I couldn't answer. Even if it was sick, and it hurt others, doing what you like is human nature. It was what everyone wanted, right? To do the things they enjoyed and loved without others trying to get in the way... even if sometimes it did hurt people.

"Nothing to say, Miss Red?" Both the Fioravantes laughed and it sounded creepy, like an echo in a haunted home.

My eyes fell to Ashe. Things like kissing girls...

My vision trailed to Ettie. Or things like performing magic...

My sight befell Goldie. Or things like thieving...

Then they lowered to Bonny and Roberts. Or even being a pirate...

Someone could get hurt with those things, but that didn't stop them from being enjoyable or wanting to do it.

I sighed.

Why did that terrible man have to be right, in some way?

"Well if you are going to be like that..." The echoing voice of Fioravante finished before both of them drew in energy with their hands. The energy swirled while he incanted. Just as the sparkling missles of magical energy poured from his hands, Ettie stepped up to me and pushed a pistol in to my hand.

I yanked the pistol up in front of me with a straight arm at the same time Ettie aimed hers. The smile drained from my lips as magic drained from my hand and poured in the weapon before I pulled the trigger a few times while moving my hand barely.

Magical shots of energy erupted forward, at least ten blasts between Ettie and I, all colliding with the magic missiles before they had even reached their targets. Only two missiles remained that Ettie tried to catch, but before she could fire they both collided with Ashe and sent her reeling back in to Bonny, whom caught her.

I turned to face Fioravante with fury in my eyes. But Goldie tapped my shoulder and pointed to the piles of ash on the stone. My eyes shot to Ashe whom was standing and smiling toward me, with a pinch of sadness.

Some gnomes saved her...

I couldn't help but smile back before I turned to Fioravante who was drawing in another spell. I glanced to Ettie and smiled. "You got the left one?"

She nodded as I slipped her gun back to her and we broke immediately. She ran to the side, firing and I shot forward in full sprint.

Fioravante gasped as both of them broke their concentration to either dodge magic bullets from Ettie or sidestep my Axe slice. The one I attacked retaliated with a firm punch into my chest to send me skidding across the ground before he pulled two hard stone swords from the earth, leaving indents there.

The one Ettie attacked was caught by one of the bullets on the shoulder and somewhere in the side, but quickly forced an explosion of fire next to Ettie that caught on her shorts and singed them before she patted it out.

"So both of you are real. That's not taught in the faerie academy." I said while jumping forward and swiping my axe. He blocked it with one sword and stabbed with the other. I stepped into it, taking the stab below my shoulder as I thrust my axe at him which pushed him back and kept the sword from sinking in too deep.

I could feel the blood drip down as I heard explosions somewhere behind me and s.h.i.+vered at the pure magic that vibrated through the air. My attention fell to Fioravante while I pumped extra energy in my arms and pushed some power in my axe before swiping again.

His swords met my axe but they were cleaved through, shattering them to dust before I spun around to keep the momentum and swirl the axe to slice across his stomach.

Deep blue magic leaked from the shallow wound as I grinned. "Got you."

He roared and summoned up energy without an incantation, simply forcing the power out of him and blasting at me.

I was shot across the room while my axe dug a jagged line in the ground before I slowed enough to stop near a wall. My still-bandaged head rattled, causing me to shake my head before taking a deep breath through my nose.

I looked between the two Blue-bearded men. The one having a magical explosion duel with Ettie was actually bleeding at the shoulder and a couple other areas while mine was shedding magic like it was blood.

"Similar in every way except the blood running through your veins?" I asked as the Fioravante fighting Ettie paused and glanced to me with wide eyes. This caused him to take a barrage of magic shots from the gunslinging witch, which made him drop to his knees, smoking and bleeding.

He glanced up. "You think better, on your feet, than we had expected."

"You have no idea, Fioravante." I grinned and ripped my axe from the ground before running toward the magic-bleeding wizard. He dodged the swipe of my axe, but hadn't expected the sudden bullet shot to his leg from the new pirate king. I forced the handle of my axe against his throat and pushed him in the nearest wall with all my strength.

He collided hard enough in the stone to leave an imprint as I pulled out two hatchets hanging on my belt and stabbed them in the wall. I melded the hatchets in the wall with the force of a little magic then against the long-handled axe as well, to cut off his air supply with the handle against his throat.

"If you have no blood, you have no need to breathe, right?" I tipped my head to him before pulling my hands away and walking from that clone.

The Fioravante I had been fighting tried to grab at my clothing, but he couldn't reach. I could feel him build up another shot of energy without using an incantation and spun around to face him. My free hands rose together in front of me and then I pulled them apart like I would rip a pomegranate. Fioravante's arms tore from his body, causing blue magical energy to gush from the wounds and spew all around him while his appendages lying on the floor started to shed in to magical dust.

