I sighed.

I had to. It was going to be a long day.

It already was.

"I guess I shouldn't have spent that effort I did saving your hide from that ring of thieves you stole from. Not that it was hard, though you were sure having trouble with a bunch of merry me-" I raised my eyebrows and stopped talking. Probably the smartest thing I've done all day. She had pressed the sword harder against my throat to stop me from saying anything else.

"Do I need to show you how much better with a blade I've gotten?" She sneered. I'm kind of glad I couldn't see her at the moment. She never looked good when she sneered.

"It was never the blade that was the problem, you were just always clumsy." I chuckled under my breath. Her hand shook casually, probably with rage. She was definitely going to slash my throat open.

Why do I keep talking sometimes?

"Gertrude. Let it go." Hue ordered. He was not more than ten feet away now.

"It could be over though! Snicker Snack. Dead. Happily Ever After." Goldie snarled. Yeah, she was p.i.s.sed.

"Business."

"But... She..." Goldie gave up pretty quickly.

Midnight Magic!

Hue had Goldie whipped. Poor girl. I never thought she would let anyone tame her, let alone Hue. She always usually just did what she wanted. It was the thief blood in her. Her Grandmother started it, walking into a Bear Family's home. Similar to when I caught her walking around in my home after I helped her.

She lowered her sword and stepped back from me. I stepped to the side immediately and drew a second hatchet into my empty hand. I could see them both now.

Goldie was mildly how I still pictured her in my head. Auburn lit curls, that s.h.i.+mmered as if they were really made of a fiery gold, hung to frame her round and pristine face while draping over her curvy display especially with the tight clothing she currently wore.

The most unnerving thing was her honey brown eyes sparkling with despair. I had never seen them do that before.

I blinked a few times. "Goldie?"

"What?" She glared at me. The sparkle of despair didn't fade. She looked like Faerie Fudge. Sparkling and beautiful yet hiding something dead inside.

"What did you do with Bonny?" I asked.

"Who?" She frowned at me like I had just asked where the wicked witch of the west had run off.

"Bonny. Graying Redhead? Purple silk uniform? Eye patch?"

She shook her head at me and looked at me like I was crazy.

I know Bonny hadn't been in my head. She had communicated with her subordinate. Besides, I'm not usually easily tricked by things like illusions. Not my style.

I could have sworn she had tugged at my leg though.

At least I thought so until I felt the tugging again and looked down to see the baby fox stirring in my pocket.

It wasn't Bonny. But then... where did she go?

"Hue?" I asked while turning to face him.

"Not here." He said coolly.

"Gaggles of help Hue, Gaggles of help." I sighed and glanced back at Goldie with a raised eyebrow. "Personally, the green tights worked better for you, Goldie."

"Something wrong with all black?" She asked in that tone that meant the answer to her question better be no.

"Never mind." I sighed and shook my head. This wasn't the time to get sidetracked. Things were getting weird. And way too quickly. Where the fey did Bonny go?

I didn't get to think anything over much at all before I noticed Hue draw another axe hanging from his waist. It reminded me of the axe he had thrown. It wasn't on the floor now. Anywhere.

"You have the package." Hue explained before turning away from me.

"Wait. Goldie is the package? What the fey, Hue." I swore and stepped toward him.

He glanced over his shoulder and nodded at me, and started walking away toward his territory. I locked my jaw and watched him go. Stupid Hue, like he couldn't spend one minute to explain?

"Can you at least tell me if Gabbi crossed over into your land?" I asked.

I could see him shaking his head while still walking away. There was no way to be sure that was even an answer, but knowing him it probably was.

Someday I'd get a whole sentence out of him again.

Someday.

Once he was far enough away so he was only a blur on the horizon, I slowly turned around to face Goldie in her tight black outfit.

"What is going on, Goldie?" I eyed her and stepped closer. She had already sheathed up her sword at her hip.

"What do you mean? I was not expecting to see you either. Honestly, I was rather hoping I would never have to see that disgustingly matted red cloak again." She frowned and looked away from me with fumes of annoyance lingering between us.

"Great to chat with you too, Goldie. Love catching up on old times. If only everyone I knew would stop being so cryptic or tight-lipped, I might actually have more fun." I rolled my eyes and stepped up to Goldie.

Once my hatchets were slipped away under my cloak, I grabbed at the thief's wrists. She yanked lightly but didn't really try to pull away.

"Let me go, Red." Goldie spoke before crus.h.i.+ng her lips together until they were white. She wasn't even looking at me. She yanked away again but still not really trying. I could practically feel the melancholy oozing off her.

"You never called me Red before." I said, letting my hands drop away from holding on her. Goldie knew something. She knew more than something, she always did. And I'm always the last person to know anything.

"Well maybe I should have, that way this job would be easier. Just do your job, and get me where I need to go." She spoke about as coldly as Hue always would but with an edge of malice.

"Right. Then we should get going." I sighed, glancing over her and dropping my hand from her wrist. She still wouldn't look at me. She just looked toward the tower with the smoke dissipating out the top and sides of it.

I was just about to turn my head away and slip my hood back on when she finally brought her honey brown eyes to look at me. Tears were formed in the bottom of them like actual pools of honey. They just made her glisten even more with a melancholy no one should ever have to endure. And for some reason, with the way she looked at me, I don't think I was the reason she was shedding honey tears.

A smile tried to pull at my lips, but it didn't make it. I stared at the rainbow sparkling ground. I was never good at this stuff.

I had no idea what to do or say.

Maybe it was a good thing then that I felt a sudden jolt rip through my body and the force of a blunt object smas.h.i.+ng my brain into my skull to rattle it around. It felt like my mind was trying to escape my head.

