News spread quickly after Sean’s announcement that his beloved wife and soul mate, as well as the amazing man who had broken time itself trying to save her, had now both perished at the hands of the serpent. And once that news did spread, the entire city, and definitely the estate of the Kindred Prince, all seemed to grow just a bit darker.

Though not all the city’s undead inhabitants were in mourning. Baron and his companions were quite satisfied with the news. After all, Awsha had gotten her vengeance against Claire, and Baron had gotten his against Sean, in an even worse way then if he had simply assassinated the man. Deeming their goals accomplished there in the city of angels, word was that they had left the city, as well as the state, moving on to wreak havoc upon some other poor souls in some other surely horrifying ways.

Meanwhile, Connor was mourning another loss. Kirielle had spoken to him only briefly to let him know that she too would be leaving the city. Without her job at the club, without the man who had raised her so lovingly, and then committed such a terrible act before finally meeting the sun, there was simply nothing left there for her either.

A month or two, or possibly three, had now passed in that cellar. It was hard for Connor to say for certain. During that time, he had only ever left to replenish medical supplies or the food he still needed to survive, despite what little of Kirielle’s blood that still remained his veins.

As he readied the next transfusion, his hands began shaking so badly that he nearly dropped the needle. He took a deep, shaky breath to compose himself, his medical knowledge letting him know exactly what was happening to him. When the tremors in his hand finally ceased, and he was able to once again insert the needle into her vein, the very sight of her blood around that tiny hole in her flesh was something he could not tear his pretty blue eyes from.

It was true that she needed every tiny bit of blood to continue combating the hundreds of tiny fangs eating away at her insides, but if he were to crumple under the strain of withdrawal, or worse; lose control in the face of his addiction, it could mean that either of his patients could actually die, just as the rest of the city now believed they already had.

Shaking his head at the dilemma before him, another tremor shook Connor as beads of sweat dripped down his face, making the decision that much easier. With another deep, shaky breath, Connor reached forward to wipe away the tiny drop of blood surrounding the needle in her arm. Closing his eyes tightly, he moved his now bloodied finger to his lips, knowing it was the only way he could truly hope to stay coherent enough to keep trying to help either of them fight their way back to the waking world, as futile as such a thing may even be.

Late that night, Connor was drifting in and out of a restless slumber when he heard a slight moan through the darkness of the cellar. Rolling away from the wall, he flipped on the lamp to determine the source of the sound. Then he saw her arm move ever so slightly, another pained moan escaping her lips. He rushed to his feet to move to her side at once.

“Are you actually here, back with me now?” he whispered as he looked down at her, moving to brush a raven colored lock from her cheek.

She opened her pained green eyes to look up at him in confusion there in the dim light of the cellar. Digging through layers and layers of pain, she tried to find her words. Though even speaking at all seemed to cause her pain, “C—Connor?” she managed, her eyes showing even further confusion at the sight of Lucian’s, nay Kirielle’s servant now standing above her.

Lucian’s...? Her muddled brain moved back to that thought with another sound of pain escaping her lips. Though this time, her pain wasn’t only physical.

“What can you remember?” he asked her gently.

“I remember it all... before the sun...” her words were swallowed as that biting pain ate away at every part of her insides once more, causing a near wail of agony to escape her lips this time.

“I’m trying so hard to help you, Claire, but I just don’t know what else I can...” he then shook his head again, doubting that expressing his own fears and doubt would help her recovery in any way. He then forced a smile, “I suppose I shouldn’t call you that, now.”

“What?” she asked, attempting to speak again before the next inevitable wave of pain would hit her once more.

“Claire’s dead now, after all,” he whispered, “so what should I call you instead?”

“I’m... dead?” she stammered, not sure her brain was even making sense of his words through the nearly constant pain consuming every inch of her body.

“You were outside when the sun rose. What else could you be?” he asked, brushing away another strand of her hair with a soft, sad smile.

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“But Eliot, he saved me...” she whispered, trying to decide if she could trust her own memories then. After all, this couldn’t be the afterlife, as odd as that would be. She knew all too well that such a thing did not exist at all.

“But no one was there to see that, were they?” Connor told her pointedly.

“Kirielle?” she asked with further confusion.

“Also out there when the sun suddenly came up, wasn’t she?” Connor told her with a knowing nod.

“But...” she closed her eyes again, “I’m very confused.”