I turned on the other blue-bearded wizard, who was still smoking from the hits Ettie had laid in to him. Or maybe she had even shot some more I hadn't heard over Bonny's shot. He was pulling up to his feet though, with an arm hanging forward like he couldn't use it.

I stood in front of him, blocking Ettie from firing further as I glared to him before he finally tossed his head up to look at me.

"You are right." I stated.

He furrowed his brows in surprise and coughed a laugh.

I continued, "People should be free to do the things they enjoy. But they also have to understand the risks they take by enjoying anything. Maybe they aren't always fair risks, or you don't notice the risk, but they are still the bad parts you accept when you do something that feels good to you."

I leaned in and grabbed the man by his beard, pulling his face toward me as I poured all my anger in my stare. "And now your risk-taking has caught up with you. You knew some day someone would come to kill you for having killed someone they knew."

"Yes." He replied before a smile twisted across his face and a surge of energy poured out of him and traveled along my hand setting my body on fire and spreading all across me as my hand tore away from him and I dropped to one knee in pure twisting agony. My fists crushed in the ground to grit against the pain but I couldn't hold it.

Ettie rushed up to me forcing her hands on me and drawing the fire up to her until it filled her completely, leaving me to breathe.

A few shots rung from Bonny firing at the half-wizard trying to step away.

My hand waved over the witch, but I couldn't draw enough strength together to overcome the spell he had. So I grabbed Ettie before she was about to drop to the floor in pain, splitting the fire between us as I dragged her toward the other Fioravante. He tried kicking me but I grabbed his foot then forced the burning from the witch, through me and in to the magic-crafted man.

He writhed and burned until there was nothing left of the magical body that had been pinned to the wall. Meanwhile Ettie and I were just gasping for air.

"Thanks." She added in between breaths while I looked to see Goldie and Roberts attempting to contain the former pirate king with the help of the new pirate king.

"Thanks too. For the kiss." My eyes turned to glance at her and see the blush pour over her cheeks, which made me smile. Then I looked at Ashe who smiled to me and held her axe out, ready to strike, with only being a couple feet from the man. She was the closest of any of the others there.

"I think I can move on, finally." I added before pulling my mind together and standing, it sounded like Ettie was going to say something but it just became a deep breath instead. So I yanked a hatchet from the wall and threw it, just after Fioravante exploded with energy in every direction, shedding everyone who was attempting to attack him, even though they had already sustained wounds on their arms, neck or head.

The axe swirled through Fioravante's leg, slicing it from the rest of his body and dropping him to the ground. You could hear his labored breathing as real blood gushed into the pores of the stone floor. I hobbled toward him, with pain coursing over me from the burns and smelling the scent of burnt hair that must have been mine or Ettie's, or both.

I could feel his reserves of energy were drying up but if he was really using a curse to fuel his power there was no telling what he could really do. So my foot descended against his chest as he tried to right himself with only one leg. I barely pushed him and he fell over the rest of the way.

The connection of my foot to his chest allowed me to feel the burning and violent power itching to break out of him, so I gently coaxed it toward me and pulled it right from his body and in to mine.

Magic exploded from his eyes and mouth and ran up to my chest, hitting me like I had just dipped myself in ice cold water. I s.h.i.+vered as the magic settled between us and I finally looked down at him.

He was frightened, probably for the first time in his life. Because now that I could feel the curse thrumming through my body, I could also tell he didn't have an ounce of magical energy to him.

I scooped up the axe I had thrown and held it ready to slice his head from his body. But my eyes traced to everyone around me. Although they all looked beaten except Bonny, they also looked sullen at knowing what I would do next.

My eyes drew on Ashe, who was just barely shaking her head with her eyes settled fiercely to me.

I had to kill him, right?

I leaned down to place the axe against his throat. I whispered, "You're lucky. You won't die by my hand tonight. I couldn't rob someone of the revenge they will want to enact on a despicable man like you for having killed someone they knew. Instead..."

I shook off the feelings of the curse wanting me to use magic so it could drain every last living thing that I could feel was under its sleeping effects. It had Nera's magic print all over it and it was making me sick just thinking of it being in me.

I slid the blade of my axe further against his neck and finished. "Instead I took what you should never have had in the first place."

He didn't even stare at me, or say anything as I leaned back up and crushed my foot in his stomach one more time, forcing a burst of magic through him. Then I walked away from him with my jaw set and the anger burning in me more fiercely than the sleeping curse was.