The iridescent dust below and the twilight sky above swirled around me. I felt my knees kick up dirt as they hit the ground.

I fell forward seconds later, my left cheek rubbing against the sandy smooth gravel as it seemed to become immensely cold and stone-like.

I didn't feel the fox in my pocket, or catch any words being said.

There was nothing, just cold against my skin, and darkness welling in me.

I could see Goldie burned into my vision, like I had been staring at the sun too long and it was just an after image lingering. It was like a beautiful angel etched into my mind, leading me along through the darkness with her sad honey eyes and wrinkled up nose.

The scent was what I followed though. Letting it soothe me off into the shade. Her honey poppy scent mixed with porridge was the best. I still loved it even now.

It was a good last moment.

For a poet.

Not someone like me.

Four.

Bare Essentials I awoke naked.

Nothing else mattered.

Not the headache that felt more like an earthquake between the two hemispheres of my brain. Nor the gut wrenching ache in my stomach that could have rivaled the knots and tangles in Rapunzel's hair after one amazing night.

The cold stone floor I was laying on took tiny nibbles at my senses, which were all but numb by the time I was awake. It wasn't until my eyes stopped hurting and the black faded around my vision that I even noticed there was an ounce of warmth between my legs.

No, perverts. It was the baby fox lying between my knees, likely trying to stay warm too.

I propped myself up with one of my arms on the stone and let out all the air in my chest. The little fox joined me with a yawning cry.

"Tired huh?" I nodded down to the little beast. All it seemed to do since I found it was sleep and yawn. "Me too."

It lifted its head up and yipped a cry at me, which I figured meant something along the lines of "Also Cold."

"Yeah, well you seem to be enjoying keeping yourself warm. And comfortable." I smiled at the fox and it grinned back at me with slits for eyes. I leaned forward and scooped it up from between my legs to hold the baby fox against my chest. It yipped again.

"So you got any idea where we are?" I asked. I have no idea why I was asking a fox. All I got as an answer was a rolling high-pitched yawn.

"You're getting better at the yawns. Think you can work up to a growl?"

The fox yipped a reply and popped up in my arms. I laughed before standing up and taking a look around.

Stone was everywhere around me except for a small hole in the wall as a window, which had only faint light coming through it to fill the rest of the room. There was also a long wall mirror with interesting gold framing, crimson stains scattered on the floor, and best of all was the foul scent in the air.

Nothing like the smell of death in the morning to get your day going.

My feet didn't even make a beat against the cold stone as I stepped up close to the mirror. I set the fox down on the floor next to me. It tried to take a few steps but fell over and just decided to stay on the stone.

"Quitter." I teased the fox before looking up at myself in the mirror.

Faerie Fudge...

It wasn't a pretty sight. Not even remotely.

Raspberry tangles of hair surrounded my face all the way down to matted ends hanging over my shoulders. If you tossed a couple of birds, a few twigs and leaves, and some bird eggs into my hair, I might as well have changed my job status to: Pale bush. My dulled sapphire eyes were studded with blood-red pain. The bruises I was wearing across my sunken cheeks, along the thin bridge of my nose and against my rounded jaw suggested I was. .h.i.t in the face repeatedly while I had been pa.s.sed out.

The rest of my body wasn't fairing much better either. About the only thing I had more of than goose b.u.mps on my stubby arms and legs were oozing wounds and bruises. A lot of old wounds were even reopened and recently too. Most of my skin was crusted over in blood and dust. I didn't have my red cloak, but it almost looked like I was still wearing it.

Someone had been ripping away at my body and continually knocking me out to keep me from waking up. That meant they didn't want me talking to them. Considering how beaten I looked, it seemed unlikely whoever it was would have let me wake up before they were done with me too.

The fox at my feet barked up a little noise while I touched a few wounds to see how tender or intense they were. I was in pain, but nothing I had sustained would put me even close to risk of death, other than maybe the head wounds. Whoever did it knew what they were doing and how.

But why did they not want to face me while awake?

Actually, why the fey did they take everything away from me... except for the fox?

I glared down at the fox. It looked up at me and blinked nonchalantly.

"Yeah, I didn't think you were capable of deceit yet." I sighed and looked back into the mirror.

I'm not exactly the most carefully pruned person around, but I do at least try to keep to the basics of hygiene. Generally you aren't considered hygienic when you are covered in blood, bruises and puss to the degree that I was. I tried to get out some of the tangles in my hair with my fingers at least enough to where I could brush it around a bit. Then I cleaned off as much dry blood as I could and dug out the crud under my nails after that.

I looked like polished faerie fudge when I was done, but at least I was polished.

It wasn't even until I was looking at my self-pruned finished product that I noticed something was different from the Mirror room compared to the room I was in.

Midnight Magic!

I can't believe I didn't even notice it before. Other than what I figured was blood drenching the floor and the little fox at my feet there wasn't anything else on the ground in the room. But the mirror room had a pile of clothes off in the darkest corner with my red cloak draped over them.

At least I think it was my cloak.

I pressed my hand against the mirror. Beyond the s.h.i.+mmer of light against the reflection, nothing changed. I didn't fall through it or anything.

It was just one of the many ways I could check to see if anything was in the mirror. Things live in the mirrors in about the same way things live in houses. Some of them help you, some of them play tricks on you, some of them even steal you, and some just ignore you. You never really know. I lived with a mirror spirit in my hand mirror for six years before I realized it was there.

Because of that, I learned that some looking gla.s.ses were born with spirits in them. Mirror spirits.