“I’m just telling you what everyone else knows about what happened that day. That’s the truth. Now, anyway,” he told her with another gentle smile.

“So, everyone just believes I’m dead?” she asked with a slight whimper.

“Everyone who needed to. Including the people who did this horrific thing to you,” he added, though his voice slightly broke as the conversation came back around to the state she was currently in.

“God, Sean...” she whispered, tears appearing in her eyes then.

“Shh, No tears. You need that blood,” he told her softly, “And Sean... he also knows what he needs to. I promise,” he told her, relaying the information that Lissa shared with him before she and Kirielle had both left the city behind those few months ago.

Trying to curb her urge to try and fight all that pain and jump out of that makeshift bed to go to Sean, Claire turned her face away to hide more tears. Only that was when her eyes fell on Eliot laying unconscious next to her.

“Eliot?” she spoke his name, the ghost of a smile finally touching her lips despite her current state. Only that smile died just as quickly when she got no response from him.

Connor let out another sad sigh. “I was only able to wake him up briefly, after everything happened that day. He was in a lot of pain. A lot. I gave him morphine for it, which unfortunately doesn’t work on you. But he’s pretty much been like that since,” he finished quietly.

“Pain?” she whispered as she forced back her own long enough to reach up and touch Eliot’s black curls lovingly.

“When we woke him, he said something about Paradox, and Backlash, and a price,” he shook his head, “but we didn’t have much more time for him to try and explain what all had happened when you were attacked that day. Eventually his pain got so bad, I had to put him under again. After all, he is still, technically, mortal,” he added with the same regret filled tone.

Claire pondered his words for a long moment before turning her eyes back to Connor. “Believe me, the last thing I want is for Eliot to be in any more pain. But you said yourself, you don’t know what else you can do for me, medically. And he’s the one who promised he could save me, from whatever it is that is eating away at me right now,” she choked on the words as more pain tore through her.

Not wanting to alarm her further, Connor still made himself give an answer, “Snakes, if you can believe that.”

Claire just let out a sad, knowing scoff, “I actually can.”

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She was convinced that Eliot was the only one who may have any idea of how to reverse what Baron had done to her. After all, he had controlled time itself to rescue her once already. In the face of her conviction, Connor spent the rest of the night trying to wake Eliot again, while also doing his best to keep her as comfortable as possible, as impossible as that was.

By four that morning, they had still made no headway in waking Eliot. Connor collapsed into a chair near the bed with a look of defeat. “It’s almost like this isn’t something medical that’s keeping him locked in his head. And unfortunately, medical solutions are the only ones I can even try to come up with. And they don’t seem to be working,” he admitted, his voice shaking.

As a last ditch effort, she decided she had to find the solution to help Eliot, so that maybe he could find the one to help her. Using all her will and gathering all her mental strength, despite her constant agony, she desperately let herself look into Eliot’s head for anything at all that could help them.

After a few moments of her trying her best to read his thoughts through her pain, she turned back to Connor. “I assume you can get to a telephone?”

Connor narrowed his eyes at her before answering, “Yes. But who could we possibly call to help with... any of this... all things considered.”

Claire pushed down another wave of pain before speaking, “Probably the only person out there who could possibly know what on Earth a ‘Paradox Realm’ is, and how we get him out of it.”

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Summer, now nearly sixty years old, was somberly preparing lunch in her London home when the obnoxious ringing of the telephone came from the other room. Wiping her hands with an agitated sigh, she made her way to the other side of the house to answer the call.

Once she heard Connor’s voice, his words were filled with urgency, “I know you left here before we ever got a chance to meet, but I need you to just trust me when I tell you that right now, Eliot needs your help, desperately.”

“Eliot?” she repeated loudly into the receiver. “You can’t possibly mean Eliot Bona—Howard,” she corrected.

“The very same,” Connor told her with a heavy sigh.

“If this is a joke, it’s in very bad taste,” she returned angrily.

“It’s not, I promise,” he attempted to assure her.

Summer just scoffed, “Well, that’s an interesting claim, considering I’ve already been told that,” she took a moment to continue, “that he died, months ago,” she finished with a slight sniffle, recalling her pain when Hollister had given her the news about Eliot’s apparent failure to save Claire, or himself, from a rather dark fate.

With another deep breath, Connor continued, “What you were told, wasn’t necessarily the whole truth. Though it soon could be if you really can’t help him now.”