No one slept a wink.

"You're hovering," muttered Freya as Klaus continued to stare down at the spell she was attempting.

"I'm supervising," he corrected brusquely. "How else to speed up your endeavors? Let's see. Perhaps I should bring Vincent here? Force him to aid you by removing his legs?"

"Klaus," warned Yara. "We discussed this."

Freya sighed, "Vincent doesn't know how to kill Lucien, either. Besides, if he leaves the St. James, who knows what the Ancestors will make him do next?"

"The usual witch-inspired vendetta," said Klaus, glaring at Elijah as he walked in, as if any of this were his fault, or perhaps judging the fact that Elijah wasn't seemingly performing a useful task. "Elijah, you stay here and oversee what Freya is doing. Yara, make sure Kol and Finn are still at their research. I'm going to actually accomplish something."

Elijah was concerned. "Brother, accomplishing something—"

"The time for talking is done!" said Klaus, frustrated.

Yara relaxed when he left the room. "I don't know what he intends to do. I asked him earlier what his plan is and he continues to be vague. He better not be thinking about confronting Lucien."

"He feels guilty," noted Freya quietly. "He had a chance to kill Aurora and he didn't. In his mind, letting Aurora suffer was the best punishment for what she did to you."

"I didn't need her to suffer bad enough that she was available to come back out and attack me. He knows it, I know it. What I think he won't admit is that he couldn't bring himself to kill her. I understand. I just wish we could have discussed this and all decided her fate together. We put Tristan down permanently because we all worked together. If we'd done the same with Aurora... maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Or, who knows, Lucien might've gotten someone else to do his bidding."

Kol and Finn weren't in the mood for company. Yara had no intentions of popping in to bother them anyway, letting them sit together (though ten feet apart) in Elijah's study and taking notes on separate stacks of books.

She made sure to account for everyone that mattered. Cami was packing to head out of town to visit family. Marcel had already encouraged Davina to stay at her family's cabin while he resided at the Davilla Estate. Hayley, Jackson, Ansel and the rest of the wolves had retreated further into the Bayou. Josh and Aiden were vacationing while Gia was at a music festival at Elijah's insistence. All the other vampires of Marcel's community had been warned, and the majority had chosen to leave town in the meantime.

Everyone was supposed to be fine.

"Hey!" cried Cami, running into the Compound with her suitcase. "HEY!"

Yara was the first to arrive, followed by Elijah. Cami was severely out of breath, face beet red. "Klaus," she panted. "I saw him— he was taken by Lucien."

Yara's heart dropped into her stomach. "Did Lucien bite him?"

"No, but he ambushed him. Knocked him around like it was nothing. I think he wanted him alive. I was able to track Klaus's phone to Lucien's penthouse, and like a second later the signal was lost."

Elijah's phone buzzed. He scowled, "Lucien is demanding my presence at the Whiskey Cask— alone and immediately. He says if I delay, Niklaus will die."

"He's luring you into a trap!" cried Yara. "He'll kill you."

"If I don't make an appearance, he'll kill my brother."

Freya, Kol, and Finn seemed confident enough to follow him (along with a legion of The Strix) to confront Lucien. There was no guarantee their sigil to trap Lucien would work, but they hoped three Mikaelson witches stood a chance. Yara couldn't understand why Finn was willing to help, but she had a feeling he would do anything if it would make Freya happy. Hopefully his will was enough to boost them. There was no telling whether they'd be strong enough to combat the Ancestors.

The unfortunate thing was that it left Yara alone to figure out how to get Klaus back. She understood the majority of the manpower was needed against Lucien, but it didn't make her confident that Klaus would come back alive knowing his fate rested in her hands and her hands alone.

Calling anyone else for help wouldn't be ideal. Vincent couldn't perform magic, lest the Ancestors twist him to their agenda. Davina could end up in the same boat and was better off far away. There was a high chance that Klaus wasn't unguarded; if anyone was going to be left in charge of him, it would be Aurora.

Her first thought would have been to cause a massive distraction, but she had none. She couldn't just blow up the building with all its tenants inside. And what else would distract Aurora long enough to get Klaus out? Tristan, surely, but Yara didn't have him or the means to make a fake him. The only other thing could be–

Her.

Drawing Aurora out might be the best chance of freeing Klaus, but Yara knew she might not be able to beat her. Besides, how could she know if Aurora had or hadn't already turned into a creature as powerful as Lucien?

It wasn't like she could rush in. She had to be invited by Lucien; the penthouse was surely still spelled to only let in vampires of the same sireline.

Unless of course that spell was disrupted.

She remembered using her blood (at the time mixed with Hope's) to free Rebekah of the Boundary Spell that Papa Tunde had once placed her in. The reason it worked was because she had used a more potent ingredient. It was a long shot, but perhaps if she combined all the ingredients Sophie Deveraux had once mentioned... it could work.

