you just say something like that so calmly?"

"She didn't mean to do it," I counter, sticking up for Willow. "She was forced to. She's a little girl, susceptible to persuasion."

She grunts in annoyance. "You know who she is, right? Don't tell me you don't see it," she says and her grip becomes tighter.

"What are you talking about?"

She almost laughs. The white of her eye glows in the darkness and they go wide. "You really have no idea. How many times do I have to tell you, I thought you were smarter," she says with a hint of sarcasm, though I get the idea that she wasn't entirely joking.

"The girl you believe whose name is Willow... is Emma."

My heart drops. "Emma?" I question. "No, but she's..."

"Not supposed to be here, I know. It seems Eden's plans are scattered all over the place."

"Hence the attempted assassination of the queen," I retort. "She's... she's not a threat. I can tell by her aura." I review everything in my head. "Wait, when did you first see her?"

She chuckles dryly and shrugs her shoulders. "I saw her in Senwain and, Axil and I kind of almost attacked her."

I snort. "If I wasn't so understanding, I'd probably chew you out."

"I'm surprised you haven't yet," she says letting go of my arm. Her head falls as well, her big curls covering her face.

I sigh. My chest feels tight, too tight to just be nerves. I shove the slave mark out of my mind and pat her on the shoulder. "Just tell me this," I say and my chest gets even tighter. "He hasn't threatened you, has he?"

She pauses as though she's considering something and her silence makes my skin crawl. "No," she says finally, and when she looks up there isn't a hint of a lie. Her aura whisps a deep blue. Peaceful.

I start crawling again and try to ease the ache in my chest. Calm down. It's just a little pain. It'll all be over soon. I gulp and bite my tongue to keep from tearing up. Lucy's parting words ring in my head like bell chimes. Back and forth, back and forth. But no matter how I rephrase it or question it in my head, it doesn't make me feel any better about making it through this.

I'm going to die.

I let my brain wrap around the fact. I've skipped death more times than I can count. I've run out of slots on my punch card with the Grim Reaper. This time I'll have to go with him.

Not if you live.

My heart almost stops beating. Never again did I think I'd hear that voice. The voice that wraps around my very being like a warm blanket. Mom.

I don't question it. I don't even want a single doubt in my mind whether that was actually her voice or just a figment of my imagination.

"No," Crista continues, "but he seems worried about you."

My heart skips a beat. My mind has been in this constant battle between wondering what all John's thoughts are and not wanting to know at all.

"He killed my mom. He should be worried," I retort trying to not get my hopes up. Sighing I keep my eyes forward and watch every vent that we cross to see where we're at. The Common Room... so that should mean we're still a little way away from the door to the dungeons.

"About what you said... with Willow." She pauses and I already know where this is going. I can feel my blood get warmer and warmer. From the slave mark or rising anger, I haven't the slightest clue where to start. And even though I know what she's going to ask, I make no effort to say it for her. No, I don't think John is harmless. I've seen him do wicked and vile things even before we crossed over the border to the Kingdom Realm. I've witnessed him take lives without question and I've seen how easy it is for him to bask in the glory of lies and deceit.

John is not harmless. He is capable of so much destruction and to say otherwise would be naïve.

"Do you think the same could be said for John?"

She asks this with such hopefulness in her voice and her words cut me like sweet poison. There is a tension in the air that surrounds us, but it feels as though it's only constricting me. My mind flashes back to seeing him when I was back in Flesherg begging me to leave. His eyes were so promising. All I had to do was say yes. And then I see a flash of those same eyes as he held me in the ballroom and told me of his plan to destroy the kingdom. There was a promise in his eyes, but oh, how different it was. And for my own sake, to guard my heart I utter an answer I don't want to believe.

"No."

-Crista-

I knew her answer before I even asked. I can quite literally see the tension in her shoulders the more I talk about John. I just hope that he can't hear this. I never know when he's listening in and when he's not. He waltzes in and out of my head like the ocean tides.

"Then why go through all this trouble?" I ask, and I now know that I'm defending him without even realizing it. I can see the realization hit Zaria. For a split moment, she freezes and I wonder if she's asking herself the same question I've been asking. What if I have gotten it all wrong?

"What all has he told you?" is her answer, and for selfish reasons I don't feel like sharing.

So instead of answering, I say, "Would it matter if I told you?"

She goes silent and I know her mind is a powerhouse right now, thinking of every possible scenario, question, and 'what if,' but she concludes once again, "No."

She sighs, but it's more of a grunt. Rolling her shoulders, she rocks her neck back and forth and a part of my stomach drops watching her in pain. It hasn't really set in that the ink on my skin is not real, just some gimmick set up by my father. How did he do it, I still have no idea. But I will find out.

"What was Axil's plan?" she asks and the question catches me off guard. Clearly, she is thinking of everything.

"We were going to see if John and Willow would ally with us. Get them to have fake slave marks... just like us, apparently."

"Mr. Griffin said she would be able to sense the magic. She'd know it was a hoax," Zaria mumbles and I can feel her exhaustion just from her voice.

"Zaria," I say. A fraction of my mind is screaming not to ask, but I do anyway. We don't have much time. "After we let him out... ask him some questions... what then?"

Once again, her response shocks me. "What were you thinking?" And, I can't tell if she is mocking me or genuinely curious. Maybe a bit of both.

"I... don't know," I answer honestly, and I hope she doesn't catch the hesitation in my voice.

"Why do you want to see him so badly?"

That's the million dollar question I've been asking myself. Maybe I want to see him because I need to look a monster in the eye and stop hoping. Maybe I want to see him so I can see a broken soul that just needs to be mended. Maybe I want to see him to prove to myself that he deserves what he's getting. And maybe, just maybe I need to see him because I believe in second chances.

But I don't say any of that. I settle for, "I don't know," and the answer doesn't satisfy her.

Zaria stops and reaches for something below her. Rattling a gate, she shakes it until it disconnects and sliding it to the side, she turns around to face me.

"You do know," she says before lowering herself to the main floor right next to the door holding all of her pain.