A day had been and gone, yet Mistress Hemlock still had made no appearance. I had done only two shifts, rotating between myself, Alexander, Farren and Vance. For a time, we would be situated in a tree or something similar for at least four hours before the next person came up. While it was tiring, it was all going to be worth it once she turned up.

I was filtering through a series of papers, trying to focus on the unreasonably small writing when Alexander's voice filtered through my head,

She's here, Farren's caught her and were making our way to the dungeons now, meet us there within five minutes.

I dropped the papers out of my hand immediately, running out from the office where I was over to Ti's room, I knocked on the door as hard as possible,

"Ti! They've got her," I yelled, only needing to say that before Ti opened up the door, ready to run.

I knew that the dungeons she would be taken to weren't going to be underneath the house. It would be the set across the pack that are actually used to hold criminals. I didn't shift to make sure that Ti wouldn't be left behind when I really started running.

The moment that we approached, the guards stepped aside, easily letting us through before boarding up the entrance once we had passed through.

I hurried down the stairs, my feet smacking against the concrete as I tried to move as quickly as possible, Ti hot on my heels.

I followed the bond to lead me through the twisting corridors as I hopefully made my way to wherever Alexander was situated. We continued going deeper and deeper into the ground, every level we travelled down the cells became more and more intense, more and more intense. The bars were thicker, the light was darker, and with each cell I saw more and more rats scurrying over the floor.

Finally, when we reached the bottom level, I saw Alexander and Farren situated at the very end of the corridor, Mistress Hemlock most likely being situated in the most intense cell that they had.

Alexander came up to meet me halfway, "Vance will be another five minutes or so. But, she hasn't said a word, easily allowed herself to be captured, she didn't even try to fight back."

I grimaced, "She's extremely non-confrontational, so I'm not that surprised. We haven't brought her here for information, but we may as well try and get something out of her before we..."

Xander nodded, "I agree. I think it's best to leave it to you two, you know her best but you're also the ones with emotional attachment. I say the two of you should go in and work some magic."

I looked back to Ti as she shrugged, "I'm down for that. Whatever you need us to do, we can get it done."

I gulped, "Alright, do we have a time limit?"

Alexander paused, "Ten minutes at the most, we don't want to risk keeping her alive for too long."

I bit the side of my cheek, "We can do that."

Ti and I walked forward, leaving Alexander behind as Farren walked past us, the two of them standing far and out of earshot so that Ti and I could do what we needed to do. We approached the cell, leaning through the bars.

Mistress Hemlock was seated right against the wall, her back straight and her eyes forward.

"Ms Verano, Tatiana, how wonderful to see you." She said, her eyes gazing right through us.

I leaned over and grabbed the key that lay on the opposite wall, I shoved it into the keyhole and opened up the cell, allowing Ti and I to walk straight in.

As I spared a glance over to Ti, I noticed that her eyes had gone purple, the same pastel, gemstone shade that I could see in Mistress Hemlock.

"Now, would you like to tell me what's going on darlings? Maybe offer an explanation on why my life is to end within the next few minutes at your hands?"

Regardless of the fact that she was beneath me and within our power, I still felt nervous, felt as if I should drop to my knees and beg for forgiveness.

I raised my head slightly higher. "You understand your position, both in society and the Organisation. It's time to bring you all down for good. I think you knew that your time as a group was coming to an end anyway."

She snorted, "Of course. As embarrassing as it is to say, we relied on the three... two of you quite a lot. There aren't many people with your talent and ability combined with being able to get the job done. But the Organisation has been doomed for a while. I came here of my own accord, and I hope you all know that."

Ti gulped, "Of course. We aren't stupid. I figured that the ideas you had that required Rosary Pea had only been told to me, I knew you would see that we needed to get in contact with you-"

"To kill me,"

"- to make our next move." Ti finished.

Mistress Hemlock hummed, lifting her head higher. "I always preferred you with violet eyes. There's a reason for that of course, perhaps I'll tell you. I have information on the two of you that you would die to hear. Perhaps I could just say it, or perhaps I could use it as a bargaining chip."

I sighed. "Mistress Hemlock, I have to ask, are there any plans that the Organisation is working with in terms of an attack?"

She paused, eyes flickering from both of us. I sent a look to Ti and immediately, tendrils of magic began to wrap around Mistress Hemlock's ankles and wrists, tightening themselves ever so slightly.

"Of course they do." She said eventually. "Within the week. They'll send in the wolves, pose it as a rogue attack, then the vampires will come in, and then the rest, led by Landon, Avarise will come in towards the very end, kill the Alpha and take his position. From there, once they have the majority of the power over the area and the other packs under their control, they'll make an attack against the Siren and Fae, just to finish everything else." Mistress Hemlock clicked her fingers and suddenly, the magic cords that were surrounding her fell away.

"How do we know you're not lying?" I interrogated.