"I'm sorry, sweet girl," whispered Yara as she prepared a small needle to poke Hope's finger. She had already made a jar filled with volcanic ash, rock salt, eye of newt, and laurel. "But this might be our only chance of getting your papa back. I would use your aunts or uncles but Freya, Kol, Elijah, and Finn are gone, and Aunty Bex was finally hidden away for safety."

Hope whined as she was poked, but didn't seem to be bothered after a second, watching her blood drip into the mixture, causing it to fizz. Yara was nearly certain that was a good sign.

The maids hid with Hope in the attic as Yara shoved the ingredients into a glass ornament, arming herself with two stakes strapped to her legs, a wooden bullet gun, and a sword crossed over her back. Something was going to have to work.Something.

She sped up the staircase, creeping closer to the penthouse, where she could hear voices inside. "...that's it?" crooned Aurora. "Nothing more to say? No more taunts tripping from your tongue? Well, then, I suppose it's time I finish this."

"What are you doing?" asked Klaus fearfully inside.

"I'm gonna drive this into my heart, die, and be reborn."

She hasn't become a beast yet.

"And then, with the aid of my new-found power..."

I can't deliver a lethal blow but as long as I can snap her neck or break her back, we have a shot at stopping her.

"...I'm going to silence you permanently. But not before I bite that little minx Yara and have you watch as she dies slowly and in immense pain."

She reached for a table, a replacement of the one she'd broken to save Cami. Holding it over her head, she threw it into the doors, breaking them open in time for her to toss the ornament, which shattered with the invisible barrier, the doorframe fizzing just as the salt had when Rebekah was freed.

Yara sped in, catching Aurora's arm as she made to hit her. She headbutted her, kicking at her legs simultaneously and throwing herself onto her, grabbing at her throat as Aurora cried out, ripping at Yara's hair and trying to claw at her eyes. It was becoming incredibly hard to hold on. The younger of the two decided to simply let go. She threw herself back, letting Aurora pin her down while flopping her own legs up, catching the redhead with her thighs and whirling herself to the side as hard as she could until a loud snap echoed through the room. Aurora flopped to the side, temporarily dead.

"No time for gratitude," she said in as light of a tone as she could, removing Klaus's arms from a strange wooden device that had him chained and on his knees. As soon as she removed one wrist, he was able to break free, grabbing Aurora's body and whisking her and Yara away.

They were the first to arrive at the Compound. Aurora woke only temporarily before Klaus broke her neck again. At last, the other four Mikaelsons ran in, all unharmed.

The witches were quick to put Aurora to sleep. Freya had had a brilliant idea; they could extract the serum she drank and reverse-engineer a way to kill Lucien.

"He ripped through The Strix like it was nothing," said Kol, tapping his hand to his thigh. "All our attacks... hardly effective. The Ancestors are doing his bidding, as if that will rid them of their vampire problem. If I'm understanding the imbecile correctly, he promised them a world without the Originals. And those idiot Ancestors don't realize that if he finishes us off, he's going for them next. They won't want him to exist once he does what he promised. A creature like that... he won't stop until he conquers the world."

"HELP!"

Yara sped to the courtyard, letting out a scream when she saw Marcel carrying a dead body.

"Oh my god–" she cried, reaching out to cup Davina's face. "No. Oh god, no, what happened? What happened?!"

"It was Lucien," he said, falling to his knees. "He attacked my vampires. There– there's no survivors other than Josh and Gia because they're not even here. He bit them all. Their bodies... it's..." he was struggling to hold back tears. "He just left her there. He wanted me to see her. I-I knew the Ancestors were helping him, I knew they wanted her dead, but I thought she'd be safe, I thought they'd leave her alone– DAMN IT!"

"Marcel, we're going to bring her back," said Yara, cupping his chin. "Do you hear me?" Her voice broke. "We're going to bring her back." She turned back to the Mikaelsons, who were all wide-eyed. "Right? We can... we can do it? She's a witch... the witches here can come back more easily with the Ancestral Well...?"

"We can try," said Freya weakly. "I'll call Vincent, maybe he can help me with the extraction of Aurora's serum. And he should know..."

If it's even going to be possible.

While Finn and Freya did their research, bouncing ideas off of Elijah, Klaus kept Marcel company. Yara couldn't help but hang over Kol and Vincent as they started talking about what could be done with Davina's body.

"Okay, we gotta get her consecrated," said Vincent, ignoring Kol's wild alternatives to avoid the Ancestral Well altogether. "It's the only way. If we don't, we can't even attempt to get her back."

"But the Ancestors despise Davina. If we consecrate her, she'll wake up in their domain, and they will destroy her."

