One of the warriors rushes me, and I fall backward on purpose, positioning my feet to send him flying out of the cave entrance. As I quickly find myself surrounded, and begin to fight, I realize that they are a race of supes similar in appearance to humans, but all of them are over seven feet tall, with sharp black claws and rows of pointed teeth. They dress in furs andanimal skins of the creatures that they hunt in this realm, and live in the caves, or high up in the trees. They are extremely good fighters.

As I launch yet another one of them out of the cave entrance, I spot Jamie fighting against one of them who has a scroll in his hand, not holding a sword. I would bet my ass that is what we need to get to pass this trial and get out of here. I am so ready for this to be done and to be away from these people that I double my attack on those surrounding us and fight my way toward Jamie, and more importantly, the scroll.

My sword pierces the heart of a warrior charging me, and I barely pause as I continue my forward trajectory and pull my sword from his chest before he’s even hit the floor. Picking up my speed, I run up the back of someone who is fighting Kylen, and dive over the top of Jamie and the warrior with the scroll. The warrior is so focused on his fight with Jamie that he doesn’t see me coming, and I, by some miracle, manage to grasp hold of the scroll as the warriors’ eyes collide with mine, widening slightly before I lose sight of them as I tuck into a roll.

By the time that I pop back up and turn around, they’ve all disappeared, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Give me the scroll,” Kylen demands.

I reluctantly hand it over to him, knowing that there’s no point in arguing with him.

“What does it say?” Rupert asks, as we all watch Kylen open it.

Kylen takes his time to read it, prolonging the time that we’re all waiting and watching him, and that he is the center of attention.

I roll my eyes.

“Kylen, we probably shouldn’t hang around here for much longer than we have to. We have no idea if their disappearance is temporary or not,” Fetrick points out.

Kylen rolls his eyes, but decides to reply. Most likely because we’re all glaring at him by this point, and he’s pissed everyone off today.

“It’s the spell to call the portal to send us home,” Kylen explains, and then, without prompting, chants the spell.

I feel the familiar tug of a portal and breathe a sigh of relief, thank fuck that’s over.

Neith

As soon as I got out of the shower, I went to find the guys and was surprised when I remembered the way to their room, after knocking and getting no reply, I asked Castle if they were in there which he confirmed that they weren’t, meaning that they were definitely still doing their trial, which made sense since my task didn’t last very long at all. I quickly changed my objective to looking for Mabel or someone else that I could ask to help me watch the guys do their trial, but I couldn’t find anyone and decided to head back to my room instead.

When I get back to the room, I find a tray of food waiting for me and a little handwritten note telling me that I did really well and that, just as I suspected, the guys are still doing their trial. I have no idea how she knew that I would be back when I was, or how she knew that I would be back before them, but I’m assuming that it has something to do with the fact that they have always held the Choosing here, and that means that they get some perks.

Knowledge of the inner workings being one of them.

Although it can’t be too accurate because I have been back for a while now, and the food definitely wasn’t in here earlier, after I got out of the shower, I would have noticed it. I always notice food.

Her note makes me smile, but I do wish that the woman herself were here. I can’t have missed her by much, but I didn’t see her in the hallway. There really isn’t much else that I can do right now, and I don’t really want to carry on roaming the castle hallways without knowing whether Kylen and his team are here, or if they are on a trial too.

It's simply not safe.

Picking up the tray, I’m not ashamed to say that I make quick work of the food, clearly I’m a lot hungrier than I thought I was, even though breakfast wasn’t that long ago. Any sort of physical activity always makes me hungry though, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Once I’m done, I know I need to find something to do to try to take my mind off the danger that the guys are no doubt in doing their Choosing trial, and the pain in my arm. It hurts like a mother fucker.

“Oh shit,” I say out loud rolling my eyes at my own stupidity as I head toward my still packed bag of stuff. I’m glad that the guys didn’t manage to move it to their room before they were pulled into their own task. I had temporarily forgotten that they were going to do that and that the plan is to stay in their room from now on.

Thank fuck.

I hate sleeping on my own, and the nightmares are likely to stick around for the next couple of days at least. They will be much easier to cope with if I am not sleeping alone.

Kneeling down, I unzip my bag and pull out the stiletto, setting it down on the floor next to the bag so that it’s out of the way while I gather all of the ingredients and things that I need in order to make a healing poultice for theburn on my arm. It won’t do much, it certainly won’t heal it like Doc can, but it will provide me with some relief until Doc can heal it for me.

Moving over to the tiny kitchen that is thankfully in my room, I rummage through the cupboards until I can find a small pot, a chopping board, and a knife. Once I have all the things that I need, I set to work, humming the same tune that I always do and pausing every now and then to talk to Betty and Asael. The whole process is so familiar that I relax more than I have been able to for the entire time that I have been here. My mind stays entirely on the task and doesn’t wander anywhere, which is a welcome reprieve from the current worries that seem to come from all directions at the moment.

This recipe is a relatively quick one, and as I speak the healing words over the top of it, just like Sully always taught me to do, I feel that place of magic that I am just starting to recognize inside me respond to the words and lend a small stream of magic to the healing potion. It surprises me, and I wonder whether it has always done that, and I just wasn’t aware enough to notice it before, or whether it’s a new development. Either way though, I am grateful and it’s not until I have placed the mixture over the burn and wrapped it with the gauze, that I realize just how painful it was and the relief that I feel is immense, making me let out the tense breath that I hadn’t realized that I had been holding.

Once I have tidied everything away, I look around the room with a sigh. I really want to watch the guys do their task, but I have no idea how to do that. With nothing else to do, and knowing that I can’t just wander around the castle and explore like I would like to do, just in case the Draconian team are around and decide to take advantage of the fact that the guys aren’t here, and decide to try something. I think they would find it a lot more difficult than they think that they would, but I don’t want to give them the opportunity. I also really don’t want to provide Kylen with the chance to order Coen to hurtme. Coen would never forgive himself, and I really don’t want to put him in that position.

With all of that in mind, I decide to distract myself by heading back up to the fourth floor to study the painting of my parents again. It feels so weird to say my parents, especially because of who they are. Yet, it doesn’t feel wrong. I guess it in part helps that I know Pete, and that in his own kind of hands-off way, he has always looked after me. I have so many questions that I want to ask him, and you would think that I would be feeling anger toward him, and as I leave my room and head to the stairs that will take me up to the painting, I try to find that anger that I’m supposed to be feeling, or at least that I think I’m supposed to be feeling, but I can’t find it.

The thing is, I have been through so much in my life, I have made decisions that I’m not proud of, I’ve been forced into choices that I wouldn’t usually make, and because of that I understand that, although I don’t like that he was right there and didn’t tell me what he was to me, he was still there in the way that he could be. I have no idea what the circumstances were, none of us do, and until I have spoken to Pete and have gained some understanding of what happened, I will reserve judgment.