"Marie-Fey," Zaydan said, sinking down beside her and she shoved him away.

"GO AWAY!" she screamed, scrunching her eyes tight as tears continued to stream down her face. "Get out! GET OUT!!"

"I can't leave you like this, talk to me," Zaydan said, grabbing her arms but she shook his off, pressing her hands to her face.

"I don't need to talk! I don't need to talk about it! Go away! You're just making me think about it! I don't want to think! Get out! Leave me alone!"

"We have to talk about it, regardless, I need to know what happened."

"Ask Zufar! He was involved in the attack! They turned on us! My men were murdered! They're all dead! All of them! They killed each other! I killed them! I killed th—"

Her voice gave out on her and she choked on a sob, curling in on herself, her fingers curling into her hair.

"Why?" she sobbed, "It's one thing after another. What did I do? I didn't do anything wrong. I "

"I know."

Her eyes snapped up, staring at Zaydan as he sat in front of her, his long legs on either side of her as he watched her, his gaze impossibly sad as he looked into the rippling, pooling blue of her stare.

"You didn't so anything wrong," he said. He looked away as he drew his legs up, folding one arm across his knees, his other hand digging into the waves of his dark hair as he pressed his mouth against the forearm draped across his legs, his eyes on the floor.

Marie-Fey sat between his feet, staring at him as he knotted his fingers further into his hair.

"You didn't do anything wrong. I did. You've been caught in the crossfire and I've... I've dragged you down."

"What did you do?" Marie-Fey gasped, her voice trembling. He looked at her and she lunged forwards, grabbing his arms and staring up at him as tears continued to stream. "What did you do?!" she screamed, "What did you do to reduce me to this? "

Zaydan recoiled but she held on, dragging with him as she held eye-contact, never blinking and unwavering.

"I murdered them! All those men! I had no choice! It was them or I, but I still killed them! I can't erase that! What kind of devil does that make me? We make monsters of murderers, what does this make me?!"

"It makes you no more and no less than what you were already!" Zaydan shouted back, clinging to her arms in return. "You had no choice!"

"I had no choice," Marie-Fey gasped, shaking her head, hair tumbling from its pins and spilling around her eyes. "I had no choice. But I did. I could have... I could have..."

"You could not!" Zaydan snarled. "This is not about you laying down your life for another, especially when it was you or them. It's not about what's right and wrong. It's about life and death, there's no easy answer... there's no answer. You did what you had to, so that you and Maanah survived."

Marie-Fey stared at him, then pulled away, pressing her hands to her face as another wave of tears hit her.

"I didn't even stop to think – to consider," she sobbed, her voice a squeak, "And then I couldn't stop. I couldn't feel anything. If Zufar had turned on me, I would have killed him as well. I'd do it all again if I had to. What does that make of me?"

"It makes you human," Zaydan said. "It makes you a person who needed to survive, and did what she had to do to make that happen."

Marie-Fey just curled her fingers into her hair and Zaydan leant back, resting against one of the sofas he sat besides, his eyes turning towards the balcony doors.

"The first time I killed someone, I didn't think I'd recover from it," he muttered, his gaze turning inwards as he spoke. "It had to be done, it was him or me, but I carry that death with me."

"But you're a solider!"

"That doesn't somehow give me immunity to the knowledge that I'm taking someone's life," he said, glancing at her then away again. "Besides, the first person I killed was not a fellow soldier. I have killed more than my fair share of those who don't deserve to die. Even if I wasn't the one to take a blade to them."

"I don't understand," Marie-Fey muttered and Zaydan knocked his head back against the sofa.

"God, Marie-Fey, my love, how do I even begin to start explaining when I can't get the words out?"

"What are you talking about?" she snarled.

"There is a curse upon this family, Fey. Whether you believe in them or not, there is a very real c—"

Marie-Fey's snarl cut him off as she shoved to her feet. "!" she spat, "NO! I do not deal in curses! I do not deal in the supernatural! That realm is the domain of my brother! I deal in the here and now! Where there are no ghosts, or mysteries! I should be in a world where no one is trying to kill me, and no ghosts haunts me! That is the domain I deal in! Nothing else!"

