Armed with a broom and dustpan Fiona was ready to take on the infirmary. She’d already cleaned all the hallways and other chambers of the first floor. Of course that didn’t stop her heart from hurting when she peeked her head around the corner only to see the dying man in the bed. Black veins ran up throughout his neck. His once blond head of hair was now streaked with black marks, and one of his lemon colored wings was dropped onto the floor as if boneless.

Seeing this man in such pain hurt her too much. Carefully she called out, “Thaddeus.”

The wounded soldier didn’t move. Fiona had known him for a while now. Even if she hadn’t chosen a job up here in Castle Night Thorn, she would have known him from being one of her brother’s best friends. The last thing she wanted to do was wake him up, so she tip toed into the room cringing at every sound she made with her shoes as they gently touched the stone floor.

Fiona got to work dusting off the top of the shelves, then sweeping the floor, and then making the beds. Her mother had always stress cleaned and the habit had rubbed off on Fiona. When she was especially stressed out cleaning usually helped to calm her mind, of course she also had meditation, but that didn’t always do the trick. Sometimes she had to return to her roots.

Fiona was on the last bed, the one that Rita had laid on, the sheets had still stained with blood from the night before. Removing and replacing the sheet was easy enough. A small sound alerted her and Fiona was standing, arms ready to take on any would be attackers should they come for her.

Thaddeus was staring up at her with a wry smile from his bed. “What are you so jumpy for?”

Fiona let out a sigh. “That was you?”

“Sorry,” Thaddeus apologized weakly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just trying to get your attention.”

Fiona walked over to his side, leaving the stained sheet in the hamper. “Do you need anything? Water, food?”

Thaddeus shook his head. “No, I’ll be okay without anything. Don’t you worry about me. Princess Saturn will fix this. I believe in her.”

A spike of pain shot through Fiona’s heart. She’d overheard Saturn and Rita’s conversation already. If this disease didn’t kill Thaddeus, it would change him into one of those monsters. Fiona’s hand reached out and she gently squeezed Thaddeus’s wrist. She looked into his pained eyes, and felt the warmth of his body, he was too warm. The last thing she wanted was for him to leave. It would hurt Jack so badly to lose yet another person close to him, but Fiona knew her older brother was strong enough to handle it… she just didn’t want him to have to.

Fiona felt her palm growing warm and she recalled what she'd done for Rita this morning. She closed her eyes and focused on moving the energy from her heart down the length of her shoulder and arm, and focusing it into her hand. She opened her eyes to see the yellow light washing over his wrist. It lasted for only a moment before it vanished.

Thaddeus stared down at his wrist then smiled up at her. “I don't know what you did or how you did it, but I feel a little better.”

Fiona smiled. “Oh really?” She looked down at his wrist but she couldn't tell if the healing magic had actually done anything or not.

He nodded but stayed silent for a moment. When he spoke he sounded a little more distant. “You don’t believe they’ll find a cure do you?”

Fiona swallowed and withdrew her hand. “I… I really hope that they do.”

His eyes had softened as if the pain had receded somewhat.“Then you don’t know her like I do. She’ll fix this. She always does. Until then I need to reserve my strength, just in case.” Before long he had fallen asleep again, his breathing steady but shallow, at least he looked like he was in less pain now.

Fiona stood up and was about to leave when a draft caught her. It was such a small draft that it was almost unnoticeable. If it wasn't for her finely tuned senses, she wouldn't have even caught it. Fiona went over to the windows only to find that they were all perfectly shut with no air coming in from them. It took only a moment to close her eyes and reach out with her senses. The draft was coming from her left. She walked hearing her steps echo off of each wall and stopped short of one of the walls. She reached out with a palm and felt the wall, there was a slight breeze coming in from the wall, and it was freezing cold.

After opening her eyes she saw the outline of where a tapestry once hung. It was being cleaned currently after someone spilled mustard on the bottom of it, Fiona had her suspicions about which one of the three girls may have been responsible. Yet the tapestry in question had never been removed before, at least not as long as she remembered. So finding a very faint outline of a crack in the wall with a cold breeze coming through it left her with questions.

Fiona looked around, thinking back to some of her favorite legends who explored ancient ruins. Secret doors were often times a thing in their lives, so a part of her hoped that this was similar. After but a moment of searching she found a brick which was slightly raised out of the wall. Pushing it in had the exact effect that she had hoped. The wall slid open and revealed a staircase leading down below the earth. Cobwebs and dust littered the place, and dusty air hit her. There was no sound coming from below either.

Fiona beamed. It was a secret passage. A real life secret passage. Looking down at the orange heart on the back of her hand she found herself wondering what she should do about it. What would Rita do?

It didn’t take long to figure out what Rita would do, she was always the curious cat. Fiona was going to take a look inside there, after all it was part of the castle and she was supposed to be cleaning the whole castle right? So that would include secret passages of course.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

But Fiona wasn’t irresponsible. She would make sure to leave a note on the wall telling everyone what she was doing. That would cover it, surely.

***

Rita couldn’t believe her eyes as she stared at the sight of Nightshade across the street. The woman was waiting on the corner, which Lapis had already made a joke about, and now Rita and her small company were merely waiting across the street behind a bus stop. There had to be a reason Nightshade was here, and whatever it was, Rita fully planned to spoil it.

It took a couple of minutes but soon enough Mind Sliver appeared from the alleyway next to Nightshade. He strode crookedly in an inhuman fashion. They conversed for a few moments before Nightshade and Mind Sliver began walking down the street. They were both wearing actual clothing for once, though it was still black.

