The sound of his own small hands banging on the large wooden door filled Snow’s head.

Sand! He needed to find Sand! It had been more than three days since she’d left the place where they lived, to go to work there.

He knew where she worked, he’d followed her a few times before, even though she had warned him time and time again not to go out into town on his own. Still he couldn’t help it. When the weather was exceptionally cold and stormy he would always worry that she might get lost, that she might fall and simply be buried beneath the white snow. And so he had followed her just to make sure she made it safely to her working place.

Three days! It was way too long, he knew as he desperately banged on that door.

It was true that, from time to time, she’d sleep at her work place. But she had never spent more than one night away from home, leaving him all alone.

When the door was finally opened his hands hurt from all the knocking and his feet were ice cold inside the old, patched boots he wore. A beautiful young woman in a pink dress looked down at him, her hair carefully combed, filled with small sparkling things. She frowned at the sight of the ragged child, but then he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time in many days, before she could kick him out onto the cold again.

“Sand! Where’s Sand?”

Eyes widening in recognition, she allowed him inside, the sudden warmth of the house making him hot almost immediately.

“What is it Sky?” another voice asked, and Snow noticed that there were four other women there, all leisurely sitting on comfortably-looking couches.

The salon where he now stood was the largest, richest room he’d ever seen, with small round tables spread all over the place, and a black piano resting to one side.

“Some kid asking for Sand,” Sky replied and the others straightened in their seats to look at him.

“Oh, so this is her brat, then,” one guessed, looking at him from head to toe. “A scrawny, dirty, little thing, isn’t he?”

“I think he is kind of cute. With those pale-blue eyes. I wonder if he has noble blood,” another said.

“You’re kidding, right? What noble in his right mind would want to warm his bed with Sand? You see the kind of men she gets, right? All perverts who enjoy pain more than sex.”

Snow’s eyes widened at the sound of her name.

“Sand! Where is she? Where is she??” he repeated, panic filling his voice, and another woman appeared at the top of the long, golden stairwell, dressed in a long, flowing red robe.

“What’s all the ruckus? Why are you all still happily chatting instead of getting ready to welcome today’s guests?” the woman asked, giving them all a menacing glare, and Sky quickly stepped to one side, so that the older woman could see him.

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“Madame, this child was knocking on our door. He is here to look for Sand.”

Madame’s eyes landed immediately on him and Snow couldn’t help take a step back. Unlike the younger ones, that woman was somewhat scary.

“Sand?”

“He’s probably her kid. Remember when she came here begging for a job? And that she’d always want to take whatever milk was left back home with her? We always thought she must have a kid to raise somewhere out there. But since she was mute like a door we never managed to really know for sure.”

The woman looked at him once more and finally made her way downstairs.

“So you’re that girl’s brat.”

Walking up to him she grabbed his chin, forcing him to raise his head, turning it from one side to the other.

“You have good features. In a few years I could make some coin out of you too.”

Snow frowned and stepped back, away from that cold hand.

“Sand! Where’s Sand?”

He didn’t care about anything else. He didn’t care about money, or food, or milk. All he wanted was to have Sand back.

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, kid. But your Sand is gone.”

He looked up at her unblinking, unable to understand the meaning of those words.

“Gone. Dead. Do you understand? One of her clients went a bit too far three nights ago, and ended up stabbing her to death. When he realized what had happened it was just too late. There was nothing we could do to save her life.”

Those words stopped his heart. Stopped his breathing. Stopped his mind. Stopped the entire world around him.

Sand was gone. Dead. She was not coming back. He would never see her again. Never feel the warmth of her embrace. Never sleep in her arms again. Someone he didn’t even know had taken her away from him. Someone had killed her. His Sand!

Before he knew what had happened the entire room had become red as if it had caught on fire, strange incandescent symbols covering the floor and the walls around him, and the women in the room were screaming in terror. Well, let them scream. He was screaming as well. But the pain in his voice could not compare with their fear. And then something hit him hard on the head, and the entire world turned black.

When he had finally regained consciousness again, he felt sluggish and weak, his vision was blurry, his head too heavy for him to lift. He was in something made of wood, something that shook everywhere, leaving him nauseated. And it was cold, so cold he couldn’t stop trembling.

The wind that brushed his head told him that he was outside, the darkness surrounding him that it was probably night. But he couldn’t tell anything else, his numb body constantly tossed from one side to another, the sound of what looked like a trotting horse filling his foggy mind.

And he had been kept in that drugged trance for years and years to come, tied to that bed, robbed of his freedom, earning Madame her promised coin. Until just recently, when the lord of the Fortress had apparently decided to steal him away.

Thinking about it all Snow really wanted to cry. Cry for the loving Sand he had lost. Cry for all the years he had spent held prisoner in that filthy place. Cry for how innocent and stupid he had been, that he hadn’t noticed the kind of dangerous work Sand did, all to ensure she had enough coin to buy the spoiled leftovers of the merchants. He had stupidly believed her when she’d explained her bruises and burns with a silent smile, waving her hand as if they were nothing, pointing at her own chest as if to say it had been her own fault, that she was merely clumsy.