"What are you talking about? What ghosts?" Zaydan asked, getting to his feet and following her as she snatched one of the candles from a low table and moved to light more around the room as the darkness deepened.

"There are no ghosts! There's nothing there! "

"You're seeing ghosts?"

"I'm not seeing anything!"

There was a whoosh around them, like a wind blazing through the apartments, and every candle flared to life, blowing away ever shadow, before going out and plunging them back into perfect moonlit darkness.

They stood in stunned silence for a moment, then soft footsteps trickled out of the shadows behind them. They both turned and Zaydan stumbled backwards, crashing to the ground and pressing back against Marie-Fey's skirts, eyes wide, mouth open.

The woman, the spectre who Marie-Fey saw more than any other, detached herself from the shade and glided forwards, her eyes for once not on Marie-Fey but watching Zaydan who gaped at her.

"Y... you..." Zaydan gasped out.

The figure pressed a slender finger to her lips, then lifted her gaze to look at Marie-Fey.

Marie-Fey stared back at her, her eyes dark and furious, even as tears still stung at them.

"Get out," she seethed, curling her fingers into fists, "Get out. You're not real."

The woman opened her mouth and, for the first time, almost properly spoke.

"You did... what you had to... to survive."

Marie-Fey's glare faded as she stared.

"Just as you did... seven years before... you do... what you must... to survive. Marie-Fey... we need you... to survive."

"Who are you?" Marie-Fey hissed.

"I... was... you," the woman said, smiling a broken smile. "I am you... who did not... survive."

"What is going on? Why are you haunting me!?" Marie-Fey moaned and the woman gave her sympathetic smile.

"We had hoped that... if we scared you, you would stay... away... end the... end the cycle. But you cannot be frightened away... and the cycle cannot be ended that way so..."

Her voice seemed to die in her throat and her brow creased in distress.

"I am sorry," she breathed, then turned her eyes down to Zaydan, who was still gaping at her. "It was not your fault," she said softly, and Zaydan's expression shattered, the reaction so violent Marie-Fey thought he would cry. Her eyes returned to Marie-Fey before she looked towards the doors of the apartment. "The tower... you need to find the tower."

Marie-Fey eyed her for a moment, then relented. "Which tower?" she asked, begrudgingly, "The one with the hidden room?"

"Yes."

"What's in there?"

The woman just shook her head.

Marie-Fey let out a harsh breath but stopped at the tug at her skirts. She glanced down to see Zaydan's fist curled in her skirt, pulling even as he didn't take his eyes from the ghost. She looked at him for a moment, then openly stared.

Something was glowing from under the fabric of his shirt collar. It was faint, but there was something there.

"She can't tell you," Zaydan was saying "Her voice is bound from revealing too much. She can only—"

He jumped at the feel of Marie-Fey's fingers at his collar, startled as she quickly undid the high collar. When he realised what she was doing, he jolted away but she clung on, almost tearing the shirt as she gaped.

The scars around his neck, the ghosts of chains, were faintly glowing. If it hadn't been so dark, she would never have been able to see the eerie, ghostly blue, glinting just like the apparition.

He yanked his collar loose and she let him go.

"What is that?" she said, her voice a breath.

"A spell, it stops me speaking," Zaydan muttered, quickly buttoning up his collar. "I tried to tell you, I did, but I can't say enough. She can't tell you either, we're bound by the same power. I told you, there's a curse, whether you believe in them for not."

Marie-Fey stared at him, then thought. "When you suffered that attack when we were at the gazebo back home. You started telling me something about your brother and collapsed."

Zaydan glanced at her, then away again.

Marie-Fey looked at the ghost, who silently watched Zaydan, her eyes soft and sad and...

