"Ow," Eve heard Emrys groan somewhere off to the side. Her head pounded mercilessly, but at least her chest didn't hurt. That was a relief to her for some reason, though she couldn't figure out why for the moment.

It all came rushing back to her, and she sat bolt upright. Around her, Morph, Emrys, Gwaine, and Rampion were groaning and sitting up. Emrys was clutching his head, while Morph fluffed his wings as he stood. "Where are we?" the demigod asked with a frown.

Gwaine looked around as he scratched his head. Clarity seemed to fill his face. "We're in my room!" he said, jumping to his feet.

"Camelot, then," Rampion said. "Is everyone alright?" She sounded worried.

Morph helped Eve to her feet and the young woman touched her chest tentatively. "I think so," she said. "Nothing feels broken."

Rampion's face relaxed into a relieved smile. "That's good," she said. "It worked!"

Emrys still looked skeptical. "What are the chances that this went right?" he muttered. "I suppose we'd better see if we can find Father. And I don't suppose you could have brought Lana here as well?"

Rampion shrugged. "I wrote to bring us all here, but she might have woken up and wandered off while we were all still sleeping," she suggested. "Let's have a look around, shall we?"

Morph concealed his wings beneath his cloak before they set out. Perhaps he had a sneaking suspicion that something was wrong. Or maybe he was just paranoid. Eve wasn't sure. Gwaine and Emrys led the way as the other three gaped at the massive castle around them. The stone in the floor was even and neat, and the entire castle seemed to light up from the sun shining outside. "It's beautiful," Eve breathed.

"I've never seen anything like it," Rampion agreed.

Morph cocked his head. "It's nothing compared to Mount Olympus," he commented. When all four of the others glared at him, he blinked innocently. "What? It isn't."

Nobody else commented as the two brothers continued leading them. Finally, Gwaine turned dramatically before a massive pair of doors. "The throne room," he said with a flourish. "Where Father spends most of his time."

"He'll be there," Emrys whispered. "He has to be."

Shooting Emrys a strange look, Gwaine marched up to the doors and slammed them both open. Peeking around the tall knight's shoulder, Eve saw a blond man with a beard on the throne surrounded by multiple knights. They all had turned to look at the intruder in the throne room. Beside her, Eve heard Emrys inhale sharply. "That's not right!"

Before she could ask just what wasn't right, Gwaine had marched towards the throne and gone down on one knee. "Sire," he said.

Rampion hummed a note of warning. "Gwaine," she tried.

It was too late. The man on the throne rose, looking at Gwaine with a confused expression. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Wh—sire!" Gwaine sounded offended. "It's me! Gwaine. You knighted me yourself!"

Emrys hurried up to his brother, quickly pulling him to his feet. "Sorry, sorry," he apologized. "My brother's touched in the head. If you could just tell us where to find Merlin Emrys, we'll be out of your hair."

The king, who Eve assumed was King Arthur, flushed with anger. "How dare you!" he bellowed. His voice echoed around the throne room and Eve flinched. She felt Morph stiffen beside her. "You have the audacity to come here, after what you've done?"

Emrys and Gwaine exchanged worried glances. It was Eve who spoke. "What've we done?" she said, confused.

"You know what you've done!" Arthur shouted. "You took him. And now you'll pay, unless you produce him for me—now!"

"Sire, perhaps—" an older knight began tentatively.

"Silence," Arthur interrupted, still glaring at the children.

"You mean Merlin, don't you," Morph said in a defeated tone. Eve swallowed dryly.

The king scowled at them. "Take them to the dungeons. If Merlin is not returned by tomorrow, they will burn for their crimes."

The knights took ahold of Eve's arms. For a moment, Emrys looked like he considered fighting, but a shake of the head from Morph convinced both him and Rampion to submit to the knights without a fight. Eve knew why; fighting would prove their guilt. Whether they won or not was a moot point. Either Merlin was dead, or he'd been abducted in the time that it had taken Rampion's writing to take effect. Either way, their only hope of finding out what had happened to him lay in Camelot's walls.

The children allowed the knights to bind their wrists behind their backs silently. Morph was stiff, probably making sure his wings didn't move and become revealed to the men of Camelot; that would have produced awkward questions. Emrys, for his part, looked devastated. It probably wasn't sitting well with him that he was getting arrested by the people he'd called his family for his whole life.

The silence that fell over them was unbroken even after the knights had marched them through the halls of the castle and down three flights of steps. It continued as the children were locked into individual cells; it carried on even after the knights had gone away.

The thick blanket of quiet was only brushed away when Rampion spoke. "This is good, right?" she said hopefully. "It means that Merlin was here."

"Good?" Emrys retorted. "No! It's bad, it's very, very bad! Didn't you see King Arthur?"

The others, save Gwaine, shared confused looks through the bars of their cells. "We all saw him," Eve replied.

"He was young," Gwaine said, looking stunned. "He looked twenty years younger, and that's not even an exaggeration!"