Marcel was getting more stressed by the second. "If we don't, we'll never see her again."

Yara wished so badly she could take his pain. Every ounce of it, she'd rather be on the floor wailing and feeling a thousand torments, she'd rather be comatose with Papa Tunde's blade, than to see him suffer like this. She never would have wished this pain on her worst enemy.

"That's enough!" said Vincent impatiently. "We all want to help her, so we need to make sure that she's consecrated, but she's gotta be safe so we're gonna pull her into a place where she's protected, then we can resurrect her. And that's gonna require a lot of energy, and my power's not what it used to be before I got shunned. Van Nguyen is the Regent now, I don't have that extra kick."

"Freya and I can do it," said Kol. "Eleventh hour spells are her specialty, she told me."

They switched around their tasks. Finn would perform the consecration, having gotten into a spat with Elijah and needing a break. Elijah and Vincent would work on Aurora, extracting the serum. Kol and Freya would perform the protection spell that came before the resurrection. Klaus and Yara's only task was to keep Marcel from chewing off the heads of everyone trying to help with the spell.

"I'll draw Davina's spirit to a circle," explained Freya, finishing a circle of salt and herbs that would apparently act as the protective barrier. "As long as she's there, the Ancestors won't be able to torment her. With luck that will buy you some time to find a way to resurrect her, but I'll need to channel an Original if I'm going to sustain the spell. Klaus, Elijah, rock, paper, scissors."

Behind them, a table with candles lit up.

"That can't be good," muttered Elijah.

Freya paled. "My early warning system. I think a New Orleans witch is trying to meddle with one of you."

Klaus snorted. "Well, Lucien likely has the new Regent at his beck and call. It's me he's coming after."

In the far corner of the room, Rebekah's portrait caught on fire.

"Rebekah," whispered Yara. "No. The Regent kid will be able to find her..."

"He's kicking hornet's nests until we have no choice but to confront him," said Klaus darkly. "No doubt he expects us to charge into his lair on a suicide mission."

"He's got to think she's still in the ocean," said Kol.

Freya grimaced. "I cloaked all of you, but with the Ancestors working for Lucien, it may take awhile, but if he wants to find Rebekah, he will."

"So we go get her," said Kol. "Wherever you put her, Nik, you bring her back and we keep her here."

"It's not safe out there..."

"What, then?" said Klaus impatiently. "Are we to sit here and play cards until Lucien slides Rebekah's bitten corpse down the hall? I hid her, I will retrieve her."

Yara grabbed his arm. "I'll come with you. And don't try to resist– I'm not letting you go out there alone and I already know you're not going to let any of your other siblings come with you."

Klaus nodded, though upset. Yara reached out to hug Marcel, kissing his cheek. "We'll be right back, my love, I promise. Stay strong. She'll be back. They've got it handled."

The drive out past the Bayou was quiet at first. Klaus was driving angrily, speeding and clenching his hands against the steering wheel, scowling at everyone and everything who blocked their way.

"Talk to me," Yara urged. "We have to try and stay positive. It's not going to be easy, but–"

"What do you wish for me to say? I am afraid of what you risk by being out here with me. Yet it is almost as risky to leave Rebekah out there. If my sister is bitten, there is a hundred percent chance I lose her and a fifty percent chance I lose you. And I couldn't bring Elijah along, though he may be the only one who can help me contain Lucien, because the same odds apply if he is bitten."

"And if you die... Hope and I have no one. A one hundred percent chance our daughter grows up without a father. I don't want that. We have to survive this, we have to. For her. Because she needs both of us."

They had just arrived at the site where Rebekah had been buried when Freya called.

"I think there's a way to kill Lucien," she said as they rushed toward a marked tree. "As long as Davina– who was successfully drawn into the circle– is caught between our worlds, I can use her as a conduit to channel power from the Ancestors. The same power that was used to create Lucien. Once I have it, I can make Lucien killable again."

"Okay," said Yara, seeing Klaus narrowing his eyes. "And what's the problem? You sound unsure."

"Everything comes with a price. In order to take power from the Ancestors, you have to steal it. Which means, to make Lucien killable, I'll have to draw through Davina, while she's in the Ancestral Well. And to do that, I will have to break the circle that protects her."

"No! She'd be exposed to the Ancestors. They'll tear her to shreds and we'll never see her again!"

"What choice do we have?" came Elijah's voice.

"Kol or Finn must have an alternative! Or Vincent, surely he–?" Her heart dropped with the long pause. "Where are they? They're not going to follow along with this, are they?"

"They'll never agree to this," said Freya hastily. "She's Kol's best friend, Vincent already thinks he failed her once, and Finn is recalling his morals and would not see our lives as being worth more than Davina."

