Jace’s eyelids fluttered open and he looked up to see Vella fiddling with the shackles on her wrists. When she spotted him, her mouth stretched into a hideous smile. “You’ve awaken, friend. Good, we have a guest,” Vella gestured to the far corner on Jace’s right. There, bound in the same shackles as her cellmates, was a girl around Jace’s age with long golden-brown hair and deep brown eyes. 

Jace studied the girl, noting her tattered Hogwarts robes, with a Gryffindor crest, half-torn, peeking out from behind her hair. She turned her gaze to him and frowned. “What, Jace,” she asked flatly. As if the life had been sucked right from her. 

Jace frowned. “Charlotte?” he asked.

The girl looked quite emotionless as she sat in the corner. “No, I’m Barbara,” sarcasm dripped from her every word.

Jace frowned. “When did you get here?” He noticed how flat her gaze looked, how dull. Like she’d given up any will to continue on with her life. Her arms and legs were as thin as twigs; she probably hadn’t been able to stand in weeks. 

Charlotte shrugged. “I have no clue. There was no way to tell time in my old cell. Or here, either, I guess,” she added with a glance at the dank room. Jace nodded, saying nothing more. Her voice sounded to emotionless; so lifeless.

Vella hissed and the pair turned toward her. “This is not good,” she muttered. “Not good.” Vella shivered, clutching her hands together. “The creatures in the dark. They ask you to join them, friend. They sing for you,” she turned her gaze to Charlotte and opened her mouth, singing a few notes. Both Charlotte and Jace shuttered; the song was hauntingly beautiful. 

Vella opened her eyes and turned to Charlotte. “The Lioness has been searching for you, friend. Every night, she goes out to look. But every night, she comes back empty-handed.” Vella expression was, for once, completely neutral. There was no sign of her insanity to be found. 

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “How do you know all of that,” she breathed.

Vella fiddled with her shackles. “I am different,” she stated simply. The same answer she had given Jace when he had asked that very question. Charlotte’s skin was pale as snow. 

Jace frowned in confusion, looking over at her. Charlotte simply shook her head and Jace nodded. Vella turned her piercing grey gaze to Jace, next. “The Golden Witch, she is not so foolish. She and the Lioness have begun to strike deals,” she laughed, a terrible sound.

Jace frowned. “Who is the Lioness?”

Vella smiled secretly, as if she knew something he did not. “The other half of her, of course,” she gestured to Charlotte. “And the Golden Witch,” she looked up at Jace, “is the other half of you.” She turned her gaze to the ceiling, eyes twinkling. “They work together to find you both.” She shook her head. “They will not.”

Charlotte turned to Vella. “How long have you been here, Vella?” she asked out of the blue. 

The girl’s eyes glinted and her teeth flashed. “Hush, girl. You shall ask no more questions,” she snarled, a sudden animal-like gleam in her eyes showing itself in the dim light. Charlotte didn’t back down and instead just watched Vella as the young girl retreated into the shadows. 

Jace turned to Charlotte. “Do you have a bobby pin on you?” he asked. 

Charlotte shook her head. “If I did, I would have already picked the locks.”

Jace frowned, trying to formulate some other sort of plan for escape. 

But he didn’t need to. 

The door to the cell burst open and two hooded figures stepped into the room, wearing black leather jackets and pants. The girl held out her wand and flicked it toward Jace’s shackles. They creaked open and fell to the ground, along with Charlotte’s. 

Vella watched this with wide eyes and a ghost of a smile. “Empress,” she inclined her head. “A pleasure to meet you at last.” The girl said nothing. Vella cocked her head to the side. “You shall not speak? Perhaps it is for the best,” she sighed, turning back to her shackles.

The girl hesitated, but jerked her wand at the shackles and, like Jace’s and Charlotte’s, they cracked and fell off. 

Vella looked up at the girl, eyes wide. “You freed me,” she whispered. “You should not have.” And one might have said that there was fear in her large grey eyes. 

The girl shrugged, paying Vella no head and instead turned to the other prisoners.

The boy knelt down next to Charlotte, gripping her arm to help her up. Her legs shook furiously as she did her best to stand on her own. Charlotte opened her mouth to thank the boy, but he was already moving toward Jace, who was chained to the ground near Vella. Charlotte leaned heavily on the wall, breathing sharply. 

The girl turned to them. “We need to hurry. Reece and his minions will be here any minute.” 

Jace barely had time to process what was happening when the girl grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the cell, Vella in tow and Charlotte being carried in the boy’s arms; she was too weak to run. The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the hallways as the hooded figures led everyone out of the facility. 

Soon they reached a locked doorway and had to pause. “Open it,” the boy looked at his companion. 

She shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t have Reece’s fingerprint.” The pair began to bicker and didn’t notice Vella, walking up to the door and placed her finger onto the pad attached to the door. There was the sound of turning gears and the door creaked open. Charlotte and Jace exchanged confused expressions, but were dragged through the doorway before they could say anything. 

The sound of voices startled them and Jace turned around to see a team of boys and girls about his age, running toward them with wands pointed at their hearts. He heard the girl whisper something and saw her point her wand at the group. A bolt of purple was sent right into their mass of people and they were all sent stumbling to the ground. “C’mon, we don’t have much time,” she urged. 

After crawling through tunnels and climbing rungs up to a metal plate on the ceiling, Vella used her magic fingerprint yet again to remove the plate and let the sunlight it. The first sunlight, Jace realized, that he had seen in weeks. 

He squinted, climbing out through the hole where the plate had been and found himself looking at the Great Lake. There were plenty of students on the Grounds, but none of them seemed to notice him. 

Climbing out onto the grass, he helped Charlotte, Vella, and the two hooded figures out as well. Once everyone had gotten out and the entrance was sealed, Jace turned to the hooded figures. “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was weary. 

The boy pulled his hood back to reveal a head of brown hair and a pair of green eyes. “Alec?” Jace frowned, confused. 

Alec nodded. “You’re my brother. I wasn’t just going to let you be kidnapped and do nothing about it.”

Charlotte turned to the girl. “And you?” she asked.

The girl hesitated, but pulled her hood back to reveal chocolate brown hair and sharp hazel eyes. Jace stepped backward. “Calira,” he muttered.

The girl nodded. “Zelie talked to me. She asked if I would help her rescue you. I-I said no.” She drew in a deep breath. “She slapped me. She said that I deserved worse. I did. I do,” Cali sighed. “I started thinking about myself. What kind of person I was. And realized that I didn’t like that person. So I decided to change. Starting with rescuing you,” she gestured to Charlotte, Vella, and Jace. 

I’m not your charity case, Jace wanted to snap at her. But he knew that he should be grateful. He was. “I’m sorry, Jace. For everything. You don’t have to forgive me—ever, if you choose, but… maybe you could consider it sometime.” She ducked her head and turned to Alec. “We should let them be,” she muttered and the pair turned to go.

Jace said nothing and turned to Charlotte. She cracked a grin and opened her arms to Jace and Vella. “We did it,” she laughed, and she sounded almost like herself again. “We did it,” she repeated. Jace wrapped his arms around the girls and they stayed in that group hug for quite some time. 

But what they didn’t see was the metal plate being blown aside and Reece himself climbing out of the tunnel, wand raised. “Well hello, prisoners,” he grinned. 

Jace pulled out his wand but before he could do anything, Reece flicked his wand toward Charlotte and she was dragged to where he was standing as he pressed the tip of his wand to her throat. “Make one wrong move and I kill her,” Reece threatened.

Charlotte didn’t look all too frightened and shook her head, urging Jace to keep his wand held aloft. Jace obliged. “Let her go,” he seethed. 

Reece frowned. “No, I don’t think I will.”

But he said nothing more. A beam of blue light flew at Reece, hitting him square in the chest and sending him flying backwards. From there, he simply laid in the grass, limbs askew.

However, instead of staying still, Reece grinned. “Until next time,” and he began to wither away, his body turning into ash that began to blow away in the wind, until nothing was left of him. 

Jace ran over to Charlotte, who was sitting on the ground, her breaths coming fast. “Hey, it’s okay,” he whispered, stroking her back gently. “We did it, remember?” She nodded, looking off into the distance. Slowly, a smile spread on her face as she seemed to catch sight of something. Jace frowned, about to ask what she was looking at.

Until, however, he heard a set of footsteps and turned around to see a beautiful young girl with black hair and golden eyes, one hand pointing her wand at where Reece had been standing and the other clutching a textbook. “Jace?” she whispered, lowering her wand. 

Jace grinned and ran toward the girl, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her to his chest. “Hey, Zel,” he murmured into her hair.

Zelie’s shoulders began to shake as tears streaked down her cheeks. Jace didn’t say anything and simply held her. Zelie looked up at him, softly pressing her lips to his. She pulled away, her cheeks wet with tears. “I-I don’t-is it-what-” she stuttered, her voice shaky. 

Jace smiled. “It’s me.” 

Charlotte watched the tender moment with a sad smile. She wished she could show that kind of affection so openly without fear of judgement. 

A mane of curly red-gold hair came into view and Charlotte gasped. Jinx ran toward her and Charlotte started laughing. She hadn’t thought she would ever see her girlfriend again. “Jinx!” Charlotte wrapped her arms around Jinx’s shoulders as she knelt down to where Char was sitting in the grass. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she whispered.

Jinx gripped Charlotte’s shoulder. “I was going to come for you,” she breathed. “You know that, right?”

