As it turned out, becoming Mrs. Pratt's ward was surprisingly easy. All they needed to do was to claim that she was the daughter of a distant relation of the Pratts recently arrived in England for her education, and that Mrs. Pratt had agreed to oversee her care. Since communications weren't exactly instant in this day and age, nobody was likely to be going around checking her story. The hard part was the education.

"And here I was thinking I'd get to spend the rest of my summer in a study-free zone," Buffy grumbled as she and William finally excused themselves from the extended breakfast that had turned into an impromptu planning session. "No NaCl or H2O or the Reconstruction after the shoddy Construction or preying mantis biology…"

"What of feminine grace, social etiquette, and the art of conversation?" William smiled.

Buffy groaned. "Can we not talk about that until tomorrow? I think I need to kill something before I even look at a salad fork or oyster spoon."

William chuckled. "In that case, perhaps you'd like to view the house. There is an armory…"

"Oooh, armory!" Buffy instantly brightened. "Does it have any sabers?"

"Several, I believe," William answered. "They belonged to my grandfather--they will be quite dusty, I fear."

"Occupational hazard," Buffy responded blithely. "Speaking of which--blood sausages?"

William coughed and adjusted his glasses. Edith had come up during breakfast to say that Mrs. Dale had gone apoplectic to discover the sausages gone this morning and was blitzing the kitchen with rat poison. "It was the only thing I could find with...well, blood. I will need to apologize to Mrs. Dale for ruining her plans for dinner."

"Vampires and ruined dinner plans pretty much go hand in hand," Buffy agreed. "Along with the terrorizing and general mayhem. But I guess you wouldn't see any out here because they like the big cities with the steady food supply better. And the Hellmouths."

"The gateway to Hell," William recalled from their conversation of the night before.

"Gateway to a hell dimension," Buffy corrected him. "Apparently there are lots of them all around the world just waiting to burst and spew out oodles of evil things. Like volcanoes. Except eviler."

"Could that be what is happening here?" William wondered.

Buffy paused. "Huh. I don't know. Maybe. Giles never said anything about there being a Hellmouth here, and I'm pretty sure he'd know, since he's supposed to know everything and this is the mother country, and a hell dimension filled with giant bugs doesn't seem like something you'd forget. I'm pretty sure the Council has crumbly old scrolls on that sort of thing..."

"But...?" William prompted after a long moment when Buffy seemed disinclined to finish her thought.

Buffy grimaced. "But they're a bunch of old men sitting around in their tweed jackets drinking tea while the Slayers do the dirty work--Spike got that part right. They're on my short list of suspects for the dodgy old shaman who brought us here. But you'd think they'd send out the welcoming committee and tell me what they wanted if they went to all that trouble. I mean, I'm guessing pulling someone back in time isn't exactly something you can do between cups of Darjeeling."

"Who else have you placed on that list?" William asked curiously.

"Uh...that's pretty much it." At his look, Buffy added defensively, "I said it was a short list!"

"Indeed you did," answered William gravely. She narrowed her eyes at him, unable to decide whether or not he was making fun of her. "And how would you get word to this Council, if you needed to?"

Buffy shrugged and gave up on the probing stare. All she could conclude was that William did the innocent look a lot better than Spike. Maybe it was the glasses. "Giles usually called them long-distance. On the telephone," she explained quickly. "You do the talky on one end, your voice goes into the ear of the person on the other side. And don't ask me how it works," she added as William opened his mouth. "All I know is, you plug it into the wall and it works."

"You have magical walls," William shook his head in admiration. "I have heard of such a device transmitting a voice over three hundred feet. But to be able to do so across half the world! There seems no end to the marvels of your future world. Telephones, televisions, a bath in every home..."

"Automatic doors, computers, clubbing. And traffic jams, tofurkey, socks for cats..." Buffy added. "The future is a weird place."

"So it would appear. Such wonders! But I'm afraid this era must seem dreadfully backward to you."

"Only if you start saying stuff like 'Miss Summers, I am not amused,'" Buffy giggled.

William gave a surprised laugh. "I shall endeavor to avoid it," he promised.

The future might have appeared marvelous to William, but his house was beyond anything Buffy had known in her life. It was four stories tall, not counting the basement with the kitchen and wine cellar and laundry room, and a central tower which still held telescopes and notebooks belonging to William's father filled with his observations on the moon and planets. Buffy had already lost track of all the rooms before they'd even finished the tour of the first floor. The hall, library, breakfast, and dining rooms she had already seen, but there was also a music room, a drawing room, a morning room, a smoking room, a sitting room...or parlor...or salon...or waiting room...or all of the above. It was enough to make Buffy's head spin.

