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The sleeping curse was broken, not with True Love’s Kiss, but with a molotov cocktail thrown by a young man with sad golden eyes and thick black curls hidden behind the deep hood of a long cloak. The cocktail broke its way through the window of the enchanted castle, setting thorns and furniture alike aflame, and with it, the spinning wheel once gifted to a young princess by a bitter young man by the name of Jack Vessalius, and waking both the princess in question and the young lord who’d tried fucking with the spinning wheel several decades later from their enchanted slumbers.
The man who had thrown the cocktail turned to the man next to him, who had choppy white hair falling over half of his face and a smirk on his mouth as he watched the quickly fading flames.
“Well?” demanded the man who had thrown the cocktail. “Did it work?”
The man beside him smirked. “Well, we’ll have to see what comes crawling out, won’t we?” he said.
The girl perched neatly on a rock beside the white-haired man took a sip of her tea. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said bracingly. “It’ll all be alright. I mean, if this doesn’t work we’ll simply try another way! I heard from the Lady Ada that necromancy is all the rage nowadays.”
Luckily for the two living inhabitants of the castle, necromancy would not be required to get them out. Oz Vessalius and Alice Baskerville had awoken simultaneously, once the spinning wheel had completely crumbled to ash, and were currently rushing to get ahead of the fire in the castle. In some places, it was roaring wildly, and in others, it was merely dying embers, and in some places, it hadn’t caught fire yet, and all of those places were apt to change as the two children ran from room to room, trying to get out and to safety while bickering about various things that had occurred in the dream world they’d shared. Alice, Oz knew, could not remember anything from before she’d been cursed; Oz rather wished he was in the same position. As he ran through the castle he kept his eyes open for the burnt corpse of a tiny fourteen year old, and his ears open for the dying screams of a boy burning to death. He did not hear or see either, though he did stumble over his own sleeping form at one point, splattered with blood and laying sprawled on the floor at the bottom of a massive staircase.
Oz kicked his sleeping self towards the flames and let Alice drag him up the stairs.
Finally, at the top of the staircase, they burst through the doors and stumbled out into the fresh air, gasping and coughing. Oz collapsed into a heap, all bony arms and legs, at the bottom of the steps, and Alice leaned over the railing, both gasping like fishes suddenly yanked out of water. The smoke had vanished, somehow, and the air was totally clear, which was good, because both Oz and Alice recovered their strength far faster than they otherwise would have.
Oz was pushing himself back up, and Alice was pushing her sweaty hair out of her face, when the three figures approached.
The first was a short man with choppy pale hair. He was dressed as a servant—rather fancily for one, it was true, but a servant nonetheless. He was leading the procession, however, followed closely by a beautiful young man with dark curls and golden eyes, furrowed in concentration, and a young girl in a ponytail. Both of his followers were dressed like nobles who were pretending not to be noble, though the man was slightly better at it than the girl—his posture was almost that of a servant himself, though his clothes were far to fine to belong to anyone who didn’t come from money.
Oz straightened, smiling widely, and grabbed Alice by the wrist, pulling her down the last few stairs to stand in front of the trio.
“Hello!” he said cheerfully. “I don’t suppose you could tell us where we are? —We’re terribly lost, you see, and I’ve lost my friend Gil, too, and someone lit the castle on fire…I don’t really know what happened, but we’re looking for Gil now!” Oz widened his smile. “Oh, I’m Oz Vessalius, by the way…”
He didn’t emphasize his name. He didn’t have to: the girl’s eyes sharpened with recognition, of the last name if not the first, and the black-haired man stopped entirely short, looking to the white-haired man for guidance.
Perfect.
“This is my friend Alice, we met in the castle.” Oz smiled as sweetly as he could, coming to a stop in front of the white-haired man. “We’re great friends already! She’s lived here all her life, you know. She doesn’t know where Gilbert is, either, though. Would you please help us look for him?”
“We’ve come to destroy this castle and the spells it holds,” the black-haired man said shortly.
“All in good time, my sweet Raven,” cooed the white-haired man. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Lord Oz, Miss Alice.”
“Lady,” Oz insisted. “This is her castle, after all.”