Charlotte nodded, eyes glossy with tears waiting to fall. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Yeah.” Jinx smiled, wiping the tears that began to streak down her cheeks. “It was awful,” Charlotte shook her head, pressing her face into Jinx’s shoulder. “There was no light. I was shackled to the ground. I couldn’t stand,” her tears were flowing freely now. “They came in and-and asked me questions. I never answered them, so-so they would use the-the Cruciatus Curse,” her voice cracked. Jinx clenched her jaw. What I would do to those people… “I didn’t think I’d live,” Charlotte whispered, so quiet that Jinx barely heard her. 

Jinx pulled back to cup Charlotte’s face. “I can’t imagine what happened to you during all those weeks. But I’m here to tell you that it’s over. You’re alive, and you’re going to be okay. And if you even think for one minute that you won’t make it, or that you don’t want to,” Jinx clenched her arms tighter around Charlotte, “I will tie you to a chair until you can act like yourself again.” Jinx smiled and Charlotte’s lips quirked upward slightly.

“Thank you,” Charlotte whispered. “For everything.”

Jinx just shrugged and, with the entire school watching, pressed her lips to Charlotte’s. Neither girl pulled away and instead, Char twined her arms around Jinx’s neck. 

The grounds were silent. But then they erupted in whistles and applause. Charlotte pulled away to see Zelie smiling and clapping, while Jace just looked pleased and somehow smug, like he knew it all along. Alec looked very surprised, but applauded like the rest of the students. Calira was the only one who wasn’t applauding. She had her hands curled into fists at her side, and her face looked red with anger. 

Charlotte’s cheeks were on fire when she looked over at her girlfriend. Jinx grinned, winking and picking her up bridal style, carrying her inside and to the infirmary for recovery.

Zelie looked up at Jace, smiling. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Jace laughed. “Yeah, it’s not hard to put the pieces together if you think about it.”

Zelie gripped Jace’s hand, staring off into the distance. “I was so worried while you were gone,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what they were doing to you. I-” she cut herself off. 

Jace looked down at her. “I’ll tell you about it someday, Zel. But for now, I’m just happy you’re safe.”

Zelie looked at him, incredulous. “Me, safe? You were the one trapped in a secret dungeon for weeks!” she exclaimed, shaking her head and blowing out a long breath. “I just… wasn’t sure if I would be able to find you, or get you out. I guess I didn’t need to, though,” Zelie looked over to where her sister was standing awkwardly near the lake. 

Jace nodded. “I can’t believe she came. I’m still not over the shock of it all,” he ran a hand through his golden hair. 

“And there she is,” a young voice spoke up from behind them. Zelie turned around to see a short girl with moon-white hair and large grey eyes, watching Zelie with her head cocked to the side.

Zelie frowned. “Who are you?” she asked, crinkling her brows. She could sense that this wasn’t just any nine-year-old girl and did not talk to her as such.

Vella smiled. “I am Vella. You are Zelie?”

Zelie’s brows creased. “Yes. Do I know you?”

Vella shook her head. “No, you do not. You are the Golden Witch, and I am simply the Owl. I have been looking forward to meeting you. The twin sister of Damian Xaris; yes, what an honor indeed.”

Jace’s stomach dropped. He had forgotten about that little detail.

Zelie’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? I don’t have any brothers. I only have Cali.”

Vella laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound. “But of course not! The Empress is not your true sister. Only half,” she grinned. “Your brother is the Golden Snake, and he wishes to meet you. At the bent oak in four days time. He wishes you to arrive in complete darkness. And alone,” she added with a glance at Jace. 

Zelie’s hand inside Jace’s tightened it’s grip. “I will not meet with a murderer,” she breathed. “Regardless of any connection between us.” 

Vella shrugged. “That is up to you, friend. But if you don’t, he might send—ah, what is it you call dear Σκοτάδι?” Vella frowned. 

Zelie cocked her head. “Darkness,” she murmured.

Vella smiled. “Ah, you speak the language of the Snakes. That is good,” she chuckled. “But what is it you call the poor thing?”

Zelie frowned. “The Mørke?”

Vella grinned. “Yes! If you do not meet the Golden Snake, he just might send ‘the Mørke’ after one of your friends. Or,” she added with a glance at Jace, “any closer figures in your life.”

Zelie’s heart quickened and she squeezed Jace’s hand. “Are you his messenger?” she asked quietly.

Vella’s eyes widened. “Of course not,” she whispered. “But let us keep this between us. Beast to beast,” Vella added with a secret smile. 

Zelie stepped backward. “I will not hear another word from your mouth,” she snarled. “Leave me be.”

Vella wrapped her bone-white arms around her thin frame. “If that is what you wish.” And in a puff of grey smoke, she was gone.