The second floor was divided into east and west wings, one reserved for family and the other for guests. Buffy peered down the hall in the direction of what had formerly been her room, then in the opposite direction. "Just when I finally figured out how to find my room," she grumbled. "Now I'll have to spend another fifteen minutes getting lost."

"I hope the view shall make up for it, however," William replied, smiling at her pout. "The roses are glorious this time of the year."

"So is Spike moving into the family side, too?" Buffy wondered. "Last I checked, his door was locked, so he was probably still sleeping the sleep of the undead."

William frowned a little. "I suppose he must," he conceded at last, reluctantly. "Yet I do not know if he will agree to Mother's proposal."

"Spike? Hah!" was Buffy's succinct opinion on that question. "I think your mom only suggested it because I told her he's a Slayer instead of an evil bloodsucker," she groaned.

"I had wondered about it at the time," William murmured.

"Yeah, I totally panicked," Buffy admitted sheepishly. "So you didn't tell her either, huh?"

"I...confess I was not entirely candid regarding my...eventual fate," William said quietly, not looking at her.

"Hey, it's all right. I understand." She touched his arm, and was surprised when he flinched away.

"I'm sorry. I injured it last night," he hurriedly explained.

Buffy frowned. "Not during the fight you didn't," she said with absolution conviction. "William..."

He closed his eyes briefly and allowed her to pull back the sleeves of his right arm. She stared for a moment at the fresh bandage wrapped around his wrist. "Did Spike do this?" she demanded in a low, dangerous tone, the fearsome warrior he had witnessed in her element last night instantly replacing the cheerful young woman who had brightened his house with her presence. "What happened?"

"Spike was not to blame," William answered quietly. "I...was endeavoring to show him the consequences should he harm anyone while he is here."

It took a moment for William's meaning to sink in. "By hurting yourself?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"We are linked, as you have seen," William explained patiently. "The physical injuries visited upon me find an echo in him, and I utilized that fact. I am of little enough use to you otherwise, I am afraid."

"Don't say that!" Buffy responded vehemently. "And stop thinking that you're responsible for him, because you're not. I'm the one who's supposed to stop him from hurting anybody, and that includes you."

"But I am responsible for him," William said softly. "If I did not exist, neither would he. Would that not mean the saving of a great many lives ended before their time, lives he--I--stole in order to prolong my own?"

Buffy caught her breath at the tormented look on his expressive face, abruptly wondering how long he had lain sleeplessly in bed last night turning that question over and over again in his mind. Her heart clenched at the glimpse of a sudden dark nebulous fear, and she shook her head quickly, shoving it aside before it could take solid shape in her consciousness. "Don't even go there!" she said fiercely. "Spike is in no way your fault, and neither is anything he does. Weren't you listening last night when I gave you my lecture on the demon kicking out the soul and taking over your body? Don't you dare tell me you slept through my Vampires 101 class, or I'll have to make you go to bed without your dinner, and then I'll get in trouble with your mom, and she'll chuck me out, and I'll get eaten by a giant dung beetle, and then there'll be nobody around to stop the apocalypse, and then the world will end--so see? Bad things happen when you don't listen to me."

"I shall endeavor to remember it," William murmured, and Buffy cheered inwardly to see the shadows in his eyes replaced by amusement.

"And besides," Buffy added softly as they continued down the hall, "Spike wasn't lying last night when he said he helped me. He helped save the world."

William bowed his head. After a long moment of silence, he whispered, "Thank you."



The armory was located in a dusty, unlit, and obviously unfrequented corner of the third floor. The door creaked as William swung it open. "Here we are. I do not think anyone has looked inside for years..." he was commenting just as a familiar tingle raced down Buffy's spine. She heard the shrill whistle of displaced air and reacted before her mind could even identify it. The solid thunk of metal sinking into heavy wood at knee-level cut across William's gasp as he stumbled back to her hard yank. She put herself between him and the room and slowly pushed the door inward a few inches, but quickly pulled it shut again as two more knives buried themselves into it.

"Come and play, Slayer!" Spike's muffled voice sang out from within. "Or are you afraid of a few bits of scrap metal?"

She touched William's shoulder, and his indignant, outraged expression transformed to astonishment at the wide smile on her face. "It's all right," she reassured him. "If he were seriously trying to kill someone he'd have aimed higher."

