#iwcb chapter 12

You close the door to the library behind you and scurry down the hallway. Your hair and clothes are dishevelled. Your lips feel swollen and tingly and your face is hot with embarrassment. 

 God, you are an idiot. A stupid, ridiculous idiot, you mutter to yourself as you all but run down the dimly lit hallway. You blink away the harsh sting of tears and try to cool down. 

You reach the room Francis had you set your stuff in earlier. It has a beautifully-carved white bed with four posts and a sheer canopy. There’s a lit fireplace in the corner and blankets piled at the end of the bed. You sigh. 

As you lay in bed, listening to the crackle of the fire and staring up at the ceiling, you think of many things. 

You think of Gilbert. Your skin still tingles when you do. Unlike the safety you felt with your family, Gilbert makes you feel as if you were in a free fall. He looks at you and smiles, sharp and cunning and you feel a great tightness in your chest, so strong your heart could burst. You couldn’t deny that he had grown on you over the past five days. 

He’s done more than grow on you, you can’t help but think. Gilbert has all but taken a dagger and carved a space for himself inside you. You feel like an idiot, but it’s true. His quick wit and confidence, the pure intelligence and cunning had warmed him to you, and his strength, his softness, the way he comforted you and protected you has only made you like him more. 

So in the library moments ago, you let him kiss you. Even if it was a terrible idea, even though you knew that something between you could never possibly work, you had threaded your hands into his star-spun hair and kissed him back. 

Gilbert kissed you like he was drowning. Like you were his only source of air. He held you between his hands like he never wanted to let you go. 

“Please, stay,” he had said, and god, you had almost said yes. 

You felt the thrumming, the warm pull that Elizabeta warned you about. When your foreheads were pressed together and your breaths mingled in the air between you, you had felt the chest-crushing want that she had warned you of.  

It’s not real, this feeling. It’s not actual affection, it’s the spirit world and its magic. A trick is being played on your heart. You just need to get back. You’ll return to the mortal world, return to your old life and it’ll stop. It couldn’t work with the two of you anyways. Gilbert would be here fighting a war, protecting his court from invaders and leading his people and you would never want to abandon your life to stay in the Unseen world forever. You had a degree to finish, a life you wanted to build, and people who cared about you in the mortal world. 

You think of your mother, and her kind face and greying hair. You think of your father and the crows-feet that are appearing along the edges of his eyes. Your parents were getting old, your grandmother, even more so. When you were still in your own world, your grandma didn’t have much time left. She had done so much for you, her love for the family bookshop, for novels and stories, and fables made you the person you were. You don’t think you ever thanked her. 

You owe her that. She deserves to be told thank you. Your parents deserve to be told thank you, deserve to hear an explanation as to where you disappeared to, even though you’ll have to lie. 

He said, "Hey, darling, hey,”

“Hey, darling, hey"

"I'm the hardest goodbye 

that you'll ever have to say" 

The next morning, you wake up early. It’s not hard. You barely slept all night, so instead of trying for the millionth time to fall back into your bed, you throw the blankets off of you and get up. You stand up and drag one of them over with you to the window seat and wrap it around yourself. 

You rub the sleep out of your eyes and look outside. The temperature has dropped even further. A layer of frost covers the grounds below your window, and swirling ice patterns cover the edges of the glass in front of you. 

After getting dressed, you open your room door slowly and are met by someone outside your door. It’s Gilbert. His white hair is still messy and slightly damp. 

“I was just coming to get you,” he says softly. “There’s food downstairs.” 

You don’t say anything, just try to ignore the way your stomach flips when he looks at you. You walk beside him and smell the clean, soapy scent that wafts from him, hoping he won’t notice it. 

Gilbert leads you to the sitting room you had been in last night, where Francis and Antonio wait for you. 

The morning sun streams in, and a silver pot of coffee and food is spread out on the low table in the middle of the couches. Muffin nestles herself on your lap and you give her a good scratch on the top of her book cover. Gilbert’s hunting hawk isn’t with him, being banned from inside Francis’s seasonal home after an ‘incident’ which neither Francis nor Gilbert cares to elaborate on. You can see the large bird, perched on the stone railing on the other side of the window, looking offended as it eyes the food that sits on the coffee table in front of its owner. 