Marie-Fey raised an eyebrow. She knew that expression. Antoinette looked at Robert like that. Rosalia looked at Braydon like that. Yumiko looked at Val liked that. Ivy looked at Con liked that. Sophia looked at her husband like that. They all shared the same expression she'd seen time and time again since her childhood, when her mother had looked at her father like that.

This ghost was in love with Zaydan.

He didn't notice, his attention turned to her, but she knew that expression. She had once dreamt of looking at a man that way, until a man had ripped that dream from her and she had never given herself time to recover.

The woman finally turned her attention back to Marie-Fey, and that love faded away. How was that possible? They knew each other, Zaydan had recognised her but...

"There's a cycle," she said instead, her gaze flicking to Zaydan and away again.

"We hope... you can break... it," the woman said softly.

"Can you tell me how?"

"We don't know. No one has... ever succeeded but..." The woman's attention dropped to Zaydan again. "Your mother says... to trust her."

Zaydan looked at her. "My mother? Who?" he asked and Marie-Fey looked at him in confusion.

"Sahla. She says, she knows she... broke your heart... she asks you to... trust her. She knows best."

Zaydan's brow creased, pain blurring his eyes but he nodded. "She always did," he muttered.

The ghost gave him another sad smile, then looked at Marie-Fey again. "You must be different... from us," she said gently, "One of those of legends."

"What?"

The ghost opened her mouth, and then she was gone.

Between blinks, she vanished, and the moonlight settled. Then, one by one, the candles began to flicker into life again and, soon enough, a warm glow returned to the room as if the world was settling back to normal.

They were both quiet for a moment, then Marie-Fey let out a breath and sank to the ground beside Zaydan, looking into the middle distance where the ghost had been. The silence stretched for a long time after that, both lost in their own thoughts, until Marie-Fey, surprising herself and without further thought, opened her mouth and opened up.

"Seven years ago, Beldon came in contact with enchantment," she said, her voice soft as Zaydan looked at her. "We were... we were so poor. You asked me once why I feared poverty when I possess so much wealth in my own right, on top of my husband's. It is because I have seen the other side of the coin and it was..."

"Scary," Zaydan supplied and she nodded.

"During that time, there was a man I was acquainted with. I had no interest in him, but I was aware of his interest in me. He was not the only one, but he was the most... insistent. Make no mistake, it was not marriage he had in mind... it was the idea of having a highborn lady submit to him. He convinced himself that, being so poor, I would be willing to do anything for money."

Zaydan looked at her, a knowing spark flickering to life in his eye.

She nodded without looking at him. "I will not look down on the women who have no other means to earn food or some sort of comfort. It is not my place to judge them, but it is also not my place to be them. We were poverty stricken, but we were able to get by. A lady of my stature, I was mortified when he propositioned me – humiliated, I felt my sense of worth plummet in just those few minutes. You have seen how intimidated I am by the women of my class simply because I feel inferior to my sisters and they use that against me. It is a hard-won battle to keep my confidence at times – to remind myself that I am worthy of the Leigh name. And that man, with just a few short words... how dare he make me feel inferior to him."

"What did you do?" Zaydan asked softly.

"I said no," she said simply, "I refused. I told him he didn't deserve me. I told him that if he ever approached me again, I would call on my brothers. I would see that Antoinette destroyed him. I was poor, not desperate."

"And what did he do?" Zaydan asked, his voice softer still.

Mare-Fey fell quiet for a moment as the past flashed through her mind, the sounds, the smells, the brightness of the sun... the sudden pain.

Her fingers delicately touched her stomach, she could still feel the phantom bruising, even now.

"He punched me," she said, "In the stomach. He said he didn't want to bruise my pretty face. I'd be worth nothing if I didn't have that to sell. The shock was... I had never been struck before, in any way. It knocked me back, winded me, I tried to run but I could only stumble. It was like running through snow and then..."

Her hand slid up to grip her shoulder, trembling against the past.