"Why don't you come in and find out how serious I am?" Spike sneered.

"He is so gonna get it," Buffy declared cheerfully. She took a rolling dive through the entrance, reached behind her, and came up with two blades flashing from her own hands in the direction of Spike's voice. She snickered at the abrupt curse and crash from a dark corner of the room and grabbed the first weapon she saw: a wide cutlass with a lions-head pommel that looked like it had served honorably in a few battles of its own. "I thought you wanted to play," Buffy mocked. "Not roll around in the dust bunnies all day."

Spike came at her hard and fast--straight-on, and swinging a huge ax that looked like it could've been used for a beheading or two back in the day. Typical. She ducked beneath its wide arc, then stepped to his side while he was still recovering to deliver a stinging blow with the flat of her blade that knocked his weapon clean out of his hands. She smiled tightly. He might have bested her in their first fight, but after blowing up Giant Snake Mayor--not to mention her high school? She was more than a match for him now. He sprang back out of the path of her slicing backhand, rolled out of the way as she shifted direction effortlessly and brought the blade down on where he had landed, and bounced back to his feet a yard away. He reached behind him without even looking and came up with a pair of some weird weapon that looked like metal rings with metal flames shooting out of them. He tossed one at her head like a frisbee, and while she was busy dodging it, hurtled the other directly at her cutlass. Both ring and cutlass flew through the air to clang heavily against the back wall.

They snatched at the weapons nearest them and came up with their finds at the same time: Spike with a long spear made all of steel from a wooden rack, and Buffy with a blocky metal object from an ornate stand on a cabinet. She shook it frantically, hoping for some sort of projectile, and gaped when it unfolded into a polished metal fan beautifully etched with the flowing silhouette of a Japanese dragon. She'd always thought iron battle fans had been dreamed up by the strange imaginations of guys who played too many video games with skimpily-clad girls in them! She waved it around, trying to get the balance of the thing, before looking up to see Spike charging her with a manic grin on his face.

"Crap!"

She toss the useless thing at him, arched under the long flashing line of the spear as he thrust it quick as a striking viper at her, and reached desperately for the hilt of a sheathed longsword hanging from the wall. She never made it; the shaft of the spear struck her side, the impact hard enough to knock her off-balance to the floor. Then it was her turn to roll as he slammed the point into the ground with a scattering of sparks. But unlike him, she was hampered by the full skirts of her dress, and he took full advantage of that fact by aiming his next strike for the hem of her gown, driving the head of the spear through the folds of fabric and into the cabinet behind her, pinning her in place. Without a pause, he grabbed a pair of narrow curved blades from twin racks next to the longsword and came at her with the smirk of victory on his lips.

Buffy growled and wrenched herself loose, pushing her regret at ruining the beautiful dress aside for later--because right now, she was going to make Spike pay. She threw herself recklessly forward, weaponless--except that that wasn't quite true, was it? A Slayer is never weaponless, for she herself is the weapon. She could almost hear Giles saying the words into her ear.

Spike hesitated in the middle of his rush, surprised, and she crashed into him, knocking away the blade in his right hand while simultaneously using her momentum to whirl and jab her elbow hard into his chest. She followed up with a low spin kick that landed him unceremoniously on his ass.

"Bitch!" he snarled, flipping back onto his hands and then to his feet. But she was the one with the swords now, and she advanced on him confidently, twirling them casually in her hands.

"Time to say 'uncle,' Spike," she smirked.

A slow, lazy smile unexpectedly curved his mouth even as he retreated before her. "'s not over 'til it's over, pet," he drawled. Then both his arms cocked back and shot forward, and Buffy spat out a curse as she threw herself down to one side. Four knives clattered against the wall behind her; when she looked up again, Spike was nowhere in sight.

She turned in full circle, warily eying the dim corners of the room filled with darting glints of metal and odd shades lying everywhere. "What, we're playing hide-and-seek now?" she said testily. The snick and glow of a lighter was her only reply. He was going for a smoke? Now?

She could detect an odd smell unlike any cigarette she'd ever encountered, but before she could even consciously attempt to identify it, Spike's single plain and unornamented greatsword flashed up to meet her dual blades with an intensity that jarred her to the very bone. She clenched her teeth against the shock of metal against metal, countering force with force, thrusting and parrying and riposting and moving with him, probing for weaknesses, but somehow he managed to keep both her blades in check with a snarling, heated offensive that left her gasping. And then suddenly he was gone again, and her swords sliced through nothing but empty air.

