Within these endless, labyrinthine trenches lie thousands of cells, cages for beings twisted by time, magic, and rage.

Brooke’s infamous dungeon.

Some whisper to be released. Others scream. The worst part?

I helped put many of them here...
With the demize clock.

***

"Well, well, well... if it isn't the prodigy."

Shrill voices echo through the stone walls, overlapping, bouncing. Impossible to tell where they’re coming from.

"She's here?"

"Don’t be stupid. She wouldn’t be here. Not with us. She’s the queen’s favorite."

"She was. But the queens turned on her. Oh, how the mighty fall."

I pace the cell, hoping movement will disrupt their rhythm. Maybe they'll shut up.

I should’ve faced the Fleur Panache court. Pleaded my case. Madame Sage or Sister Evelyn might have vouched for me.

But no. I let my pride win.
I’m tired of Brooke.
Tired of her games.

Sending Sira after me in Kunava, signing off land to the underworlds, those endless training drills... and now siding with Amelia? Seriously?

To hell with principles.

"Franchesca, is that you?"

Leave me alone.

"I heard her beauty is like no other Fleur Panachean. Hair black as berries, eyes green like the Pyrenees Sea, skin like ripe olives... celestial."

"Let me see for myself."

Suddenly, a torch flares inches from my face.

“Close your eyes,” a woman whispers. Her voice is familiar...
My mother?

No. Just another illusion. A woman in the next cell. Her features barely visible.

“Cover your ears too,” she warns.

Only three minutes have passed.

I’m supposed to last a week?

***

“Ten years ago, I cooked a mixture in my bijou cottage,” rasps someone in the shadows.

“What did you put in, Melissa?”

“Shush! I’ll never tell. But if you let me out, I’ll give you a taste. You’ll be thrice as beautiful, Frankie. Frankie?”

Her voice becomes a chant.

“Frankie... Frankie... Frankie...”

“I told you to shut your eyes and ears!” the woman hisses again.

I can’t. I can’t.

I want to scream.
But I don’t.

Talking back just feeds the madness.

So I pace.

Again and again.

They whisper. Bargain. Spit.
Flickering lights. Cold gusts of air.
Soft apologies brush against my skin.

“I’m sorry, Frankie. Please. Forgive us.”

The torment never ends.

~~~~

“Hey, hey, hey...”

Austin?

He appears out of nowhere, rushing toward me.
I’m curled up, trembling, the chill seeping through my FP suit.

He kneels, pulls me into his arms.

“You’re safe. I’m here.”

And for a second... I almost believe him.
I want to cry. Collapse. Wake up in Leeseland.

But this isn’t real. I know it’s not.

Pull yourself together, Franchesca.

~~~~

♤♤♤

                             *****

Sira finds me cross-legged, meditating in the center of my cell.

“You’re free. Let’s go.”

It takes me a moment to believe she’s real.

“Has it been a week?”

She chuckles, holding a lantern.
“It’s been thirty minutes.”

Thirty.
Minutes.

It felt like days. No, weeks.

Sira snorts as we walk down the darkened path toward the Fleur Panache compound.

“Brooke couldn’t even keep you in there for an hour. She’s all bluff.”

~~~~

The demize clock is waiting for me on my bedside table.

Below it, a schedule:
Savages and Purists Operations. Fencing Training.

Everything Amelia had taken over...

Now back in my hands.

~~~~

That night, I wake from a nightmare, my head pounding.
The demize clock pulses with a massive, turquoise glow...

Then fades.

Before I can make sense of it...

Knock. Knock.

It’s Tetris.

“Hey. I heard what Brooke did. I’m sorry. If we were there, no way we’d have let that happen.”

“Thanks.”

“Thirty minutes is a week in dungeon time.”

I shiver. “What? You knew this?”

“Yeah. There’s a book about dungeon time theory. I can’t believe you didn’t lose your mind.”

She hesitates. “There’s a mission. Nothing serious. Just the glaciers.”

Relief.

The glaciers are always causing problems. Made of light-blue crystal that emits energy, worth 100 julz per carat. Every week, a new clan brawl.

Panacheans go in. Calm it down.

Tetris hands me a gun anyway.

“Oh, and prepare for Mannea afterward,” she adds. “Brooke’s orders...
What's there?"

It's one of the places I chose for Xanthe Linear and yes, it took a second look at my schedule to see that the housewarming party is today.

"Nevermind."

♤♤♤

Once we resolve the glacier situation, I’m dropped off a few yards from Xanthe's farmhouse.

He spots me immediately, beaming.

"Thought you would never make it." It seems almost sarcastic coming from him but he is just not the type.

"Believe me I tried."

He laughs. "I've prepared something spectacular for you."

"Uh uuh."

He gives me a very suggestive look on top of his smile. "It's just brunch. Before the rest of my guests arrive. Come on."

A response that reminds me that him and I exist in two different realities.

"What time do they start coming?"

"8."

I stop.

"8? Mr Morais, it's 11 o'clock. What are we supposed to be doing until then? I mean... me, what am I supposed to be doing?"

