‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ asks Hex.
‘Yes, I would, actually. That’s why I’m asking.’ Snow pauses. ‘What’s this place even like, come hibernation season? Does she lose all her powers? Go to sleep for months on end? Is that why she needs the two of you around? To protect her through the winter?’
‘Stop it,’ replies Scarlett, a frustrated, doggish whine to her tone.
‘Is that her plan with us, ultimately?’ continues Snow, unabashed. ‘Get a whole gang of bodyguards and nursemaids?’
‘We’re keeping you from making trouble,’ whispers Scarlett. ‘There’ve been anti-huntsman movements springing up all along the border, the past week. Even as far up as Slate. What if the Citadel blames us for that? Me and Hex came here for a simpler life, to get away from all this turbulence that keeps sparking up whenever the magical and the human collide.’ Her tone softens again. ‘Sorry. But that’s the truth. We’re all in agreement, Gilde, Hex and me.’
‘What does she do to you when you’re not in agreement with her?’ Gretel asks gently.
The change in Scarlett is terrifyingly swift. Her ears point, her eyes narrow, her face elongates and fills with thick hair and sharp fangs.
‘Shut up,’ she just about manages to snarl before her mouth becomes too animalistic to form words. She tries to say something else, but it comes out as muted growls.
‘Scarlett?’ Hex scrambles down from the cage and faces her, his hand and wing raised, his voice and expression deliberately neutral. ‘Scarlett. It’s OK. You know changing without using your hood muddles you.’
Gretel stares back at her, as calmly and unflinchingly as she can, although she does notice Jack and Buttercup wince slightly at the sight of those colossal, pointed teeth.
‘I know. You’re tired and upset.’ Hex makes no attempt to touch the snarling Werewolf. ‘Relax. Breathe. Focus.’
Scarlett pulls back from her wolf form as quickly as she went into it. Her hands don’t even get the chance to fully become paws before the human fingers lengthen out of them again. As her snout and fur recede back, Scarlett’s expression is a curious combination of doggy and human embarrassment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, tripping over a still slightly canine tongue. ‘I’ve got to stop slipping into the wolf when I’m overwhelmed. I’m just not used to keeping prisoners; I don’t know how to go about it but it’s exhausting, and… and…’
Scarlett tries to discreetly wipe away a couple of tired, frustrated tears, but more take their place. She begins to quietly sob a little, in strange, high-pitched, doglike whines.
‘We’re sorry you’re tired,’ says Buttercup gently.
‘No you’re not,’ whimpers Scarlett.
Fair enough, Gretel thinks to herself, she really isn’t that sorry that their jailer is a bit tired and emotional, in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it means she’ll be more susceptible to somebody capable of laying on the charm rather thicker than Gretel can.
With Hex and Scarlett temporarily distracted, Gretel hurls a spare screw at Jack’s head. Jack shoots her a silent expression of indignation. His attention grabbed, Gretel nods towards the whining Werewolf. Jack shrugs, confused. Gretel nods across at Scarlett again, as meaningfully as she can. Jack thinks for a moment, and then nods at Gretel with a cautious air of understanding.
‘Hey.’ Jack leans forward a little, a familiar, fake, sparkle to his eyes. ‘Hey, Hex.’
Gretel sighs.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Hex clambers back up the cage. ‘This, still? I know what you’re doing. Buttering me up for when your princess has questions about hibernation. I know how good witch, bad witch works, you know!’
‘I’m not a “bad witch”,’ huffs Snow.
‘Bad communicator though,’ mutters Buttercup.
‘Not now, Buttercup.’
‘Just saying, dear.’
‘Will you two please pack it in?’ moans Trevor from under the cup. ‘Honestly, I’ve never known the pair of you carry on like this for so long before, and in front of company, too! Sorry about this, new guys, between one thing and the other, you are not seeing us at our best right now.’
‘Yes, well.’ Hex crouches on the top of the cage again, watching the exhausted Werewolf rub her eyes. ‘We could say the same of us.’
Gretel looks up from her metalworking, sensing another opportunity. ‘I expect you know what it can get like. When you’ve done something wrong and they won’t tell you what it was…’
‘Thank you,’ says Snow. ‘See, Buttercup? If you won’t tell me…’
‘I won’t tell you?’ hisses Buttercup, in spite of the fact that trapped in a cage in the middle of a packed cottage while trying not to wake one of your captors is not exactly the time or place to have this sort of conversation. ‘You never told me about how you think we should all have to stay in these rotten woods forever! You let me think that someday… someday…’
‘What, that someday we could go riding triumphantly back to my old castle, past the scaffold where I watched them kill my mother and take up residence in the throne room where they tortured my father for thirteen years?’
‘You’re their queen! You’re their beacon of hope…’
‘They killed my mum, Buttercup! Would you think humans and witches could still live happily together if they’d killed your mum?’
‘Well, they didn’t kill my mum,’ retorts Buttercup. ‘They rewarded my mum, when she reported me.’
‘Oh,’ breathes Snow.
‘Oh,’ gasp Gretel and the others in a sad echo.
‘I didn’t know that,’ Snow says softly. ‘I’m so sorry, Buttercup.’
‘They hated me, in my old town.’ Buttercup catches a couple of errant tears. They hit her hand and turn into tiny droplets of custard. ‘They knew my magic wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t on purpose, but they still hated me and my… little accidents. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on ever trying to live in human civilisation again. Maybe in a place like Nearby. Or, you know… actually in Nearby. It’s nice there.’
‘It is nice there,’ agrees Gretel, almost inaudibly.
‘But to hear you say that you wouldn’t even try… that you don’t believe witches should try to live in human territory… how could I make a home for myself without you, Snow?’ Buttercup tries to wipe the custard tear on her sleeve, but just ends up with a handful of wet filo pastry. ‘You’re my family. You’re my Snow.’
‘Oh, you soppy apeth,’ sighs Snow fondly. She shuffles over to Buttercup in the cramped cage and wipes the glutinous goop from the Cake Witch’s hands.
‘Is… this all part of the good witch, bad witch thing?’ asks Hex, warily.
Snow glares at him. ‘There is no “good witch, bad witch”! Why would this be about you?’
Hex looks sheepish. ‘I thought maybe you were drawing on how important family always was to me? And how Septa and us brothers were always so close after we lost our mother? And…’