"You're joking," Rampion snapped, a worried expression darkening her face.

Emrys shook his head and poked out his lower lip as he thought. "I wish we were. Rampion ... what was the exact wording of your writing?"

Rampion shrugged. "I don't remember."

"Try!" Morph barked at her abruptly.

The girl flinched and narrowed her eyes. "Well ... I said ... to bring back the Guardians," she said slowly, "and to ... to turn back time to before Eve was hurt."

A horrified expression passed over Morph's face. "Did you specify whether you were bringing back all the Guardians?" he asked weakly.

Rampion blinked. "Well ... yes."

Morph broke into cursing in what sounded like French. Eve wasn't fond of when he spoke French; as an Englishwoman, she wasn't fond of the French people as a whole. Seeing the confused looks the others were sending him, with some effort, the demigod regained control. "I really hope I'm wrong, Rampion," he said.

"I brought my mother back, didn't I?" Rampion asked worriedly.

Morph nodded slowly. "If I'm right, yes. But I think you might have done more than that."

The redhead tossed her long locks behind her with a grin. "What does it matter?" she demanded. "I saved my mum! I turned back time and stopped her from dying! I finally did something right."

Eve was distracted by the sight of someone walking down the dank dungeons toward them. She grabbed the bars and leaned forward, seeing the man in the black cloak come closer. For some reason, in the cell across from her, Morph slouched down against the rough stones beneath the barred windows. He even covered his face with his cowl. "There's been a mistake!" Eve cried to the man, hoping to appeal to the better side of the people of Camelot. "We didn't take Merlin. We were trying to save him!"

The man spun around quickly, sending Eve stumbling back in surprise. He was about two heads taller than she was with muscular arms; completely clad in black, she was unable to discern his facial features from the shadow of the cowl and the dimness of the dungeons. "Trying to save him, hm?" came the deep voice. He stepped closer to Eve's cell, and the girl took another involuntary step back. "And why would you care about him?"

Emrys moved closer to the bars, squaring his shoulders. "Because—because he's my fa-father!" the sorcerer said. Eve tried to ignore how his voice trembled when addressing the cloaked man.

"Is he now? Last I knew, he wasn't married and currently goes about looking like a fifteen-year-old boy," the man said with amusement. Eve began to wonder if she'd misjudged his age. When she'd first heard him speak, he had sounded like an older man. But the more she heard his voice, the more she thought he was younger than she'd originally thought. It wasn't his voice so much as his tone; it was very difficult for her to wrap her head around. "Though I guess he looks kind of like you," the young man added, looking closer at Emrys. "What's your name, boy?"

"E-Emrys, sir. Arthur Emrys."

The man swiveled on his heel to look at the prisoners on the other side of the dungeons—Morph and Rampion. He completely ignored Gwaine in the cell next to Eve's as he stepped up to Morph's cell. "You," the man said. "Why are you hiding back there?" Morph was the only one who hadn't come closer to the bars as Eve and Emrys had initiated a conversation with the stranger.

"I think you know," Morph said in a barely-audible voice. In the few days that Eve had known him, she'd never seen him be so ... timid.

The man cocked his head thoughtfully. "I think I do. If he's actually Merlin's son, and that girl is probably Rapunzel's daughter ..." Without warning, he turned back to Eve and moved close to her face. She blinked, unable to come up with a way to tell him to not get so close to her without offending him. "Those eyes," he breathed. "You've got to be Rachel's daughter—aren't you?"

Swallowing past a lump in her throat, Eve managed to nod.

The man swung around to face Morph again. "Which leaves you," he said. "Do you know what's happened to all your parents?"

The others all shook their heads. The man leaned against Morph's cell, apparently looking from prisoner to prisoner as he thought. "They've been taken prisoner by the Guardians," he said. "The Guardians want to rewrite The Story Rachel has made. Back to its original. And I'm sure you know where that would lead all of you ..."

"None of us are in the original Story!" Rampion squeaked, looking panicked. "Is this my fault?"

"You've brought back every Guardian into The Story," the stranger told her flatly. "Those who underwent Final Death and those who remained in The Story, like Merlin and Rachel. Not only that, you've restored their statuses as Guardian to each of them, and for a lot of them, those were taken away for a reason. Not only that, but you've turned back the clock to the day after Rachel's wedding—twenty years ago. So, in a nutshell, yes. It's your fault. But that just means you've got to fix it."

"And who are you to help us stop the Guardians and save our parents?" Emrys demanded.

The man raised his two hands to his cowl and removed it. Eve's eyes widened; she'd seen him before. Tousled black hair, pale skin, clear-blue eyes ... but he'd looked twenty years older. Now, he appeared to be the same age as Morph. "I'm Ewan Andric," he said. "Rachel Andric's older brother, Guardian of The Story, and Morpheus, the god of sleep and dreams." He flicked his wrist once, and the doors of each occupied cell swung open, freeing the children. "Let's go save The Story, shall we?"

To be continued ...