"Like I said we got brunch, plus, I want to get to know my only upper land friend. Come on. I was just finishing off something."

"Finishing off something" equals a shearing competition with his friends... in a nearby shed.

King Giovanni Morais is also present and Lord knows he gets on my nerves. They are in matching v-necks, paired with brown sweatpants and thick brown leather belts on their waists, and erm, built like half-breeds.

In an attempt to go incognito, I join the rest of the crowd on the sidelines in the shearing shed and watch the grown men take center stage cutting the fleece of the sheep in record time.

Xanthe lets Giovanni win. With zero embarrassment the King celebrates. The crowd helping him cheer and jeer.

Two women envelope him in an embrace. It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes.

"There you go, Hassan. Thank you for your time."

"Of course," Hassan response, taking the shears from Xanthe. No offense that man hates him.

"Maybe you should hire underworlders to work for you," I mutter.

He's dusting his hands asking me, "Why?"

Because 'upper landers' don't like you.

"Just a thought. "

"I thought you didn't want more underworlders up here." He says this leaning against some hay next to the door, squinting his eyes against the sun. He's a very good-looking merman.

"When have you ever cared what we want?" I shoot back.

I turn around and start walking because I notice King Gio making a beeline towards us.

~~~~

Outdoors, they're people embroiled in various discussions. The dress code must have been flamboyant (honestly what are those hats with feathers and shiny aquamarine suits?). I stop by the fields and start watching the horses. One in particular.

"Her name is Saffron." Xanthe says beside me. "She's a gift from King Azura. Let me know if you would like to take a ride someday... you disappeared," He adds.

Oh, I wish I could disappear. "I wanted to see your..."
I point around trying to seem interested.

"Nice try. I know you don't like my brother."

"Why wouldn't I? He is such a joy."
Sarcasm that doesn't go unnoticed.

"It's funny. You hold so much resentment for Gio... If we're being frank you and him have a lot of things in common."

I choke. "What would possess you to say that?"

"Think of it this way, we're from the underworld and you're from Leeseland."

Well until a mysterious typhoon broke and brought my kind here.

"Mr Mor..."

"Wait let me finish. We are known for our powers, same as you. If I'm not mistaken, Possessors? Isn't that what they call you? Our lavish lifestyle—your kind is known to indulge themselves a bit. You don't own anything in this world and yet Fleur Panachean's are known to have access to everything Pyrenees. Hmmm, what else? Should I mention the influence and trust the people have for you? Don't you also hold Pyreneans in a dungeon as punishment?"

He stares at me.

"Your kind is greedy," I start.
"You could be well away, minding your business in the comfort of your own homes with your families but you chose this. Well, guess what? We didn't have a choice. We woke up one day and everything we knew was taken away from us by something none can explain... can you say the same?

Lavish? We work every day to keep this world sane to stop wars your brother start. To stop another typhoon that will leave us in the same predicament we're in right now. I don't even recognize myself in this suit every day."

I lower my voice.

"The fact that you would compare me to..."

He sighs. "So it's not just my brother then. You don't like all of us. Myself included?"

I look away. "Like you said I don't own anything here. Why do you care what I think about you and your people or brother?"

Pause.

"Franchesca, I asked you here because I felt we started on the wrong foot... I'd hoped you and I could find a way past th..." He seems to seek some bearing before he continues, "From the looks of things... Answer me honestly do you think it is possible for you and I to form some kind of... Friendship?"

The fact that he would even suggest something like this, worse of all to a Panachean, is beyond me.
For as long as I've known the underworlders they have been the bane of everyone's existence and not in the melodramatic sense.

"No."

The happy-go-lucky Morais brother turns sullen. That's the thing about underworlds when they are happy their smile can light up a whole town and then when they're sad... (or mad) It's a whole other story, they make like a storm..., more like a monsoon.

"I think I've to go."

♤♤♤

Back at Fleur Panache, Sister Evelyn intercepts me along a flowery path way leading towards the FP headquarters. Her face is pale with worry.

“My dear Frankie... are you alright? I heard about the dungeon.”

She places a warm hand on my shoulder. Her touch nearly shatters me.

“What happened? Did Brooke find out about the streak? Does she know?”

I glance toward the horizon.
Xanthe’s presence still lingers like a shadow.

“No.”

She exhales in relief. “Then... what made her send you to the dungeon? This must go before the Tribunal.”

“It’s nothing. It—”

“Frankie...”

“It’s about the clock. She took it to use for—”

“Brooke took the clock?”

“Yes. With Amelia.”

“Amelia had it this whole time and you had no idea?”

“Something about a situation at Wildsprings High.”

“It’s a lie. It’s all a lie.”

“How would you know?”

“Because anyone with authority in Pyrenees knows, only the true bearer of the clock can manipulate it. No one else.”

She looks away.

“How could you let them take it?”

“What? How would I have known? I couldn’t exactly leave Wildsprings with it, you knew that when you helped me escape.”

Something about her shifts. Something small.

But it sends my paranoia spiraling.

“What are you not telling me?”

She swallows.

Her voice is low.
Eyes dark.

“She may have tampered with the clock. She’s onto you.”