Chapter Text
Prospero truly could not wait for this night to end. Nothing, save perhaps his own death, had ever been so nightmarish.
At least William was keeping a brave face as Prospero bandaged the wound on his leg. Montresor had sworn up a storm when Prospero had tended to him earlier that day. And then he had promptly gone and undone half of Prospero's work on that cast, the idiot.
Still, if flesh wounds had been the worst thing to come of this night, it might perhaps have been bearable. Alas, they were not. Dozens of students were surely dead by now. And, of course, Ada, half-withered, in a trance from which she might never wake.
Prospero fought off a shudder at the memory of the withering, of Ada crumbling away in his arms, and he utterly unable to fix it.
And the things she had said...
"I'm not...good enough...for you."
Guilt curdled in his stomach. That wasn't it at all, he just... wasn't interested. In anyone. And perhaps he had not particularly enjoyed her attentions, but it certainly did not mean he thought her inferior.
"Why doesn't anybody ever care? What's the matter with me??"
He had been cruel to her. Needlessly so, when he could have just been forthright from the start. When she woke, he would set the record straight.
If she woke.
She would wake. She had to.
He stood, brushing grass and soil from his knees. To Will, he said, "Sit and rest your leg a while. I'm going to check on Ada." There had to be something he could do for her, even if only to make her more comfortable in her sleep. What use was a doctor's training if there wasn't anything he could do?
(But didn't he know, better than anyone, that sometimes there really wasn't anything to be done?)
He shook the thought from his head. He could at least check on her.
He managed to edge his way through the crowd now thronging the space protected by Miss Poppet's shelter, back into the alcove where Ada lay. She was as still as she had been when he'd left. Montresor, the callous good-for-nothing, had at least moved to sit beside her, giving her some semblance of company. He'd even laid his coat over her. Perhaps he had a heart after all.
Montresor caught Prospero's querying look and scoffed. "Her teeth were chattering somethin' fierce. Was pissin' me off."
Prospero resisted the urge to scowl. Of course. He should never have expected otherwise. At least Annabel hadn't had to cajole him into it.
Speaking of which. "Where is Annabel?" He hadn't imagined that she'd leave Ada's side, after everything that had happened tonight. But she wasn't here.
Montresor picked at his teeth, unconcerned. "Wandered off."
"To where?"
"Dunno. Ain't her keeper."
Of all the insufferable— "Of course not, but you didn't think to keep an eye on her?"
Visibly annoyed, Montresor gestured pointedly to his cast. Prospero scoffed. This man was nothing if not a headache. "Very well. I'll see to it myself, as per usual."
Montresor snorted. "Whatever you say."
Bearing in mind that it would not, in fact, be helpful to punch Montresor again, Prospero turned on his heel and strode away. The sooner this horrible night was over, the better.
It quickly became apparent that Annabel was nowhere to be found. Their protected section of the arboretum was only so large, and not at all difficult to search. No one he asked had seen her since she had left Ada's side, either.
She wasn't here. Which meant…
But why? Why would she have gone back out? It didn't make sense to him, but then Annabel's mind was frequently several steps ahead of his own. Perhaps she had realised something he hadn't. And decided that she was the only one who could do something about it.
While he wished she would have trusted him with whatever plan she was enacting, it wasn't altogether surprising that she hadn't. They had only been acquainted a few days, after all. Perhaps he ought simply to have faith in the woman who had quickly proven herself as the de facto leader of their group, and simply wait for her return. That would be the expected course, would it not?
His stomach twisted unpleasantly at the very thought of leaving her out there alone.
And she wasn't simply an acquaintance, or a leader, was she? They had agreed to be friends; proper friends.
(Had that only been this morning? It felt as though this night had lasted an eternity.)
What would a proper friend do, in this situation?
He had heard the ruckus Lenore's cabal of misfits had been making earlier, just barely audible from where he had been treating Will's leg. She was out there too, and her compatriots had been wanting to go back for her, arguing over who was too wounded to go.
