Wringing her hands, Alicia stares up at the porch before her, frustrated with herself for being daunted by the simple slats of wood and sagging tin ceiling. She works with Sasha so much that she has the gut instinct that this woman isn't the one to blame for the notes, but she can't be too sure. Her disdain for Sam can't be shoved so easily under the rug.

Alicia steps up onto the porch and raps her knuckles on the door before she can turn herself around.

"Who is it?" Sasha shouts from within and Alicia swallows, her throat painfully dry.

How does she go about asking someone if they're conspiring with the exiles that killed her aunt before her eyes?

She clenches her fists at her side. "Fuck," she mutters under her breath before lifting her chin and saying louder, "it's Alicia."

The door flies open and Sasha looks at her with a frown between her light brows, her blonde hair a mess around her face from where it slips out of her usual bun. "Are the stables alright?"

"Yes, they're fine. Viktor is still there. I just wanted to talk to you."

Sasha hums and nods. "Alright, but come inside. I have some stew that'll fatten you up." Sasha turns around and walks into the home, leaving the door open for Alicia. She pauses, glancing around, still wondering how she's going to navigate the tricky waters she's wading into.

Alicia just shakes her head and enters Sasha's home, closing the door behind her. She walks down the hall warily, glancing at the faded patches on the walls where pictures once hung.

"The old bat that used to live here had an obsession with flowers," Sasha says as she turns into a room to the right, noticing Alicia's gaze. "She had pictures of flowers all over the house. No sign of the woman herself when I moved here though."

Alicia follows Sasha into the kitchen but stands in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot, eyes roving over the old wood and worn floorboards of the place. The furniture is scarce and looks about ready to fall apart at any moment.

Sasha spoons a heap of stew into a bowl from a large pot on the stove, the food steaming and Alicia's stomach rumbles obnoxiously with the scent of it. She hasn't eaten since bringing those notes to Oliver, her stomach twisted into too many knots.

"If this is about what I said at the tavern the other night then I'm sorry."

"No, it's not," Alicia replies with a wince.

Sasha places the food on the table with utensils and then looks at Alicia. Alicia can only stare between Sasha and the food, uncertain how hospitable she'll be once she realises why Alicia is here.

"Sit down," the woman orders, placing her hands on her hips, her gaze unforgiving. Alicia can't do anything but what she's told, taking a seat by the food while Sasha sits across from her, watching her with a piercing gaze of moss green.

Alicia begins eating, barely tasting the food.

"You were going to be our next queen."

The urge to vomit grips her as she looks up at Sasha. Alicia swallows, licks her lips, and shakes her head. "Where'd you hear that?" Alicia spoons more food into her mouth as the corner of the woman's mouth lifts in a smile.

"I didn't hear it. I saw your picture in the paper when you were betrothed to the prince. I was exiled not long after."

Alicia tries not to choke on the food, and the next swallow is a struggle. Could Sasha really be the one behind the notes? Could her gut have led her astray? It wouldn't be the first time since donning silks instead of blades.

"I didn't realise it at first," Sasha says with a shrug. "But you avoid Sam like she has the Ruga flu."

Alicia has worked with this woman. Ate and talked and drank and laughed with this woman. She hardly knows her, but she feels her grief for a father lost and thrust into a strange world. Alicia wanted to be the one this woman could lean on.

Blinking, she sees her aunt, choking on her own blood, Warren's knife embedded in her throat. She feels sick.

Alicia shoves away from the table and stands, the chair clattering to the floor behind her. "How do you plan to use it against me?"

Sasha snorts. "Blackmail you? For what? Riches?" She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest, shaking her head. "What good are they to me out here?"

"Then what do you want?"

"I want to know what your plans were as queen."

"What?"

Sasha squints at her. "What did you plan to do with your power?"

"I..." A lump forms in her throat as she remembers. All of her dreams, her aspirations, her hopes while she worked beside Reyna, and how they were all snatched from her because she became desperate. "I wanted..." Peace? No, what Alicia was doing was sparking the fires of rebellion. Freedom? They all would have still been trapped within the walls, caged by the Grey Bloods.

What was she fighting for?

"I didn't want anyone to grow up in the slums as I had." Dirty, starved, only the small moments of finding a burnt loaf of bread in the trash or discovering a glittering coin under her ma's pillow being her brief moments of hope.

Dirty, then bloody, then broken.

"You wanted to help Muovea?"

Tightening her jaw, Alicia shoves her emotions down. "It doesn't matter what I was within those walls. I'm an exile now."

"And how were you exiled? Did you come into contact with the Reaper's Curse?"

Alicia's mouth goes dry and the healed wound in her side seems to throb, reminding her of her mad dash beyond the walls as she exiled herself. "I should be going."

"Wait," Sasha blurts, getting to her feet and latching onto Alicia's wrist. "Just answer the question."

"Why?" Alicia asks, narrowing her gaze at the woman.