The dark-haired man—Raven?—stiffened, casting Alice a suspicious glance. She scowled right back at him, but Oz stepped on her foot before she could say anything, and Raven held his tongue.
“Lady Alice, then,” the girl said smoothly. She smiled brilliantly at Oz, who felt his cheeks heat up when he smiled back. “You can call me Eques. He’s Break, and that’s our…employee, Raven. Break pays him to take care of the unsavory sorts of people we meet on our exploits. You two should probably be careful with your true names here in the Abyss, though I suppose since you came from that castle it’s really too late for anything.”
“Hmph!” said Alice. “I’ve been here my whole life—well, that I remember anyway—and the only danger was ever that fire. We don’t need to worry about names!”
“That castle contains a powerful sleeping curse,” Raven said gruffly. “We were able to use the fire to disrupt it for a time, but if we don’t manage to destroy it completely it’ll come back.”
“Also,” said Break, “that castle’s been alight for less than fifteen minutes. Alice—sorry, Lady Alice, how much of your life do you remember?”
Alice growled at him. Raven glared at her. Oz squeezed Alice’s hand tightly. She glared back at Raven, and Oz bodily stepped between them. He wasn’t sure why—his memories of his time in the dream-world were growing fuzzier by the second, and even then he hadn’t quite known—but he was loathe to be separated from the younger girl. Something about Alice was like…it was like she was the sun, and Oz was a plant, desperately reaching towards her, relying on her for life. It was as though being separated from her would kill him even more surely than losing Gil would, and Gilbert had been the pillar upon with Oz’s mental health rested for years now.
“She might kind of have amnesia,” Oz admitted. “But still—I mean, that’s not important right now! You can’t destroy that castle, Gil’s still inside!”
Oz shoved back the last memory before he’d awoken to fire—it might have been a dream, it might not be real, and anyway he didn’t have Gil’s blood on him anymore. Gil was definitely fine—he had to be.
“I can assure you,” Raven said, “you and that…stupid rabbit were the only living beings in there when I set it ablaze. Now there’s nothing alive in that damned castle…at least, nothing alive that shouldn’t be dead.”
“Who are you calling stupid, seaweed head?!” Alice shouted.
“Are you saying Gil should die ?!” Oz exclaimed, his horror leaking out into his voice.
Raven gritted his teeth and looked away. “I’m sure your friend is fine,” he said, “and not in there.”
“The last thing I saw before I got cursed was Gil—”
Behind Oz and Alice, the castle simply imploded. There was a shockwave of heat—a flash of smoke thick as pea soup—and then the castle stood in burnt-out ruins behind them, as though it had been burnt down decades prior.
“Gilbert!” Oz screamed, abandoning all pretense and manners as he whirled around and bolted towards the castle, dragging Alice behind him. He stopped in the midst of the wreckage, when his foot cracked through something and he looked down to see a burnt child’s skeleton under his feet. And then—he found himself in midair as Raven scooped him up and carried him like a child away from the ruins as Oz screamed and screamed, a long agonized howl that only barely resembled the word ‘Gilbert’.
(Gilbert clutched Oz closer to him even as his master sobbed and begged him to put him down, screaming his name to all who might hear as if he didn't care about his servant's fate—though, really, Gil deserved that, since Oz's curse had been his fault anyway. Gil let Oz down once they were far enough from the ruins of the castle that Oz couldn't rush in and hurt himself, and buried his face in his master's hair and gently kissed the top of his head as the boy screamed and Gilbert wondered what was so special about that dead girl, anyway, and why couldn't Gil be that important to Oz?)
Alice was watching Oz. He had screamed himself into unconsciousness two days ago, and he’d been acting wrong ever since. She had always been jealous of the idea of Gilbert—the boy was so important to her Oz, and even though she couldn’t really remember anything she knew she wanted Oz all to herself, because nobody else could be trusted with him, and anyway Gilbert was a boring nasty pathetic name.
