“Get away from that thing, Suki!” Elliot shouted.

Suki hesitated, hearing her father’s concern for her for the first time since she was born. Her underdeveloped brain was unsure how to respond. She could not kill a feeling.

“I’ll kill it. Stay back.” Raphael snatched a Magi from the nearest Bishop and shoved past Elliot. The angel’s face warped into one of irreversible mania and euphoria.

“No! You can’t kill him! He’s my friend!” Suki jumped between Eden and the angel.

Raphael kicked Suki to the side so hard that she could not find her Magi. It was lost somewhere in the weeds and mud. The eight-year-old knew not to waste time searching for it. Suki seldomly went anywhere without her Magi to stab things with. She staggered to her feet, the scar on her face burned. She would not give up. Even if it killed her! She finally had something worth fighting for.

Suki fought back, clawing at the angel’s flesh, green feathers and clothes since she could not find her Magi. Raphael cast another curse at Eden, smacking Suki with his feathered wings until she didn’t get up. Those wings were not as soft as they looked. Each feather could be transformed into weapons. When he pummelled her during training, it was like striking a wall of knives bare fisted. For a supposedly pacifist race, that was a violently psychopathic and calculated ability.

“Suki…” Eden groaned as the flesh on his face dissolved into particles. “RUN!”

She lifted her head, but everything hurt. Her vision blurred. The world pitched violently like a ship ravaged by a storm. A pair of armoured hands grabbed her shoulders, dragging her away.

“You should have listened to your father. You’re going where no one will find your corpse!”

Suki fought for consciousness. Coming to her senses within a carriage. She clutched her chest. Every breath was a struggle to draw air between broken bones. Even from inside the layers of timber, she heard the frenzied galloping of the pair of Nightmares as their hooves struck the cobblestones. The spokes of the left wheel snagged on a loose stone and broke off. The carriage lurched suddenly and dropped over the edge of the bridge and into the icy moat. Dragging the pair of screaming Nightmares affixed to the carriage to their deaths, tangled in their harnesses. Suki screamed and beat her tiny fists against the pane of glass as the carriage landed on the rocky bottom of the moat.

The bleak sunlight vanished from sight beneath the icy water. Suki stopped when water leaked through the crack in the window of the coffin-sized carriage. She jumped up onto the seat cushion and curled into a ball. The roof creaked under the weight of the water. Suki wrapped her cloak around her trembling body and head. Nothing could hurt her under her cloak. Her throat was too sore to scream for help, if anyone could hear her.

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Genevieve stood frozen in horror, surrounded by the bodies of the masked Bishops and Knights. She clung to what scraps remained of Eden. The brunette had suspected that he was no ordinary fairy. When she tattled on Suki to her father, she was not expecting her sister or Eden to end up murdered by Raphael and the Bishops and Knights. With both of the ‘problem children’ erased, Raphael and his posse of remaining Ebony Knights and Ebony Bishops pivoted and marched back into the castle to prepare for departure. A remaining Ebony Knight grabbed Genevieve by the arm and dragged her inside before shoving the eight-year-old into her father’s arms. The Fomorian forces were leaving since the Fianna were on their way to siege this castle.

Meanwhile, the vestiges of Eden’s clothes and his particles were locked in a wooden chest, buried in a hole beneath the castle and sealed with curses and hexes, courtesy of Phillip Tranter and Raphael Tarzali before the Fomorian forces commenced packing.

As soon as she saw a messenger running towards the castle looking like he was interrogated by Fianna on his way there, Genevieve broke out of her father’s grasp and fled into the twisting hallways. Hiding amongst the shadows until she saw the last of the Fomorians mount their Nightmares and flee. The Fomorians did not have time to waste on finding her. Without food and water, the Halfling would be dead within the week. The Ebony Knights and Bishops set ordinary and fae fires before leaving to cover up the true extent of their twisted experiments. The inferno would not scorch the foundations of the castle, but the flames would destroy the eight-year-old, the bodies of the Ebony Knights and Bishops that perished attacking Eden and anything that was not made of stone.

Rather than sit down and cry, Genevieve found her way to the dungeon and made herself busy tearing all of the flammable materials out of the room and tossing them through the glass windows to burn before the inferno reached her. She was so focused that she did not notice that there was no longer a cauldron in the middle of the room. There were no windows down in the dungeon, but there were too many windows in the kitchen where she scavenged for any provisions that might have been left behind. She was able to steal glances between the curtains at the pillars of flames separating her from an easy dash into the marshlands. The eight-year-old hoped she had enough mana to cast a charm on the siege-proof double doors to protect it from burning down. The room was large enough for her to breathe, if she sat still, until the flames dwindled enough for her to escape what would become scorched ruins, ashes and live embers.

Genevieve’s plans were thwarted as the inferno spread, chasing her back to the dungeon. She locked the siege-proof timber plank and metal doors, casting a protective charm when she felt the heat radiating from the gap beneath the door; praying that she would awake in the morning. The Fomorians had taken every last usable instrument. After repelling the Will-O-Wisps, she had no voice to cast another charm. Genevieve dashed towards the shelves of scrolls and books, scouring for one last sliver of hope.