Jean lay on his back, burning bright sky above him and his soul cut in twain. His legs were as heavy as massive stone blocks. His arms were pinned by nothing but the air. Tears rolled down his face.

Of all the people to stab him in the back, it had to be, and Keita. His heart ached from the spell Keita placed on him, but that was not the real pain. The real pain was the somber look in his eyes as he walked away with Eliza.

Jean's Eliza.

His skeletal fingers twitched at the thought. The image of Keita's throat in his grip filled his mind Eliza taken, not like when Miss Malone had broken his mind, but fully separated from his soul.

He couldn't even close his gate and revert to his normal existence. He was in the second level of his curse permanently. While he was able to keep it open due to his constant training and keeping Eliza out, that didn't mean that he could sleep with his gate open.

"Come back, Keita." More tears streamed down his face as he pushed against the weight holding him down.

His fingers raised, only to be pulled back to the ground. The weight just would not release him, no matter how hard he pushed. He imagined Keita running away, leaving Jean behind yet again.

"It's not even the first time."

That hurt worse. To be stabbed in the back not once, but twice by a friend. He had no memory of Keita the first time, just vague shadows and the sound of Eliza sobbing over him. Tears streamed down his face, even as his body boiled in rage. He sucked in a breath and tried to clench his fist.

Crack.

A finger picked up against the force that held his body, and didn't fall back down. Jean paused, his eye roving across his skeletal chest. He couldn't see the finger, but he felt it rise. It was a chance, however slight, that he might rise up and find Keita. He focused his will into his hand and took in a deep breath.

Crack.

Another finger broke through the spell. Jean's eyes narrowed as he drew in a deeper breath. It was like there had been a poison running through his system. As he was drawing in the aether, it was replacing the control that held his body stunned. He pooled his will and either across his entire hand, and forced it to move.

Crick-crack.

His hand rose from the ground, carrying his arm with it. Jean sucked in a deeper breath and continued his momentum. He forced his body to rise from the ground like a zombie rising from the grave. His bones cracked every step of the way, and pain came as his body regained full movement. His eyes roved down to his arm, where visible cracks sketched a long line across his bones. The movement against his binds had a cost, and it would take time to heal.

He had no choice.

Seconds turned to minutes before he finally rose to one knee. His body shook, but he stood under his own power. It felt like he was bleeding out, though he had no blood. His body may have recovered its movement, but his soul was still shattered.

Only Eliza could fix it.

Ba-bump.

"Ow." he staggered as his heart skipped a beat.

He staggered over to the roof's edge and looked down. Below, the knights had mostly dispersed, the ones that had survived Keita's attack earlier, at least. The rest lay on the ground, their mouths filled with white foam and their eyes white. Jean thought about jumping down, but thought better of it. He wasn't sure his body would survive the fall. That left finding the hard way down.

He walked along the roof, stepping around the cracked side that collapsed to the ground below, until he found a latch in the roof. Every moment was time lost, but his body simply wouldn't let him hurry. He pulled the roof open and clutched an arm at his side as he lowered himself into the dark.

Two floors later, he reached the bottom, and stepped out into the street. He stumbled around the bodies and looked out into the distance down the streets. Filaments of aether flowed in his eyes, out into the sky and away from him. He was certain that Keita had taken flight away from the area, and started staggering toward the filaments.

He did not get very far before he collapsed. A pain burned in his side, though he had no muscles to burn, and he fell against the wall and slid tot he ground. He sucked in a breath and forced more aether through his body, but it refused to respond.

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"These old bones are too weak." he whispered. "I'm sorry, love. My heart would move the heavens and earth for you, but my bones will go no further."

Shame. It was an unusual emotion for him. He lived his life in a way to ensure he had no regrets, and rarely did anything he thought was wrong. However, his weakness now made him small. It reminded him how tiny he was in comparison to the world around him.

Every moment he slacked off, every moment that he took his time. When he held Eliza in his arms as they looked out over a sunset. Those moments were wasted if he was not strong enough to hold on to her. His breathing shortened, and his fingers froze again.

"Will," he whispered, closing his eyes. "Will is the key to this power."

His eyes blinked opened, and he sucked in another deep breath. How could he explain the surge of knowledge, the epiphany that cut through his pain? It was the single pleasure of discovery. Keita's magick binds had wrapped themselves around his limbs. Keita willed that Jean could not move, and thus, Jean could not move.

Unless he had a will stronger than Keita's own.

