From last chapter:

"Nothing," said the Queen, "will get in the way of my son's survival."

The Queen smiled and it was a more terrible sight than the scalped and faceless man.

"Now where," the Queen said, "is my son?"

~♦♥♦~

Regina stared at the ghostly face of Queen Natasha, asking for a son that Regina had, however accidentally, betrayed.

Regina ran.

Regina had never run as fast or as hard in her life.

Dimly, part of her was grateful to her six months of trying to avoid being murdered because she was sure her past self would have already died of exhaustion at least an hour ago.

Still, in a strange, almost detached way, Regina realized that this was the end.

The Queen had been toying with her but that was now to come to an end and Regina felt something unfamiliar building within her.

While Regina had felt fear and frustration and annoyance and minor bursts of rage, it was strange to realize, as her breath faltered and her legs grew weaker that she was genuinely, coldly angry.

She had spent so many years, tried so hard to survive, to build a life of peace and comfort, and at every turn she had been thwarted by the sheer absurdity of her entire life.

What other woman had to worry about their mother-in-law trying to murder them on their wedding day?

This was not a reasonable expectation of a seasoned military veteran, much less a woman who had spent her entire life trying to imitate the color and movement level of a piece of wallpaper.

Regina had spent years running and it truly, literally and metaphorically, had gotten her nowhere.

She was bleeding herself out with no possible hope of return-

Regina paused behind yet another ominous column.

Wait.

She was bleeding herself out.

Previously concealed by her fear and panic, Regina's hands were both dripping blood.

Regina realized that she was still holding the sharp shard of pottery in one hand and Artem's brooch in the other.

Her eyes widened as she realized one last, desperate gamble.

The trick of course was that the Queen was toying with her, because the Queen wanted something from Regina.

Wanting something was always how people could hurt you.

Regina leaned back against the column and closed her eyes.

"Why do you think," Regina finally said, her voice calm, even as her hands shook beside her, "that I know where Artem is?"

The voice responded from further away than Regina expected.

"Do you take me for a fool? There are only two people my son loves enough to embarrass me and my other son is sitting quietly waiting for the wedding."

Regina's eyes widened as she realized a few more pieces of the puzzle that was Artem, even as she slowly carefully swapped the brooch in her hand for the one remaining brooch she had not yet used…

...The special brooch that Artem had given her specifically.

"I had not realized," said Regina blandly, wondering if she could create the opening she needed, "that you were so close to the Crown Prince."

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There was a sound of metal, of something scraping, and Regina realized she might have severely overshot her goal.

"You do not have the right to speak of either of my sons," said Queen Natasha.

The voice was closer, far closer than it had been the last time she spoke.

Regina braced herself, took a deep breath, and threw the pottery shard out beside her.

The knife flee past and Regina tried to move but there was another knife and she had miscalculated and she had made the Queen too angry to survive and she mentally apologized to Ava and Artem that she would not survi–

The duck was there.

The duck was there in front of her.

As the knife lodged in its breast, the duck burst into a shower of golden light and the Queen said. "A weak foolish woman who pretended to love Artem for your own gain-"

Then there was a buzzing in Regina's ears, something louder and more powerful than any words and then there was an unearthly sound of rage and grief and anger –

It was only as Regina moved that she realized the sound was her.

She was moving and the world was frozen and she could not see it because of her tears because of her rage and when the haze cleared she was standing in front of Queen Natasha with Artem's brooch piercing her through her chest.

"How dare you," said Regina, "say I do not love Artem. How dare you?! I have risked my life for him again and again and we are going to marry and we are going to live. You will not take that from me!"

The Queen stared at Regina.

"An anti-venom," said the Queen and Regina had never heard that tone in her voice previously. "If you are not in fact poisoned, several of the common varieties act as a temporary paralytic when directly injected into the blood."

The Queen reached down and plucked the brooch out of her chest.

"Unfortunately, I have developed a tolerance to most poisons and anti-venoms," she continued, still staring straight at Regina.

Regina snarled, reaching for the next brooch on her chest.

"No," said the Queen, "that will not be necessary."

She stared at Regina again, suddenly seeming much much older than she had previously.

"You love him," she said and it was not a question. "You want to survive."

Regina stared back at her, wondering what blood-designed torture she had planned now.

"I can," said Queen Natasha, "help you fake your death and have you set up a new identity outside of Carcosa... so long as you leave my son behind."

~♦♥♦~

In the bad romance novels she shared with Henrietta, Regina had read of the strange sensation of reliving the past one had already explored.

Oddly enough, that was not a sensation that Regina had experienced before. Even with her strange foresight, Regina always seemed to travel to a future that was markedly different from what she had previously seen.

But as Regina took in the third person offering her an escape from Carcosa that she could not take…

Regina suddenly realized what it felt like to be trapped in a strange cycle she could not break.

Suddenly, knees weak as her bleeding hand tightened on her newly useless brooch, Regina could only say, "Excuse me?"

"Do not act the part of a fool," the Queen said, looking supremely disdainful. "You have heard me. I admit that you may... care for my son more than I first imagined but you cannot keep him safe so long as others think you will elevate him to being a king."

Somehow, those words stung Regina even more than the shard of pottery cutting into her fingers.

"Are you," Regina said, almost as incredulous as she was flabbergasted, "trying to bribe me to leave before I can marry Artem?"

"Oh," Queen Natasha murmured, "you are clever after all. Does this mean you agree?"

Regina looked around her for a second, wondering if she was trapped in some strange dream where every possible or potential murderer she knew was out to help her flee the country.

Yet after the pain in her aching hands convinced her she was still awake, Regina looked at the queen and said, "I have no reason to trust you. You could just as easily cut my throat as take me out of this forsaken country."

"A little too clever," said the Queen. "You remind me of myself."

Regina unconsciously took a step backwards

"As you can tell," the Queen murmured with a wry smile, "that was not a compliment."

The knives were in the Queen’s hands again and she was moving forward even as Regina moved backwards.

"I really do want you to live," the Queen said, "but you make it so hard for me to find a way for you to survive."

She sounded genuinely regretful.

Regina had never felt more terrified in her life.

"I cannot risk my son's life," the Queen said as she raised her arms and –

Dropped to the floor like a puppet with all its strings cut.

"And I," said Regina's mother, holding the sheathed knife that she had just used to coldcock the Queen, "cannot risk the life of my daughter."