But ever since stupid Raven had burnt down the cursed castle, and Oz had found that skeleton, he’d been wrong. He was perfectly polite, but his emotions were dulled, somehow. He never smiled, real or fake. He stayed calm and collected and logical, and obediently did as Raven or Break or Eques told him. He didn’t talk to anyone, not even Alice, unless you told him to respond, and that was boring. At first, Alice had took it to mean Oz would back her up on whatever she wanted to eat, and he did, but—it wasn’t right. It wasn’t Oz. He was acting like someone had scraped out his insides and left him tottering around, hollow, and Alice—
Well, she was worried. Oz was hers! She had the right to worry about him! And only Alice was allowed to make him sad! And nobody was allowed to make him wander with that empty look in his eyes!
But nothing Alice did seemed to make any difference. No food she gave him, or any amount of teasing, or anything seemed to break through. Oz was quiet, and empty, just sitting or standing or walking wrapped in Raven’s cloak, which the man had first put around him after Oz had stopped clawing at his face but before he’d stopped crying or screaming, and which Raven had made sure was wrapped tightly around Oz ever since.
“So that you don’t get cold,” he’d said to Oz, a strange and sad expression on his bloodied face, but Oz hadn’t said anything. He’d just tucked his head beneath his knees and sat there. When he fell asleep he clung to Alice and woke up crying, but that was all.
It sucked.
Alice had picked fights with Raven and Break and Eques on Oz’s behalf, but he hadn’t blinked. She had pitched a fit and insisted on the best possible meat—fresh and raw and dripping with blood—but Oz hadn’t wanted to eat it and when Alice tried she was violently ill and had to be carried by Raven, a humiliation she never wanted to repeat.
It had been two awful days of this, and Alice had run out of ideas.
Nearly.
She had one left—one even she thought was a terrible idea, and so hadn’t brought it up yet. But Oz was refusing quietly to eat breakfast, and no amount of needling from Alice or Raven was changing that, and so—
“Oz,” said Alice. “I’m going to kill Raven for you.”
Raven started choking.
Oz looked up, eyes wide. “You—what?” he asked hoarsely.
“He killed your Gilbert, right?” she said. “He burned down the castle until all that was left of him was a skeleton. So I’ll kill him for you.”
Oz looked at Alice calmly. “No, thank you,” he said. “We need Raven, and Break and Eques, to get out of here safely. We can’t kill Raven.”
“We so can,” she huffed. “We don’t need them!”
Oz just shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t know that,” he said. “Besides, I want to kill Raven myself. ”
Break laughed. “This is getting interesting!” he said. “I can’t believe you two really thought that skeleton was Gilbert Nightray…”
“Night…ray…?” Oz echoed slowly.
“...it was wearing a dress!”
Raven, who had not outwardly reacted to the discussion of his imminent death, grimaced and looked away.
Eques smiled at Oz. “You were the only one of your family to get caught up in the curse,” she assured him. “Two days after you didn’t make it out, your servant Gilbert was adopted by the Nightray house. Everyone is completely fine, you don’t have to worry. We didn’t realize you thought the corpse was Gilbert, I’m so sorry—we would have told you immediately if we knew that was what you thought!”
Alice seriously doubted that, and she was pretty sure Oz did too, but he just smiled at Eques and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said. “And Gil…he’s happy? He’s doing okay, with the Nightrays?”
“He’s fine,” Raven said shortly. He started tidying his cloak around Oz, making sure it was tied tightly, that it covered him totally. “I have dealings with the Nightray family. He misses you…he misses you every day, but…he’s doing just fine.”
Oz beamed at him. “I’m really glad,” he said. “And I’m glad he has a brother like you, too.”
Raven started choking again as Break howled with laughter.
“Where,” giggled Eques, “where did you get that from?”
“Raven’s cloak is embossed,” Oz said simply. “It says, ‘G. Nightray’ on it. Doesn’t that mean he’s a member of the Nightray family?”
Raven’s face went rapidly crimson as Break shrieked with laughter. Oz squeezed Alice’s hand tightly, and she squeezed it reassuringly back.
“Yes,” Raven muttered. “I am—yes.”
Oz nodded. Carefully, he leaned over and rested his head against Raven’s shoulder, a tiny smile on his lips as he clung to Alice’s hand.
“I’m glad you’re doing okay,” he murmured. “Sorry for clawing you like that, earlier. That was embarrassing…especially since your his brother,” and Raven’s face did all manner of impressive red and uncomfortable emotions as Alice laughed at him.