"Buffy!" William's frantic cry cut unexpectedly through the dimness, and Buffy spun. But any response was lost in the thunderous roar and crash that shook the room in the next second, deafening them all in that confined space. Something smashed into Buffy, knocking all the breath out of her and hurtling her back a good twelve feet to lie like a ragged bit of sack cloth on the dusty floor. She coughed and gasped for several minutes, clutching her stomach. Her ears refused to stop ringing. When she finally managed to catch her breath, she gingerly moved her legs, then felt at her ribs. Nothing seemed to be broken, even though her front felt like it had been used for a punching bag and her back was one massive bruise. She groaned and leveraged herself upright as the dust settled.

--Or tried. She was tangled in something that looked like bits of rotten fish netting--if the fish was the size of a whale. She floundered wildly as Spike stepped into her line of sight, golden eyes glittering in a demon grin.

"What the hell is this? Get this thing off me!" Buffy demanded.

"Oh, but it looks so good on you, love," Spike purred. "We must try the handcuffs later." And he lunged.

Buffy froze, unable to quite believe that Spike was seriously going for her throat. Nor did she get the chance to find out, because something hit him from behind before he could even touch her, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. She was left staring at William, the only person in the room still standing, who turned a deeply uncertain gaze to her. Something slid out of his left hand and clanged heavily on the floor. "Miss Buffy? Are you well?" he asked tentatively.

She looked at the net of knotted rope over and around her, at her torn and scorched dress, at Spike sprawled on the dusty floor, knocked out by the bespectacled human he had been a hundred years before--the same man whose expression clearly indicated that he was still trying to decide whether he was more shocked by the fight or by his own violent contribution to its end. She choked back a slightly hysterical giggle. "Yeah. I think so. Can you get me out of this--whatever this is?"

Spike had sat up, groaning, by the time William finished helping Buffy extricate herself from what turned out to be old ship's rigging. He felt the lump on the back of his head, peered at his fingers, and licked them. "You didn't have to hit me that hard," he complained.

"No? Should I have allowed you to commit murder right before my eyes, then?" William retorted stiffly.

"I wasn't gonna bite her!" Spike protested. At their identically skeptical looks, he corrected, "Well, maybe just a taste."

"Ugh. You're a pig, Spike," Buffy said disgustedly.

"Oh pet, you have no idea," Spike leered at her. "'sides, it was only right I got a little something for winning the fight."

"You did not win the fight!" Buffy corrected immediately. "You cheated."

"All's fair in love and war, pet," Spike replied smugly.

"What was that thing, anyway?" Buffy grumbled. Spike pointed. Her eyes widened at the dull brass oblong shape resting on its side against the wall beside the open door. Spiderweb cracks ran across the brickwork, radiating outward from the point of recoiling impact. "You fired a cannon at me?!"

"'s only a carronade," Spike waved dismissively. "Wouldn't have made a dent in a paper yacht. Too bad I couldn't find the shot." He felt the back of his head again, wincing. "What'd you clock me with?" he asked William.

William pointed silently at the round objects he had dropped, now rolling toward a far corner of the room.

"You hit me with a cannonball?!"

"Two. Unfortunately they were only 6-pounders," William mimicked his tone exactly. "I did not have enough time to load the long gun."

They were still glaring at each other when they heard the anxious voices approaching rapidly down the hall. Buffy caught Spike at the door. "Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

"Do you want to be here when Mum and Morgan and half the house staff get here?" he demanded, before shaking off her grip and darting out into the shadows of the hall.

Buffy looked from Spike's fast-retreating figure to the chaos they had made of the formerly neat armory to the cracked wall. "Um...sorry!" she offered William a sheepishly apologetic smile...and scampered.



As was her wont on the days she did not go into town, Anne took a turn in the garden in the early afternoon. She had loved watching her father in his small plot of vegetables as a child, the neat rows of cabbages, turnips, and spinach spreading green and wide under his painstaking care until the skipjackets, greenflies, and slugs discovered them; the riot of pumpkin vines shooting roughshod over all and producing so many great orange October pumpkins that she and her sisters had at last forsworn pumpkin pie for the sake of fitting into their stays--at least for that year. But she had loved her mother's flowers more: the glorious fall of golden forsythia which for her would always symbolize the longed-for Spring, the delicate gladiolas in all shades of the rainbow, the water-loving narcissus with their heady fragrance, the hardy, cheerful marigolds, the violets and petunias...and the roses. Oh, the roses!