"Because my pa led a worker's strike two years ago and that's the reason why he was exiled. Not because any of them came into contact with the Curse, but because he rebelled against the corrupt nobles. And you..." Sasha drops Alicia's wrist as Alicia continues to stare at the woman. "You wanted to make Muovea a better place for those less fortunate, even if it meant going up against those corrupt nobles. You've just confirmed that—"

"But you could be wrong," Alicia interrupts, knowing she needs to lie, needs to take some of the ammunition this woman has against her away from her. "I did come into contact with the Curse. I was with the queen when she was infected." Alicia steps closer to the woman, looking into her eyes. "I know it's painful to lose your father, but if you start spilling words of rebellion and revenge, these people will listen to you, and they will all die because of it." The woman winces, and Alicia steps back, moving towards the door. "There's been enough bloodshed already."

In the stables, Alicia finds Viktor shoveling filthy hay. He doesn't look up at her as she enters, just focuses on his task and Alicia is glad for his quiet.

She can't search Sasha's home, but she can search the stables for any evidence to tie her to those notes and to Warren. A part of her hopes she'll find nothing, but she can't just ignore the woman's own words. Sasha knows who Alicia is and she wants revenge against the nobles of Muovea.

She passes the stalls of the horses, finding comfort within their presence and hoping to shake the unease spreading through her. Her steps take her to the darkened corner of the stables, and she reaches for a crate, inspecting its contents, wondering what she's even looking for. Some sort of note written in the same code perhaps, maybe even the parchment used, she's not sure.

Whatever she finds, she'll take it to Oliver and he can do with Sasha what he wills. Let that be the end of Alicia's involvement in this entire mess.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Heart leaping into her throat, Alicia spins around, eyes wide. But she lets out a breath and brushes a tendril of hair from her face when she sees Grayson. "Oh, hi," she murmurs.

"Usually where you are, Oliver Narovich isn't too far behind." He leans against a stall, embraced by the shadows as she's so far from the entrance of the stables.

That instinct in her gut rears its head, telling her she needs to remove Grayson from standing between her and the only exit. But her gut's been so wrong recently that she ignores it. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Alicia Zalana, isn't it?"

It's just a name. That's the lie she tries to tell herself, but it's hollow when she looks down and sees him twisting something in his hands. The sapphire gem that glints at her doesn't lie.

"You know, the last time I saw this ring, it was on the finger of my sister." His voice is a quiet utterance amongst the shuffle of horses and the low creaking of the wind through the slats of wood. But alongside the hush Alicia's heart rages, a drum in her ear. "Well, on her corpse anyway."

Alicia shuffles back as he advances, and she braces her hands on the crates. But his hand darts forward to grip her upper arm to keep her from slipping away. His touch makes her skin crawl, the memory of hands around her throat still too fresh. Grayson's fingers dig painfully into her arm, sharpening her senses.

She should have learned by now not to get trapped, learned to see the warning signs that surround her.

She shouldn't have let him stand between her and the exit.

Once she would have noticed, but she's crushed such ingrained survival from her soul. At least, she's tried to.

"Alicia Zalana, betrothed to the prince, taking what wasn't meant to be yours." He presses her into the unforgiving crates, and she has to swallow her whimper, eyes straying to the light of the world at the end of the stables, hoping that someone will save her. But one of the last people to try to protect her is now beneath the soil.

"What are you doing, Grayson?" she asks, keeping her chin high. She speaks a mantra in her mind, over and over. She's surrounded by people, people that may see her as an outsider but good people no less. If she screams they'll come for her. She's okay, she's okay.

"They said my sister killed herself," he says as he reaches up to grip her jaw, fingers digging into her cheeks. "But they murdered her because she wasn't good enough for your prince. But none of them will ever be punished for killing her."

"I didn't know," Alicia lies.

She'd heard whispers of the girl in the blue dress, the one they dragged from the canals. Another poor soul crushed within the slums with no escape. That's what she had thought anyway. It wasn't until she began digging into Muovea's darkness that she discovered other things. Learned that the boy she thought she could love had let an innocent girl die. She made herself the promise not to be her.

"No," Grayson says with a curl to his lip as he looks at her from her muddied boots to her weary face, "of course not. You're just blind, deaf, and dumb, hiding who you are and snooping around the Commons because you're bored."

With those words, Alicia knows. He's the one who wrote the notes. He's the one that'll use her own name against her.

Alicia reacts. She jerks her knee between his legs. He lets out a grunt and Alicia shoves him away, tearing her face from his grip before she runs. His hand lashes out to snag the back of her shirt and—with a choked cry—she's yanked to the ground. Her head cracks into the hard dirt of the stables, her gaze swims, her vision briefly lost in a sea of black.

"You have a way of picking men," Grayson manages through gritted teeth as he straddles her, pinning her arms above her head to keep her still with his weight. "First, the prince who fucks his way through life. Now Oliver, a man who kills his way through life. Hurting you will hurt them both."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Alicia spits, twisting her hips, trying to throw him off her.