Time was moving now, and Rita had to follow them. Lapis and Wonder turned to follow, with Wonder almost tripping over herself as she did. That wasn’t a good sign. Both of them had already faced off against these guys just the night before, pushing themselves past their limits. It was in fact a miracle that Wonder was even moving today let alone exploring the city instead of taking it easy.

Rita bit her lower lip. This was going to suck but she had to do this. Never again could she allow someone close to her to be in such a reckless position. “Lapis, Wonder, I want you two to go and contact Lamont and Saturn. I’ll keep tabs on these two.”

Lapis retorted. “We saw what they did last night, we fought them, I fought them. You can’t do this on your own. ”

Rita shook her head. “I’m the only one here stealthy enough to get this done.”

“Hey, I’m pretty stealthy when I want to be!” Lapis replied.

Time was running and the two targets were almost out of sight. “No you're not. If I can figure out when you're stalking me, then these two will as well.”

Lapis began to argue, “Look I don't see why Lamont and Saturn have to know about th-“

Rita cut her off. “Get Wonder to safety and contact the others! We have Nightmare captive in our freaking basement, that's why you need to contact them.”

They stood there in silence for a brief moment merely staring at Rita with wide eyes. This was not how Rita had planned to tell them about Nightmare's captivity, but it was a good enough distraction that she was able to turn and leave without them following. The consequences for telling them like this however might be hell to pay, but if it kept them safe from harm, she'd pay it.

Rita only stopped to look back for a brief moment. She saw the pain across Wonder’s face, she wasn’t well enough to do this mission and she knew it. Lapis glared at her but didn’t argue, she instead took Wonder by the arm and began walking the opposite direction. Yep, things were going to be awkward once Rita got back.

Rita had left just in time too as Nightshade and Mind Sliver turned around a busy corner. Rita dashed across the street, thankful for there being low traffic in the area today, and joined the street crowd on the other side. She turned the corner and saw more tall people everywhere. Trying to spot the two targets through this crowd was virtually impossible with her limited height. So Rita did the next best thing.

She ducked into the nearest alleyway, jumped onto a dumpster, then leapt from there onto a fire escape and climbed her way up it. She ran all the way up the stairs to the top of a third floor building where she had a much better view. It was a little challenging still to sort through all these people down below. Rita dipped her hand into her side pack, pulled out her goggles and put them on.

A visual heads up display began reading across her vision. “Okay goggles, I’m looking for heat signatures.” She pressed a switch on the side of the goggles and everything on the street below turned into a mass of red, orange and yellows indicating heat. At least everywhere except for the blotch of dark blue moving through the sea of heat. Rita turned off the heat vision and like she suspected she spotted the two targets moving through the crowd.

Rita flashed a grin. “You're cold as ice.”

She looked around hoping for one of her friends to comment on her pun and much to her to her dismay she was alone. Maybe it was for the best, but it kinda sucked doing this all alone. It was like the old days, before she had any real friends.

Rita had to shake herself out of it. It wasn’t time to get all hung up on past memories, instead it was time to focus on chasing down these two monsters and making sure they didn’t get what they were after. With them spotted Rita could easily make her way from this roof top to the next playing keep up from up here on. One thing that people never did was look up. Well except for all the valkyire flying through the air above the city, but most of them were mail carriers so it didn’t really count anyway.

Once Rita got to the last building on the block she had to get back down via a series of overhangs and pipes. However, her targets had slowed down significantly and she easily found her way through the crowd getting up close enough to see them clearly. Rita tapped another button on her goggles and slipped in an ear bud which was connected to them. She could hear Nightshade and Mind Sliver talking much better now.

Nightshade was in the middle of a sentence, “-So with that in mind I decided that my time in the house of Red was done. I’d had far more than anyone ever needed too with those sun drunk fools, and their hot, but desperate bodies.”

Mind Sliver’s voice came out cold as ever. “You still disgust me. I’d have killed them all. In fact I will do that, as soon all of these sun worshiping maggots will recall the beauty of the night.”

Nightshade huffed. “On and on about your religion. You do understand that despite Nightmare’s immense power, she saved us as friends, not as worshipers.”

Mind Sliver’s entire body shivered at once. “She saved all of us, though not all of us have agreed on how to save her.”

Nightshade laughed. “Well those others are just as useless dead as they were before we separated.”

Mind Sliver replied. “If only Lancer hadn’t died, he would have led us in harmony to freeing our Dark Matron, our Queen Nightmare, and these fools would not have stopped us last night. Nor would they have escaped us in the old church.”

Nightshade put a finger to her lip and bit down just hard enough to draw blood. “Oh Lancer, how I miss him and his… succulent body. At least his journal aided us in finding our path.”

Mind Sliver nodded in a jerky, movement that was all sorts of wrong. “Who would have thought that it would take Lancer's demise to free our goddess…”

“Well... he was her avatar, I suppose that once he was gone all the power he'd accumulated went to her. But now she's free and so are we.”

“Free to break into the Dark Archive.”

Rita’s entire body jumped back as she heard that. The Dark Archive; a place where only the darkest and most ancient of information could be found. The place was an accidental discovery of hers back in her school days, so she knew exactly where it was, but after that they increased security so Rita would have to find another way in. Still it wasn’t impossible; it was merely, an intriguing challenge.

Knowing where they were heading now, Rita pulled away from them broke through the crowed and moved swiftly in the opposite direction. She was going to take a shortcut to get inside. Albeit not a safe way.

It was time to enter the abandoned thieves highway.