"He had cornered me near the stables. The whip... he had a whip and the pain of that hitting my back – the force – sent me to the ground. And the next thing, he was on top of me, my skirts were... and he..."

Pain bloomed in Marie-Fey's throat as tears began to pool in her eyes. She looked down, drops pattering down on her skirts.

"He didn't get... far..." she forced herself to continue, "My heel, I managed to... between his legs. He was in pain and I managed to break free. I tried to run, grabbing the whip so he couldn't do it again and then I..."

Her tears dried as the rage bloomed again, a violent darkness settling in her eyes as she lifted her head.

"I just wanted him to hurt. And to know that such acts would not go unpunished... so I turned and struck him with the whip," she said, her voice disturbingly calm. "The reason I would not compete with Zaafira in that contest of hers was because I am not trained to use a whip. But Lady Luck saw that I got my wish and I struck him in the face. The end of the whip bludgeoned his eye, shredding it. I said I would take his other eye if he came near me again. I would take his manhood if he told anyone about how he became injured. I would take his life ruined my reputation... and I meant it, but he never spoke a word to anyone."

She looked at her hands, feeling the weight of the whip that had ripped his eye in half. Felt the sting of the bowstring that had taken lives.

"Seven years ago, Beldon feel in with enchantment. He broke a curse and promised his life to a god in exchange for another. It was just before the first breath of magic entered our lives that I was... hurt... I associate the supernatural with the day my life changed. And ever since then, my family has been drowning in enchantment. We cannot get away from it at home, so I tried to get away from it. I came here. I wanted the guarantee of wealth, and I would have less contact with men here. It's... strange. I do not fear men... and yet I do..."

She shook her head.

"The ringmaster, The Black Rabbit, called us the Leigh Legends, people who cannot get away from enchantment... I guess he was right. Here I am, in the middle of yet another curse."

Her voice faded and they sat in quiet for a time, until she looked at him.

"If anyone had ever discovered what had happened, my reputation would have been ruined," she said. "If I had told my family... I know they would have done everything to avenge me, but I could not let them know, not on top of everything else that was happening. That story has sat inside me for seven years, festering and hurting. And I choose to tell a man, who claims to love me, yet now sees someone tainted." She gave him a sad smile as tears prickled her eyes again. "What do you think of your Lady Marie-Fey now?"

Zaydan looked at her for a moment, then reached out.

"May I hold you?" he asked gently.

She looked at him in surprise, then confusion. "If you wish."

"I do, but may I?"

"... Yes."

He held open his arms and, after a pause, she inched towards him until he enveloped her in his embrace and held her against him, his legs on either side of her, his face bowed to hang near hers.

"I think no less and no more than I already did of my Lady Marie-Fey," he said, his voice a whisper, "I am not a man who would think less of a lady when someone else is at fault. You are not to blame for his actions, I cannot think less of you. I think no more because I already know how strong you are, you have proven this time and time again. I wish I could take these last seven years of pain from you, I wish I could, and I am so, so sorry that you have endured them. But I still love you as much as I did the day I first saw you. I still admire you. I am in awe of you. And my opinion should not hold more sway than your opinion of yourself... I wish I had your ability to just keep standing up and moving ahead."

Marie-Fey went quiet again as she lay with her cheek pressed to his chest. "You're turn," she eventually said, "Tell me your secret."

Zaydan lifted his head, resting his chin on the crown of hers. "My secret," he mused, "My secret that's haunted me... the scars, around my neck..." His arms tightened unconsciously around her as his gaze drifted towards the ceiling. "I told you my father was killed at court and they never discovered who did it. I believe it was my brother. He was still too young, really, to hold such command but my brother is... an old soul, I suppose. It was like he was never really a child. And he was unwilling to wait to lay claim to what would be his. So, he murdered our father and I became his right-hand man. Keeping in mind, I was a child myself. Young enough that he could groom me be what he needed me to be. The day I received these scars was the one day I openly rebelled against him."

He suddenly let out a bitter chuckle, the voice dark and ugly.