Alas, gardening was a field in which she had no talent whatsoever, but in this her husband had indulged her as he had indulged her in so many other things. Philip, her gardener, tipped his hat to her with a murmured, "Afternoon, m'lady," and his young apprentice bobbed his head shyly. She smiled at them and wished them a good afternoon as she passed. They were pruning the dignified old damasks, she saw: cutting away gnarled stalks and withered flowers, gathering fresh blooms for the house, preparing the thorny bushes for the coming winter. Soon the vivid multitude of colors would fade away to bare stalks and hard earth, and what had come before would for a time exist only in her memory.

But for now she breathed in the sweet scent of the magnificent blossoms all around her with sumptuous delight as she wended her way toward the gazebo at the far end. She took her seat on the cushioned marble bench within and looked up at the living tapestry of wisteria leaves wreathed around the entrance, now a dark green approaching black, now jade, now blazing emerald in the play of sunlight. She would often bring a book here on fine days like this one, or knitting or embroidery. Today, however, she had something else in mind.

Perhaps ten minutes passed before she spotted the utterly straight-backed and formal figure of her butler coming toward her from the house. He was carrying the silver tray, she saw, and a tall glass: lemonade, perhaps, or tea. In a few short weeks it would be a foamy cup of rich dark chocolate or a heavy shawl, or perhaps a stern and implacable expression. She was glad it was not the last of these today.

The glass held Mrs. Dale's honey cider iced tea: sweet, tart, and cooling, and Anne took a second sip before she fixed her gaze on her butler. "Morgan, there is something I wish to discuss with you. Do sit down and put the tray aside." She added before he could give voice to the protest on his lips, "Oh, stop acting like a stuffy old badger, Paul. You never used to be so stiff-necked. Certainly you may sit in my presence, for I refuse to put a crick in my neck craning up at you as we speak!"

Her butler closed his mouth, bowed slightly, and perched on the edge of the marble bench opposite her, looking stiff and uncomfortable. Anne sighed privately, but continued, "You are aware, of course, that my son has invited two...travelers to stay in his house as his guests. They are...very unusual persons..." she stopped, frowned, and finally shrugged inwardly. "They claim to come to us from the future."

"The future?" Morgan repeatedly doubtfully.

"A hundred years in the future, to be precise--the end of the twentieth century... Yes, I know, it is a fantastical tale," Anne responded thoughtfully. "And yet...William is completely persuaded of their candor."

"And you, my lady?" Morgan eyes were steady upon her face.

"I..." Last night Anne had been convinced that Spike was indeed her son. And yet there was something in her, an instinctive uneasiness peering down dim corridors of implication not yet fully illuminated by her conscious mind, that wanted to resist belief. She hesitated for a moment before answering, "My opinion has little bearing upon the matter. My son has already decided to give them his aid, and I must do likewise." She was prevaricating, and both of them knew it. Morgan was too well-trained to say so, of course, but she saw the doubt deepen in his eyes. She continued quickly, "They have been summoned here, they say, in answer to some as-yet undefined danger, and we do not know for what length of time they will be staying with us. I believe in any case that it would be best to avoid gossip and speculation for as long as we may, although I doubt we can do so forever. To that end, Miss Summers will pose as my ward, newly arrived for her education from America."

"And Master William and his...future self?" Morgan inquired.

"That is the more difficult question," Anne admitted. "I had rather hoped they might pass as one another, but I do not know if my son of the future--Spike as he terms himself--would agree, or if it is possible at all. He is rather different now." She shook her head, dissatisfied at having no suitable solution to that particular problem. "But whatever face we present to the outside world, it will be impossible to hide the truth--or all of the truth, at any rate--for long within the house. So I ask you, Morgan: can I trust the staff to be discreet?"

Anne waited patiently as Morgan considered her question with all due care, going over the character of each of the servants in his mind, balancing loyalties, ambitions, personal passions and intertwining relationships. Of Paul Morgan's own devotion to her Anne had no doubt; she had known him from nearly her earliest years. He had served her father first as an officer in the Royal Navy and later as a part of his personal household, leaving behind the career he had loved to follow the man he admired more than anyone in the world.