After pouring yourself a cup of coffee and giving Muffin a slice of bacon from the silver tray in front of you, you bring up what is on everyone’s mind. 

“We haven’t discussed how we’re going to get your final item,” you say to Gilbert, who’s sitting on the couch with you, instead of one of the available chairs. He’s not crowding you, in fact, he seems to be trying to give you some space, but you can feel his leg brush against yours. 

“It’s Gilbert’s sword, correct?” Antonio asks. 

He nods. “Vladimir Popescu has it in his castle on the northeast border of the woods. We’ll take the Standing Stones to get there. That’s the easy part…”

“But then there’s sneaking past Vladimir.”

“What’s he like, this Vladimir?”

You’d heard of Arthur, and you had the misfortune of meeting Lukas Bodevick in the flesh two days prior, but Gilbert hadn’t spoken much of this Vladimir character. 

Antoni sighs, before saying, “Well Gilbert would know better than I would but he’s… eccentric, from what I heard.”

Gilbert continues. “Vladimir is well versed in magical studies and incredibly interested in the study of occult magics. He allied himself with Arthur to have control over the Wandering Woods himself. If Arthur and the North Isles could do as they please, he would get free reign over everything else in the Woods, and the magic properties of the forest and its people make for good studies.”

“And uniting the Woods under your court meant that he couldn’t conquer it.”

Gilbert nods. You reach and pick a small pastry to eat while you think. “There’s no way that you could sneak in and steal back you’re sword?” you ask Gilbert.

“No,” Gilbert says. “Years ago, I lead an assault on that castle and managed to run him out of it. No doubt that after he re-took the keep, he warded it against me. If anyone were to try and sneak inside Popescu Castle, it won’t be me.”

You think. You think of meeting Basil in Arbourwood, of sneaking Gilbert into the grounds of Eldenstien Manor. You remember the Laws of Hospitality. 

“Does Vladimir have any staff for his castle?”

Gilbert nods. “A handful, I think.”

“Fae are superstitious creatures…” you turn to Gilbert and he understands your plan right away. 

“Laws of Hospitium don’t apply when you know the person. And Vladimir has definitely been told who you are.”

“But the staff wouldn’t know who I was, especially if I was disguised. ” You look to Francis, who’s sitting forward in his seat, hands clasped over his mouth as he thinks. 

“Fae glamour could work. I could make you look different, use it so you don’t look familiar.”

“And the magic could make her seem like a fae to any magical scrying.” Antonio supplies. 

“Basil had said something about how the Laws of Hospitium come from a story of one of your gods dressing up as an old hag as a test of someone’s hospitality.” You turn to Gilbert, who doesn’t like what you’re suggesting.

“So you’ll disguise yourself as a beggar, in hopes that one of Vladimir’s servants will let you into the castle out of paranoia?“ 

You nod. 

“It barely worked with Vash at Eldenstein Manor,” he reminds you.

“But it did work at Tallest Tales in Arbourwood.” You remember the way the air around you and Basil had tingled when you had asked for their help. Gilbert shakes his head. You look back to Francis. 

“Could you do it?” You ask him. You already know he can. You’ve seen the magic that powers this villa, the Glamour that disguised it from outsiders. The blond fae nods, but he doesn’t look enthusiastic. 

“No one will know it’s you, Cherie.”

“Then let’s do it.” You say, before standing up and brushing the crumbs off yourself. 

And if the world don't break

I'll be shakin' it

'Cause I'm a young man after all

The Eastern border of the wandering woods is mountainous and cold. Tall, coniferous trees fill the landscape, and white frost covers most of the ground. When you appear in the standing stones, the familiar wooziness floods through you. 

You manage to step out of the stone circle without tipping over and try to gather yourself. You’re still deep in the woods, a little ways away from Popescu Castle. The sky here is covered with gray, and the pine trees stretch high above you. 

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Gilbert says. He’s also stepped out of the Standing Stones and stands a little ways behind you. “You don’t have to do this,” he says. 

“Is there any other way?”