She raised an eyebrow, "Well that's up to you, isn't it?" She looked down at the floor. "I haven't been committed to the Organisation for a very long time, before any of you were even being thought about by your parents. My time," She raised her hands to stare at them, "Is coming to an end. I don't have much time left, but I'm ready. I've been in this form for a very, very long time, my fae form for what feels like even longer. The least I could do was make my last move in the game that I have been entertaining myself with for so long. We forced Cora to expose your plans and then killed her, I may as well expose their plans before you kill me."

I leaned back against the bars and caught Alexander's eye who was tapping his wrist urgently. We needed to wrap this up.

"Mistress Hemlock, We've never asked for much, never asked for payment for all that we've done. But you said that you had information on us, if we could, we'd like that information." Ti said confidently.

Mistress Hemlocks head rolled backwards before she pulled herself back up. "I suppose I do owe you that much." She floated herself upwards, moving towards Ti before wrapped her pale hand against Ti's cheek.

"If you ever find your parents darling, you'll find that you don't look too much like them. The similarity is there of course, but you're all recessive genes. Purple.. that violet is your natural colour. It's what you were born with, before your magic manifested that's what colour your eyes were. The reason that I was there when you were born, not that they knew it, was because you're my niece. Perhaps it's been too many generations for you to actually be my niece, but even here, you look so much like my brother. The jawline, the brows, the colour of your hair. And the eyes, the same as mine." She said, as if remembering something painful, her eyes glistening.

Ti wavered, "But when you pass over, become a spirit... you can't remember..."

"Oh my darling, I don't remember. I couldn't tell you a single thing about my life or my achievements, not even who I was. I have my name, that's all. But against all odds, I remember my brother, I remember the woman he chose and the children they had. All, of course, led back to you. Perhaps I could credit it to the power of my magic, that I was too powerful for everything to be wiped, but really, I credit it to luck." She removed her hand from Ti's face, before wandering over to me.

"Cassandra Verano. The Nightstalker." Her words rolled over on her tongue. "I knew once that name came forward, barely anyone would ever call you your real name again. Which, I suppose, is why I tried so hard to make sure that you always remembered it. In reality, I was the one who came up with that Title. I felt bad for you, you were such a small child. Ti was younger and even she was bigger than you. We're supposed to cut you off from everything, but I didn't want to. So, I gave you the name which connected back to your pack. We found you on the outskirts of the recently overthrown Battlemare pack. Something about the Battlemare Pack was the amount of Nightstalker flowers that grew there."

I pushed my shoulders back, "I've never heard of a pack called Battlemare."

Mistress Hemlock pointed her brows, "Because they were overthrown. Half the pack was killed and the rest was completely erased from existence. No one talks about them. Regardless, the flower was a symbol of leadership within the pack and we assumed, from how you acted and the power that you put out, that you were either the daughter of an Alpha or the very least a Beta, which offers some explanation on your mating. And so, not that you knew, but I fashioned the glass flower myself and gifted it to you and then gave you the title to connect you back to your pack. I never expected to be in a position where I would be telling you this."

I pushed out my chest, "So my parents, my family, are dead?"

"Most likely," She said seriously. "But now you know."

The two of us paused, "Anything else that we should know?"

Mistress Hemlock ran her teeth over her gums, "She's dead now, but taking Cora is quite frankly the most illegal thing we've ever done. We took her straight from the Royal Palace of the Siren Queen. We always told you we found you together, but that's not true. We met up three-quarters of the way back to Base. I took Ti, Landon took Cora and Avarise took you. But no, the queen had made a spectacle of her daughter and the power that she had. But we knew her ego would get in the way, making the taking of her easy. I suppose if you ever wanted to know, there's the information."

Mistress Hemlock turned away and backed herself back against the wall. "Now, from what I can tell, I have maybe another month, perhaps two before I would just die on my own. I don't care how you want to do it, just keep it quick." She then looked at Ti, "I just want it done by magic. If I could have that, I would be happy."

I turned to Ti and gave her a short nod, "If you're comfortable."

Ti turned away and moved her hands Somehow, Mistress Hemlock became even paler, her entire body seizing up. Ti did another foreign movement before Mistress Hemlock fell to the ground, her body twitching before it stopped completely as Ti dropped her hands.

"It's done," She whispered, "She's dead."

I had hoped that I would have felt nothing, but the gut-wrenching feeling in my stomach told me otherwise. I suppose in a strange way, I felt guilty. That after all these years, she came to her death from simple suffocation.

I re-opened the prison gate, soullessly walking out of the cell and back into the hallway.

"It's done," I said. "She's dead."

Alexander raised an eyebrow, "Did she say anything about the rest of the Organisation?"

Ti nodded, "An attacks coming. But it's probably best that that information is said when everyone is present. There's no point in retelling the story a million time. Besides, I need a moment."

I stood myself directly against Alexander's side. "I wouldn't object to a moment either."

His brows furrowed, "What did she tell you? Are you alright?"

I gulped, "I'm fine. Just information I thought I always wanted."

He wrapped his hand around my waist, "Come on, we'll go back to the house, get you something to eat and then we can talk about the other stuff."

I felt completely out of body as we walked, my mind churning with the repeated words that had come out of Mistress Hemlocks mouth.

Goddess, I wish I hadn't smashed that flower.

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