"They aren't! That girl is young and sweet and she has fought too hard for someone her age. She is a good kid and all of us, we're monsters. She's helped our family– she shouldn't die just so we can live. I wouldn't even say I deserve her sacrifice– it wouldn't even be willing. This can't possibly be the only way to kill Lucien. Kill some other New Orleans witch and do this same thing to them, there are a million to choose from. If someone has to die, make it the worst of the lot, someone who was awful, I don't care. Not Davina. We can't do that to Marcel. And I don't want to lose her, either."

"Our time is already running out. We can't go out to get another witch, we have barely enough magic to keep Davina in the circle as it is. To add someone else to a new circle..."

"No," said Klaus firmly. "Yara is right. Find another way. If we destroy Davina, we lose both Kol and Marcel. I won't have us all turning on each other. Keep looking, sister."

Yara's heart was pounding as they dug Rebekah up, moving quickly and taking her coffin back into the car, checking first that she was unscathed then beginning to drive back.

Klaus's driving had been bad enough heading there. It was a million times worse as they zoomed back to the Compound. And then, out of nowhere, a black car crashed right into the passenger's side.

Her ears rang painfully as the car flipped, glass flying everywhere, even her body going airborne and landing with a painful crutch on a pile of rocks. She heard a door being ripped open, Lucien's cocky voice calling out, "Nik, I was hoping to run into you!" There was a loud bang, and a grunt of pain. "Oh, come now, there's no fun if it's easy. I bet even your pretty little girlfriend would go down swinging."

Yara staggered to her feet, watching as Klaus and Lucien brawled on the road, using whatever debris was at their disposal to slam into each other. But it was clear that Lucien was in the lead. She whimpered, removing a branch from her abdomen as she watched Lucien punch Klaus across the face, blood pouring out of the hybrid's nose.

"Have you learnt, Nik?" taunted Lucien. "I am finally your superior in every way. Oh, I can smell it, the stench of fear. Uncomfortable, isn't it? Knowing your life could be snuffed out any second. Count your heartbeats, Klaus–"

She readied herself with two branches, waiting until her wound closed to launch herself at Lucien, hitting him across the back of his head and giving Klaus an opening to kick Lucien into Yara, who stabbed a branch into his throat.

He ripped it out far too easily, nearly staking her right in the chest, were it not for Klaus barreling into him, snarling, "It's a shame Aurora isn't here to witness your victory!"

Lucien shoved him off so hard, he flew into Yara, knocking them both to the ground. "You think this is inspired by lost love? No, this is about station. A simple stable boy besting a tyrannical king. You have to admit, it's a hell of a story. Don't you agree, love?"

Klaus let out an angry yell as Lucien yanked Yara up by her hair, turning her to face Klaus and pushing his hand into her chest from behind, gripping her heart painfully tight.

The hybrid didn't dare move a muscle. "Oh, well," said Lucien pompously in her ear as she gagged, blood spilling out of her mouth. "A queen and a king caught by a one-time pawn. Thus the game comes to its inevitable end."

Yara trembled, staring ahead as Klaus tried to bargain, "What are you proving by killing her? It's me you hate."

Lucien scoffed. "Was I not clear when I murdered the vampires and Davina? I don't care who dies! But since you do, indulge me and I might just spare the mother of your child. Kneel! Get on your knees!" He squeezed harder, eliciting a panicked sob. Yara could feel her knees ready to give out. If she fell, her own body would let her heart be removed. "I can feel her heart pounding in my fist. Do you really want to measure your pride against my mercy?"

Klaus didn't hesitate this time. He sank down, lowering his head as Lucien laughed maliciously. Then, out of nowhere, Freya and Elijah rushed forward. The witch held her hands up, starting to chant. Lucien's hand lost its grip, letting Yara move toward Klaus, pulling him out of the way as Freya chanted more and more powerfully. Lucien let out a yell, back arching and skin glowing momentarily, as if an energy was being drawn from his chest.

"His power's gone," said Freya as he careened forward. "He's nothing but an ordinary vampire now."

Yara had never seen such fear. Lucien's eyes were wide with terror, and he fell as Klaus came to him, snarling, "You see that family drama you so joyfully derived does have its merits."

"You can kill me," he said defeatedly, "but the prophecy still stands, you cannot outrun it."

"I've heard about a thousand years too much from you. For a century you lived with my name and you never did quite recover from losing it, did you? You became a man of wealth and stature but you never could crawl from my shadow, and in the end, despite the gift of immortality, you have always known what you truly are. You are nothing."

He reached for the branch and used it to cut Lucien's mouth into the same eerie smile. He beckoned Yara forward, and she didn't hesitate to reach in and rip out Lucien's heart.

"Klaus, Yara," said Freya softly as they turned to her, awaiting an explanation. "There's something you need to know."