“There’s always another way, Maus,” He tries to convince you. He steps forward and squeezes your shoulders, holding you gently for a moment. “I could think of something if you give me time.” He leans into you as he says it and you sigh. 

“We don’t have time.” You say. “Arthur and Lukas arrived in the Woods days ago, and every moment we wait only gives them more time to prepare.”

“I won’t be in there to…”

“I know, Gilbert. But we’ve already come so far. It’s so close to being over. You’ll have your Woods back, and I can finally go home.”

Stretching in between the silence, the wind rustles. You have come a long way since the first few days in the Unseen World. Growing on a bare, thorny bush, you see familiar red berries. Spirit berries that those fae men had tried to force into you on your first day. Despite the effort to trap you here, it would seem you would be on your way home soon.  

The two of you walk past the spirit berry bush, its thorny beaches reaching your to try and snag your clothes. The pine needles crunch under your feet as you walk to the edge of the forest. 

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asks, reaching to tug your cloak around you more securely, his hands resting around your shoulders. 

“I’ll be back in no time, I promise,” you say. Gilbert quirks an eyebrow. “Making a promise to a fae, little human? Be careful or I’ll have to hold you to it.“

You roll your eyes and laugh. “Just take care of Muffin while I’m gone. Don’t let her get in too much trouble.” 

Gilbert gives a low chuckle. “I’ll take good care of her, Maus.” And with that, he pulls you in to press a kiss on your hairline before you turn away from him. You trek to the edge of the tree like and take a look at the large castle at the top of the cliff. 

And then I can tell myself

What the hell I’m supposed to do

And then I can tell myself

Not to ride along with you

You walk up the mountain towards the looming castle. Its tall spires stretch up into the dark sky. Mist obscures the dried-out gardens and rocky cliffs that surround the sides of the keep. 

With a dirty cloak wrapped around you, you walk up the mountain to a small path that wraps around to a side entrance. There are large doors in the back that look to be for moving large amounts of items into the castle, and beside it is an unassuming door, which is most likely for servants coming and going. 

You walk up to the door. The wind blows through your cloak, lifting it up and swirling the heavy fabric around your body. You swallow and knock loudly on the solid wood door. It's quiet for many moments after. You knock again and still nothing. You contemplate knocking again, and the swings open, making you step back. 

A young man, with pale skin and dark hair, opens the door. He’s definitely fae, telling from the pointed ears and otherworldly feeling you get when you look at him. 

He looks at you with sharp, forest-green eyes, unimpressed by you. 

“I need help,” you blurt out. You hadn’t really given much thought to what you would actually say, so you guess what’s spilling out of your mouth will have to do now. 

The man knows immediately what’s going on. 

“Don’t you dare! No, no, n-“

“I need help!” You force out one final time, and feel the air tingle familiarly around you, with the power of faerie-magic-mandated politeness. 

The man rolls his eyes. “What can I help you with.” The words are pulled out of his mouth by some mysterious force. 

You sigh, but don’t feel much relief. You’re not in the door quite yet. 

“I got separated from my travelling party. I just need room and board for the night before heading to rejoin them.”

The words tingle on your tongue as the man steps aside to let you in the threshold. As you step through the door, you feel something wash over you, lingering for a moment before disappearing altogether. You look down at your hands and see that Francis’ glamour is still on them. 

“Can I have your name?” The black-haired servant asks you, and you catch what he means. 

You raise your eyes and give a knowing smile. “You can’t have my name, but you may know it.”

He rolls his eyes and mutters “Nevermind. This way, just… stay out of sight.”

You are lead inside, and the heavy iron door clangs shut behind you and sends chills up your spine.  

The man drones on about where you’re allowed to go and where you aren’t, and you reach into a pocket for the smooth charm that hides inside. You tap on the carved symbol, just like Francis said, and then break off from the man that leads you away, to skirt down a side hall. A mirror image of yourself continues to follow the servant, and you take a deep breath as he’s none the wiser to your scheme.

