"Heyyyy, Elliot. Wake up." I heard a ringing sound next to my ear.

I felt something poking my face and swatted it away; turning on my side.
"Ugh," I groaned. My head hurt.

"Elliot, are you okay?" I heard Lacie ask.
I opened my eyes, blinking; remembering making the contract with Lacie.
"Where are we? And how long was I out?"

"Why are you asking me that? I've never been to this world before, remember? And I just woke up a couple of minutes ago."
"Yeah, yeah. You can describe things though, can't you?"
"Elliot, just wake up and look for yourself!"
"I am up," I said, not moving.

"No, you're lying on the floor," she replied, grumpily.
I rubbed my temples, sitting up.
"Hey, and I figured out you're a Nightray. Isn't that one of the dukedoms here? Why are you so lazy?"

I turned my head to look at her sharply. There wasn't anyone else in the room and I looked different, so no one could've recognized me.
"How do you know that?"
"I don't know; I just saw it, I guess," she said. She was sitting on her knees beside me and her eye was back to its original colors.

"Saw it?" I demanded. "What do you mean?"
I stood up and looked around.
"When we went through the Way, I touched your hand and then saw you with a girl. She called you Elliot Nightray."

"A girl?" I asked. "What did she look like?"
"You had on white school uniforms and she had blonde hair and green eyes."
"Oh. Ada Vessalius."
We were in a dark room and there seemed to be a stairwell to one side and a huge door to the other. Something about the room felt off, though.

The light flickered on as I opened my mouth to say something and Lacie jumped, standing up as well. A man with silver hair walked in.
"Oh? And who might you two be?" he asked, mumbling around a lollipop.

"Break! Wait, then are we in the Rainsworth household?"
I turned around. The door was one of the gateways to the Abyss.

"Hmm...you look like someone I know," Break remarked, looking at Lacie with his red eye.
She stepped back, eyeing him warily.

He turned to look at me, taking a step forward.
"I asked you a question. If you don't answer it, I'll assume you two are enemies,"Break said, a finger to the clasp on his cane after finishing the lollipop and throwing the stick somewhere.

"Elliot...." Lacie whispered, kicking me from behind. "It's that guy. I can tell he's the Hatter." The aura I felt from before grew around her, and her eye color flickered.
Break smiled creepily. "Then, are you an illegal contractor? I thought the B-Rabbit and Cheshire Cat were the only chains with human looking-forms. And you two did come out of the Abyss, so....."

Lacie clenched her teeth and tried to step forward.
"Hey, what are you doing?" I asked her, holding out an arm to stop her.
"I'm gonna make him pay. It's his fault Cheshire can't see me anymore," she said, clenching her fist.

"Were you friends with that cat?" Break asked, walking towards us. He looked down at Lacie's bell and the smile fell from his face. "That's...."

He was behind me and grabbing Lacie's wrist before I could move.
"Let go of me!" she said, trying to pull back.

Break narrowed his eye at me, ignoring her."Where did you get this bell?"
"She got it from Cheshire," I confessed, looking at Lacie.
"Come with me," Break commanded, yanking Lacie towards the stairwell. She protested, but couldn't stop him.

"Elliot, do something!" she yelled back at me.
Break paused. He turned towards me, curiosity glittering in his eye.
"Elliot?" he mused, tapping the cane against his shoulder. "Is that your name?"

"Yes," I said, deciding to see what this was about first before saying who I was.
"Do you have a family name?"
"Maybe."
"Hmm. Oh well. I'll have to contact Oz-kun either way," Break said, turning back around; leading Lacie, who was stomping her boots.
I followed behind them, looking back at the Rainsworth gateway.

As they walked down a hall, Break opened his mouth again. "Just to make sure, which one of you is the chain?"
Lacie pouted. "Neither."
"You're both illegal contractors?"
"No," she said.
"And yes," I added.

"Elaborate further, please," Break said, passing a butler and rounding a corner. I looked back at the butler as he looked at a piece of paper now in his hands and walked off.
"I....made a contract with Lacie, but she's not a chain."
"A contract between humans?" he mused."But how does that work? Illegal contractors make a contract because they want to change something, and feed their chains."

"I'm not sure, but Lacie is different. Her incuse is in a different place and it doesn't have a clockhand like the Baskervilles, yet she didn't even know who they were at first. She's been in the Abyss this whole time."
"Like Alice," he muttered under his breath.
"So your contract seal isn't over your heart?" he asked Lacie.

"No," she replied, confused. "Why would it be?"
"Incuses are normally over the contractors' heart."
"Well mine's never been."
"Never been?" Break asked curiously. "You've had more than one contract?"
"Maybe," Lacie replied as Break knocked on a door before opening it.
"Miss Sharon!"

A pillow hit Break's face and dropped to the floor.
"Break, I told you to-" the girl stopped midsentence as she turned around.
"Who are they?"
Break picked the pillow up and tossed it back on the bed.
"You remember Cheshire's bell Vincent made me destroy, yes?"

Sharon's expression turned sad for a second before eyeing me and Lacie warily."Yes. The one that had Alice's memories from a hundred years ago."
"Well, I think there was two of them," Break said, holding Lacie's wrist out and pulling her in front of him.
"Really?" Sharon exclaimed, running up to us.

"Hey, why is Lacie's bell so important?"I asked, walking inside the room.
"Do you know of the Tragedy of Sablier?"Break asked me, letting go of Lacie as Sharon closed the door.
I watched him as he sat down in a chair backwards, taking out a piece of candy. "Yes."
"A girl we know was there, and now she's a chain, but her memories were scattered. The truth about the Tragedy of Sablier is unclear so if we asked someone who was there...."
"You'd know what actually happened," I finished, my eyes widening.
"Exactly, so can you tell your chai-, I mean Miss Lacie to let Sharon look at her bracelet?"

I looked over at them. Sharon was trying to take the bracelet off, but Lacie just kept stepping away.
"Lacie!" I said, trying to get her attention.
She ignored me.
"Lacie."
I took out one of the daggers when she didn't respond again and pushed the button on the hilt, wire coming out. I whipped it towards her and she caught it. She stopped dodging Sharon and looked at me, putting her left hand behind her back; the bell clanging."What, Elliot?"
Sharon froze midstep before I asked Lacie to take off her bracelet.

"Why?"
"Because they need to look at it," I said.
"What for? They could be lying," she told me.
"........"
"Plus, didn't the Hatter just say they were Alice's memories? That means this bell is useless to them without the Intention's sister here."
I glowered at Lacie as she stuck her tongue out at me.

"Hey, Break," Sharon drawled.
Break looked over at Sharon, a smile on his lips when he saw her expression.
"Yeah?" he mumbled, glancing at me and Lacie as I threw a piece of candy that had been on the table at her.
"Is Leo still missing?"
"I believe so," Emily said from Break's shoulder.

Sharon watched me through the side of her vision as I froze.
"I think Vincent beheaded Duke Nightray, then took Leo with him per his order."
"What?!" I stood up, knocking my chair back.
"What happened to Leo?!" I said before I could realize she had baited me.

"You-" I started angrily as Break grinned at me.
"Elliot Nightray isn't dead, huh? Looks like Humpty Dumpty found out how to put himself back together again."

(the rest of the book is split into two parts as there will be two version endings if I get around to writing them[sorry]. I was writing ch 3 and kinda strayed from what I had planned, but what I had written sounded fine as well so...... two endings.)