That was proper friendship, wasn't it? Risking oneself to aid one's friends, no matter what. Always doing your best to stay by their side.
Making sure they weren't alone.
"Hey, Prospero!" Will walked up, and the detached professional part of Prospero noted that his leg didn't seem to be giving him any trouble at all. Good. "I was just thinkin', Monty's cast is still cracked, d'you reckon there's anything you can do to patch it up? You bein' awful good at this doctor stuff, and all."
Prospero sighed. "Well I am a doctor, William. But no, there isn't anything I can do for Montresor's cast at the moment; I would need materials that I don't presently have. Besides, I have something else to do, right now."
"Oh, right!" Will brightened. "Monty said you were looking for Annabel. Ain't you found her yet?"
"Keep your voice down," Prospero muttered, stepping in closer. "And no, she doesn't seem to still be here. I'm going to go out and find her, and I need you and Montresor to stay with Ada while I do."
"What?!" Will yelped. At Prospero's pointed glare, he sheepishly lowered his voice. "You sure that's a good idea?"
"No," Prospero sighed, "But neither is leaving her out there alone."
Will nodded slowly. "Alright, then."
Prospero clapped him gently on the shoulder. "I'll be back with her as soon as I can. You and Montresor make sure nothing happens to Ada while I'm gone."
"Yessir!" Will turned on his heel immediately, and began to head back in the direction he had come. He really was very earnest, Prospero mused. It was a shame that such earnestness was wasted on Montresor.
He kept a careful eye out for Lenore's misfits as he made his way to the exit. He didn't particularly want anyone to see him leave and cause a fuss, but that group in particular would be a problem, eager as they were to get back out themselves. Whatever plan Annabel was concocting, she surely wouldn't want any of them sniffing around while she did so.
He managed to slip out of the curtain unseen, he was fairly certain, and headed back out into the corridors of the school. He could hear crashing sounds in the distance, likely the Hunt, and quietly prayed that it wasn't Annabel they were hunting.
The Hunt had already encountered her once tonight. Would they be inclined to favour familiar prey?
No. No, Annabel was smart enough to avoid them, surely.
…He would check the nearby halls, first. And then if he didn't find her, well. There would be only one trail to follow, then.
"Please, Annabel, please," He muttered, scouring one hall after another. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
He almost missed it, when a clue finally appeared. The corridor was deserted, and he was about to move on, when a small flash of colour caught his eye in the dimness. A single small, blue slipper lay against the wall, as if carelessly tossed aside.
One of Annabel's slippers.
He picked it up gently, and looked down the long corridor. A corridor which, he realised, he could see a little better than expected. The sky outside was beginning to lighten. It would be dawn soon.
Hope clawed its way into his throat. Surely things would be better in the daylight. He had found Annabel's trail, and she would surely be okay, as long as she survived 'til the sun rose.
The great, screeching roar of the Stag split the air.
It was coming from up ahead.
Cursing, Prospero dropped the shoe, pelting down the hallways towards the sound. He shouldn't have wasted time with halls that he had known, deep down, would be empty. Annabel was being hunted, and now he might be too late.
The corridors seemed to stretch endlessly as he ran. And always the sounds of fighting, and that horrible screeching, seemed just ahead, just around the next corner.
And then they stopped.
Prospero's heart sank. Please. Please. Let them not have caught her. Please.
He kept going in the same direction, and at last came to the doors of the library, thrown open. Even through the doorway, the destruction within was evident.
The destruction, and the wilted peony petals, slowly fading away into nothing.
No.
He scrambled through the door, and came to a grinding halt.
For a single, heart-stopping moment, he expected the Stag in the centre of the floor to turn and charge him down. And then he looked properly, and realised that it was bound in place, surrounded by tentacles of stone. Not only that, but its eyes were empty; simple dark sockets where there had once been malevolent red.