I know that you hate this place,

And not a trace of me would argue

Honey we should run away

Oh, someday

“Mirror Image isn’t a permanent spell,” Francis had told you as he continued completing your disguise.” My magic can hide the fact that you're human for hours, but the body double won’t make it that long. You’ll only have half an hour until the illusion wears off once you turn it on.” 

“I understand,” you said, rolling the activation charm between your fingers. “I’ll make my way to the display room on the upper levels, and be back before the distraction ends.”

“Good luck.”

(Your mother always had quite the opinion on luck. She never believed in it. 

“There’s no such thing,” she told you once, during a quiet drive home from some. “We make choices and things happen because of them. Humans can’t see the big picture, and can’t comprehend how everything trickles down into the next. Our egos assign morality to it and call the long-term consequences of decisions “good” or “bad” luck. We distance ourselves to try and relinquish responsibility. Calling it luck protects us.”

We are often at the mercy of our choices, but more often than that, we are at the mercy of other people's choices.) 

Right now, you are relying on a good amount of common sense, and the minuscule amount of information about the castle you’re in to find Gilbert’s sword. Vladimir wouldn’t keep it anywhere that was easily accessible to visitors or the staff, which rules out the ground level, and Vladimir being a rich, pompous, evil piece of shit means that like any book villain, he’s probably keeping Gilbert’s sword near or inside his chambers to look at regularly. 

You have no clue where Vladimir’s chambers would be, but common sense tells you that his maids would. So you stick to the shadows and follow a pair of servants who chat as they enter a large room on the upper floors of the keep. From the crack in the door, you know you’ve found the master bedroom, decorates lavishly with personal items, paintings, and a cluttered writing desk. 

You duck away as the door comes swinging open. The maids exit into the hall, and you slip inside the master bedroom as the heavy door swings shut. 

The room is empty, thank god, and you take care to inspect the large space. The ornate red and black bedding is neatly made, with dozens of pillows and ruffly blankets, framed by two gothic bedside tables. 

Above the large bed, you find what you’re looking for. Well, kind of.

Hung on the wall is a gorgeously crafted wooden placard, where a large, sword-shaped object is used to hang. The problem was that the placard was bare, with only the dusty outline to prove Gilbert’s Sword hung there. 

“Shit.” You whisper. You can feel your stomach start to twist with nerves. It’s not here, and it clearly SHOULD be. You don’t have much time before the mirror image following around the butler wears off. You need to think and think quickly. 

The sword is gone, you think, but not the placard, meaning that it's been moved recently, and most likely temporarily, probably by Vladimir himself. You don’t want to think of why he would choose to move it now, at this time, because the most likely reason is that Vladimir is already onto you, so you push that down. 

You’ll have to head back downstairs to your guide and hope that the charms that Francis put over you will be enough to fool an incredibly powerful sorcerer long enough to steal from him and get away with it. 

It seems you’re going to need a little bit of luck after all. 

---

author’s note

*sticks head up from the hole I’ve crawled in* Its been a while! First I’d like to apologize for being away for so long. I’m ok, I’ve just lost track of time. 

First I watched the new Top Gun movie and decided that I NEEDED to write a fanfiction for it, then I was pulled back into a Star Wars: Clone Wars obsession by one of the kids at the summer camp I was working at. I made an entire cast of OC’s and have excerpts of fanfic and lore about them, It was a whole thing OMG. 

Then of course, Rings of Power came out, and I became obsessed. If you know anything about me, you’ll know I love a good villain, and I’ve been pulled into a Halbrand OBSESSION. Its a problem. 

WOOO! Anyway, I was really happy to get back into writing this. I turned on my it will come back playlist and really got back into the world and characters, which felt a lot like coming home. This chapter marks the end of the second act, meaning that there’s only 5 chapters left of this fanfic! I am so excited to publish the next chapter, just because of what I have planned for it! 

I hope that I’ll be able to stick to a more consistent writing schedule, but I won’t make any promises. The end of the semester is coming up and I’ll have to complete final projects and paintings. 

I loved reading everyones comments, they really make my day. Happy Halloween!

quotes (in order)

1. Farewell Wanderlust by The Amazing Devil

2. Mind Over Matter by The Young Giants

3. The Night We Met - Lord Huron

4. To Be Alone - Hozier