"Oliver threw my uncle out of this place, the only family I have out here. And now he hunts him like a fucking animal." Grayson leans forward, anger twisting his face. Alicia meets his gaze, fingers stretching for any sort of an opportunity beneath his grip. "Both your men took everything from me, so why don't I take a little something from them?" His eyes are dark windows into the Reaper's den, but Alicia screams, wrangling a hand from his grip. She latches onto a stone and brings it in a wide ark towards his skull. He sees the movement and is swift to block her blow by grabbing her wrist. He smashes her hand into the ground until bone grinds, and skin splits. Alicia cries, pain numbing her entire right side.

He grips her throat, satisfaction igniting in his blue gaze in the way his fingers slot around her slim neck.

She sees the shadows of the Reaper, blooming towards her with the whispering voice of freedom and peace. Jeramiah's face is there, swimming in her vision, emerald eyes burning with rage. She hears his screams as Oliver gutted him like a pig, strewing his innards across the forest floor for the crows to feast upon. She's not ready to follow that man into the Reaper's den, or any of the other souls she's helped put there.

Alicia screams as she claws Grayson's face with her mangled hand, the agony of the movement bringing sick to her mouth.

His hands leap to the deep grooves left in his face, the cry that falls from his lips a wretched thing that will haunt Alicia on her way to the Reaper's den. It wouldn't be the first.

Alicia twists onto her stomach and scrambles out from under him, desperation in her sluggish movements, in the rapid pant of her breath, the way she blinks tears from her eyes to try and see her escape.

She doesn't find the Light before Grayson grips her head and cracks her face into the ground. Blood bursts into her mouth and she spits it to the ground as Grayson drags her to her knees by her hair.

"Warren wants you alive for those supplies, bitch. But I'll drag you to him bleeding and broken."

She doesn't get a moment to breathe, to think, before she has a fist sinking into his stomach. He tosses her to the ground, sucking in a sharp breath and doubling over. She spits more blood as it gushes from her nose, pain a throbbing beat behind her eyes.

Grayson comes for her again, the rage on his face drags a whimper from her. Her bloody hands clamber for the stone once again. But it's lost to her, and she's just a helpless little girl in the slums once again. Helpless to save herself from the beatings of other children, helpless to save her pa as he tried to protect her from the soldiers and execution, helpless to save herself from exile even as a princess-to-be, the next Muovean queen. Now that title has damned her.

He doesn't get a chance to reach her before a stick shatters against his knee and brings him to the ground. The little boy with wide eyes stands over him, trembling slightly. Viktor still grips the head of the broom as Grayson whirls on him, his fury a storm.

Alicia is on her feet, grabbing the boy and putting herself between him and Viktor before she can think. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, leaving behind streaks of blood as Grayson breathes heavily before her, pushed on by the years of helplessness, years of seeing his family being crushed before his eyes. Alicia knows the feeling. She's sure she had that same look in her eyes as the Raven and it made men twice her size tremble before her.

"The grand duke's soldiers butchered my pa," Alicia blurts out, her voice cracking with her ragged breaths. "They came into our home and they shot him to death before me."

Grayson stills, somehow managing to see beyond his hate to listen to her words, eyes flicking between hers as she bears her soul. She knows that this is the only moment she has to buy herself some time as blood drips onto her clothes and the boy behind her clings to her shirt with trembling fists.

"The duke took everything from me. Sebastian can't stop a man like that. I can't stop a man like that." A lie, but her lies and masks are all she has at this moment. Because she could stop Sergey Volkov, if she were willing to ruin what little is left of herself. "If you think Sebastian or Oliver are the people to blame for the wrongs done to you, then you're aiming your hatred at the wrong monster."

Grayson laughs bitterly, shaking his head. Alicia knows her time has run out and he still stands between her and the exit. "You still have something we want and your story of woe won't change that." He starts for her again, and her stomach lurches as she pushes the boy behind her further away from Grayson's fury, backing them against the wooden wall of the stable, trapped and helpless against the mindless wrath of man.

His next step doesn't take him very far before the handle of a gun cracks into his skull, sending him pitching forward into the dirt. Oliver stands behind him.

Alicia breaks then, the shadows of her past rushing up to meet her. She promised herself she would never reach for the jagged parts of herself again, but she also promised to protect her family, and now they're nothing but shambles.

She can't seem to breathe as her past demands recompense.

Oliver is quick to holster his weapon and dart towards Alicia as she crumbles, tears flowing and ragged breaths coming short. He grips her elbows, going to the ground with her and shushing her sobs with a soothing voice. He presses her face to his shoulder, the warmth and the familiar smell of him wrapping itself around her.

But she's cold, so very cold, reminded of those terrible nights in the slums as she sacrificed the parts of herself she thought she could never lose.

How much did she end up losing for her grab at power? How much does she continue to lose?

She doesn't hesitate, but her hands shake, memories of the first night she had to wield a gun at the forefront of her mind.

She can understand Grayson's helplessness, but she could never understand such hateful revenge, not until her father was dying before her and those soldiers had his blood splattered upon their faces.

Oliver's gun is in her grip before he can utter a word to stop her. She pulls back, aims and—with blood dripping from her chin and eyes blurred with tears—she shoots.