Fioravante barely lifted his head up to show the blue-beard he always possessed was no longer there. He managed to lift a hand up to feel at it, and tears pooled in his eyes.

"Why?" He rasped.

I shrugged and turned to look over my shoulder. "Brew it up to me going soft."

Besides, he had yet to see that although the blue-beard was gone, his normally golden hair like Goldie's was now that same blue color the beard had been.

A reminder: Of what I could do and so that the past would never be forgotten.

I laughed at that thought.

That was the same reason I always wore my red cloak.

Thirty-One.

Blood Runs Blue We left Fioravante where he was. Goldie wrapped up some of his wounds while we fixed ourselves up. I couldn't leave him to live then have him bleed to death afterwards.

I had retrieved my axes, all of them. Then we ascended the steps of the tower with Han in the lead sniffing out the Blue Faerie, even if I already knew where she was. I could feel her energy stabbing through me more often as we drew closer. There was only one place she could have been if she needed this tower specifically and the permission to use the souls of those Bluebeard had killed.

The room of blood.

The same room Bluebeard had killed all those curious people that had ever stepped inside. We twisted and turned through a few corridors but it wasn't hard to find the room we needed; it was radiating energy. My guess was because of a ritual.

Han was the first one to step in the blood room thanks to the door being partially open. My hand fell to the skeleton key lock to make sure it stayed open as I pa.s.sed through. I stopped mid-way through my stride as I took in the view of the room.

There was no exaggeration in the legend about the blood red color all through the room. If anything, it didn't put the horror in enough perspective.

There weren't just splatters like the crime scene at the smaller tower where I found Reynard. The room was so completely soaked with blood that the floor and walls were caked over and pure crimson stone, with only maybe a few spots in the floor, where skeleton keys might have sat.

I truly had never seen so much blood in one place.

Ever.

It was only made worse by the skeletons that littered the room as well. Not one of them still had flesh on their bones. I didn't even move again for fear of throwing up, until someone placed a hand on my shoulder from behind me.

"Gnidori..." Ashe began.

Reynard stepped from her hand on my shoulder while Kit finished for my roommate. "...Keep moving! It's just a little blood."

"That..." my mouth fell open, "...is not a little blood."

I moved anyway, as my attention fell to the other scene in the blood red room.

Nera sat hovering in the air and deep in concentration as my cloak and Hue's hat floated just out of her reach in bubbles of swirling energy. Of course she had her hand repaired, a faerie like her wouldn't have suffered more than an hour with only one hand.

I fished out the wrapped up and shriveled hand in a pack on my belt, holding it to my side. Then stepped past Han, but stopped when the swirling energies around the cloak and hat suddenly shot forward and collided together in the air.

The magic was so thick in the room I could taste it as a sphere grew outward from the collision. It was most likely some kind of portal being formed.

I turned my eyes to the hand I held then tossed it across the blood red floor and yelled, "Brought something for you."

Her eyes flew open to gleam at me like a cat watching prey while her hands coiled away from the flowing energy. "You really shouldn't have, darling."

I leaned to the side to look around her when she descended to the ground. The cloak and hat were still floating despite her concentration being broken. That meant it was a self-sustaining ritual, it just needed direction. I still didn't understand what use my cloak was to make a portal though.

"Ah, lovely isn't it?" Nera asked as she followed my gaze to the portal.

"That's about the last word I would use for it." I said, while watching Goldie sneak around the wall toward the floating objects.

Apparently Nera had followed my eyes.

"If you plan on thieving those. Be my guest. It will just get rid of one of you faster." She said as her head leaned to look behind her shoulder at Goldie reaching out to take up Hue's hat. The thief reeled her hand back and looked to me. I rolled my eyes.

"She's probably right. It's a self-sustaining ritual, drawing from all the energy in here from the violent deaths, but if you touched those it might draw the energy it needs from you. You'd be a pile of dust." I explained, my eyes not faltering from Nera as she glanced back to me with her feline slits.

Goldie backed away as Nera continued, "I see that blue-bearded folly couldn't handle you lot. Disappointing, I had looked forward to him as a more developed apprentice, eventually."

"You can still have him. He's down stairs, quite alive. You might have trouble getting him to perform though." I grinned.

Nera ignored me and sniffed the air. "Interesting. How does it feel to have the curse in you? Exhilarating isn't it?"

"Hardly..." I said in placid response. She frowned.

"You never did enjoy the gifts you were given, former Red Faerie."

"And you enjoyed them too much." I shrugged, "look at that, we're two sides to the same troll-infested bridge."

Her jaw set and she glared at me. Then her hand waved in front of her. "Enough of the pleasantries. You are hampering my work. Please leave."