Treading carefully, in case it wasn't as dead as it appeared, he moved to get a better view of the floor.
Was that a severed arm at the stag's feet, lying in a pool of…ink?
And then all thoughts of ink and petrified stags flew from his head, because there was a puddle of human blood on the floor.
A trail ran from the puddle out the entrance to the courtyard. "Annabel!?" He raced over to the doors, hoping against hope that she wasn't dead, that he could do something to save her.
She was there. And she wasn't alone. He stopped in the doorway, uncertain of the unfamiliar, long-haired spectre whom Annabel was embracing so tenderly.
Then the spectre spoke, in a familiar voice. "What aren't you telling me?" Lenore.
Lenore, whose spectre was the one leaving the blood trail. But that was cold comfort to Prospero, because what was happening to Annabel was far, far worse.
His feet felt rooted to the spot, heavy with dread, but he pushed himself forward. "Annabel!?"
Both women startled, turning their heads towards him. "Prospero?" Annabel asked, shocked. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you," he replied. "We have to get you back inside, Annabel, you're withering!"
"Withering?!" Lenore turned, horrified, back to Annabel.
Annabel sighed. "I'm afraid so, pet. I fear I shan't survive it."
"N-no." Lenore clutched her closer, devastated. "We made it, Annabel! We defied the odds, the nightmare is over. We're both still here!" Her head swivelled desperately towards Prospero, and then back to Annabel again. "Surely it can be undone!"
Annabel's voice was hoarse and cracked when she replied. "P-perhaps, but… I haven't the wherewithal to figure out how." She smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry, pet. I wish we got to play together a little longer. But the game is up, now, in more than one sense." She looked up at Prospero, who could only look back in horror. "I'm sorry you had to see this."
"We can still get you back to the arboretum," he insisted. "We can find Nurse Dolly, and get the potion she made for Ada—"
"That is not a cure," Annabel sighed. "I would simply be sent into a death trance, likely never to wake."
"When have you ever accepted defeat?" Lenore demanded. "You always have a clever turn at the ready. It's who you are!"
Annabel smiled sadly. "Oh, Lenore, if only it were so. But I fear my time…grows…short…"
Her head lolled backwards, body limp in Lenore's arms.
"Annabel?!" Lenore cried.
Prospero tried desperately to swallow the lump in his throat. Hoarsely, he croaked, "She… We can still get her the potion. It will halt the withering until we can find a cure. We…"
He trailed off as Lenore laid Annabel down gently. She traced Annabel's face with unbearable gentleness, and murmured, "I wonder if she remembers…" And then louder, directly to him, "Annabel has always been better at riddles than me. I haven't the patience for such puzzlements. And the more vexed I become, the further I get from finding the solution." She shook her head. "I'm no good at solving problems like this. But Annabel always seems to figure it out in the end."
Before Prospero could process any of that, Lenore pressed a kiss to Annabel's forehead, and then extended an arm out beside her. A blade coalesced in her hand, shaped like half of a giant pair of scissors, its blade glowing crimson.
"Good luck, darling," Lenore murmured to the prone form before her.
And plunged the blade into Annabel's chest.
"What are you doing?!" Prospero cried, falling to his knees and grasping for the protruding hilt.
Lenore threw an arm out to stop him, a second blade forming in her other hand. "I'm turning things around."
Prospero stopped short. "What?"
"If anyone can figure a way out of this, Annabel can," Lenore replied. "I'm making sure she gets the chance to do that."
So saying, she raised the second blade and pointed it towards her own breast. With one last gentle glance at Annabel, she whispered something too quietly for Prospero's ears to catch. And then she impaled herself on her own blade.
A loud crash shook the air, ringing through Prospero's very bones, as of something immense and permanent being shattered completely. Then both blades disappeared, and Lenore collapsed forward, her body meeting Annabel's on the cold courtyard stones, as the storm above began to break.