When a young and idealistic Anne had insisted on going to the Crimea to serve as one of Miss Nightingale's volunteers, it was Morgan who had sworn that he would follow her and bring her back safely to her family. That promise he had kept--and kept to admiration, Anne thought, though he himself might disagree, since it was in those faraway lands where she had met the bookish, bespectacled aide-de-camp, equally young and equally idealistic, who would later arrive at her father's door to request her hand in marriage...

She smiled softly at the memory, gaze once more fixed on the beautiful garden he had planted for her, her mind picturing him perfectly with a sheepish smile on his face as she chided him for the careless scratches on his hands...until Morgan's measured voice drew her back to the present. "I believe the staff can be trusted to keep their silence, so long as nothing disturbs their sense of decorum and the correct order of things. If I might make two suggestions?" At Anne's nod, he said, "Take on Teresa Mains from the town as a full member of the staff. We will need a laundrymaid with two guests in the house, and Miss Summers will require her own lady's maid. Edith will suit, I believe, but that will leave her with less time for her other duties. It will also allow Miss Mains less opportunity to bring tales of the household outside."

"A most sensible recommendation," Anne agreed. "Please see to it. And the other?" She almost expected Morgan to take the opportunity to bring up his opt-repeated suggestion of a new housekeeper to fill their current vacancy, but he continued, "Let there be some ordinary explanation hinted at but not overtly given for Master...Spike's arrival. It may not escape the tint of scandal, but perhaps it will serve to avert a degree of commentary..."

Anne raised an eyebrow at him. This was an alternative she had not considered, though in retrospect it seemed obvious. "Are you suggesting I treat Spike as if he were my second son--William's brother?"

Morgan spread his large capable hands. "It would seem logical, would it not? No one would doubt Master Spike's relation to you or to Master William, and the staff will be satisfied if they believe they know the cause for the odd manner of Master Spike's appearance."

"I suppose that is true," Anne murmured. "A ruse within a ruse--I was not aware a butler needed knowledge of such stratagems."

Morgan only bowed, a smile in his deep-set brown eyes.

"Well. I believe I have lived enough years to trade a little dignity for peace without loss of continence," Anne nodded decisively. "Long may it last."

Just then, a distant boom sounded from the house, rattling the third-floor windows in the west wing. Anne and Morgan stood quickly. In the seconds of stillness that followed, before the uproar began, an expression flashed across Morgan's face that Anne had not seen there for twenty years or more. It startled her, and for a moment her father's face came vividly to her mind, animated and wholly alive as he recounted the actions he had seen or been a part of, some of them soaring victories, some crushing defeats--but each searing second lived to the utmost. "The carronade," Morgan muttered to himself. "Powder, no shot."

Their eyes met, wry resignation clear in both. "Morgan, I am not above bribery," Anne said resolutely. "Let each of the staff receive a raise according to their position if he will agree to keep his silence about whatever he may see in this house in the upcoming days, or leave with my full recommendation if he decides he cannot do so."

"Very good, my lady," Morgan responded as they made for the house at a brisk walk, ready to face what Anne suspected would be the first of many disasters great and small. "And might I recommend that my lady gives more thought to the hiring of a housekeeper...?"

"I shall take it under advisement," Anne responded composedly.



Willow woke up again even more dehydrated than before, but with a full stomach--full, that is, if she could stop herself from thinking about what was actually in it. She shifted a little, and was pleased to discover that the pain was somewhat less than before. The soft, diffuse light, too, seemed brighter. She could see the gleam of a translucent brown wing lying cupped upward like a small basin near her. And--was it her imagination, or was that a tiny trickle of clear fluid overflowing from it? She swallowed back nausea as her parched body instantly began clamoring for something to satisfy its thirst, no matter what form it came in. After a long moment's struggle between the two conflicting urges, she finally managed to tamp down on her instinctive disgust. She reached towards the wing.

The liquid was cool to the touch and not at all oily or slimy. She brought a little of it to her mouth and tasted tentatively, and felt almost like crying when she recognized it as water. Pure, clean water. She dragged herself forward a little and cupped both her hands under the small flow, drinking again and again until she was satisfied and her mind began to clear.

That was when she realized two things. First, that the water could not have appeared so conveniently on its own: someone had placed it there for her. And second, that the light around her was not sunlight, for it was a subdued amethyst like the western rim of the sky just after the sun had vanished beneath the horizon.

She gathered what nerve she had left, rolled over with a grunt, and looked up. "Frack," she muttered at the glowing pupilless eye, wider than she was tall, peering down at her. Sometimes she hated it when she was right.