"That is where these shameful thoughts come in. I cannot see their origins, but I know they must be a part of the spell."

Maybe he was coping with his own ineptitude, but it gave him a path forward. He sucked in a breath and forced another burst of aether and will through his bones. He forced himself to stand, and crawled up the wall until he stood, albeit supported with one arm.

"This is not over, Keita!"

"Step."

Beside him, a man appeared that he recognized all too well. He wore a long black and red coat, with a black cap that rested askew on his head. He was an old man, with a long unkempt grey beard and dark eyes. Captain Grayson, former captain of the Robin, and former jailor to Jean, stood next to him, an unconscious Wen draped over his shoulders.

That wasn't right. She had been fine when they had left.

"Well, I'll be damned." Grayson spat as he looked Jean up and down. "You look worse than when you were in the cage, Reanimator."

"I imagine you're enjoying that thought," Jean whispered, forcing a smile on his face, though he couldn't muster a chuckle to go with it. "I certainly feel much worse. Even the Military Police had better hospitality than old friends."

"You alright?"

"No. What happened to Wen?"

"She took out that water Finger." Grayson shrugged. "Hurt herself something fierce in the process. I went out searching for one of you, and you were the first I picked up on."

Jean squinted his eyes. If he recalled correctly, Grayson had use of the Path of Will. He burned to ask him to find the direction Keita had run in, but instead focused his eyes on Wen. He could see things with his spirit sight that others could not, and what he saw confirmed his fears.

White cold energy wrapped itself around her heart, crunching in on itself periodically as it squeezed the area tight. Her power was consuming her gate, and would come back renewed if she survived the process. All the training on the trip from Aherlow seemed to be paying off.

Part of him was proud, behind the part that knew the risks.

"She's teetering on the bring of the next level." Jean sighed, sagging against the wall. "Her injuries put her life at risk, but Erin could help her best."

"What about yourself?" Grayson gave him a long look with one baleful eye. "Your heart hurting too?"

"My malady isn't one of the flesh." Jean coughed.

"I feel that's obvious." Grayson grinned.

"Hah." Laughing hurt. "I didn't intend for that pun."

"Your entire body looks off." Grayson quirked his head. "I can't see it, but it feels like you're wrapped in chains."

"That's an accurate way to describe it." Jean grimaced.

"You were with that 'Chosen' guy, right? What happened to him?"

Pain. Betrayal. Escape.

"We went our separate ways," Jean whispered. "Not as friends."

"Bed with outlaws, expect betrayal." Grayson nodded. "Normally, I'd arrest you while you were weak, but we're still working together under the Lopolds. I can't carry you, but we can find your friends together."

"That I can work with." Jean nodded.

They started off together, though they didn't walk closely. Jean didn't know what he was going to do now. He couldn't chase down Keita, and his soul was ripped in twain. He was a broken man who couldn't chase after Keita to exact his vengeance.

And he was too ashamed to ask for help.

Then, to his surprise, the weight holding his body disappeared completely. Like a taut string suddenly cut, he fell forward, landing on his hands against the ground. His bones scraped across the stone, but he held himself up. A sapping sensation filled his limbs as his gate lowered out of the second level.

He was free.

"What happened?"

Grayson didn't jump down at him, and sounded more annoyed than concerned.

"My chains have been cut," Jean whispered, pushing himself up to his feet with a misplaced step. "But I am not better for it."

"If it was something someone did to you, it probably has a range," Grayson said. "If they got outside the range, then it makes sense that the effect would fade. Unless they died, of course. Very few curses can beat the death of the user."

"Fate would never be that kind," Jean said. "It is ever a tempest."

"If you say so." Grayson shrugged. "That sort of stuff never made sense to me."

There was no way he could chase after Keita, even with the chains gone. He was angry, but he was no fool. The moment he found himself unable to follow Keita, he knew that he would have to plan out their next encounter.

However, a biting doubt nagged at him. His gate filled his body with the cold power of undeath. The second level of his curse, was it still there? If he reached in now, breathed in an ocean of aether, would he still have access to it? Could he still summon Eliza to his side?

What would it mean if he could?

The implications of the idea scratched at the back of his mind. Never before had his curse been tested in such a way. He had never experimented with the idea that Eliza was anything but herself. However, once the idea was in his mind, it was hard to let go.

He sucked in a breath, and wracking pain shot through his body. His gate would take no more aether. He needed rest before he could test his idea.

"Pain," he whispered. "Pain if I do, pain if I do not. I stand at a crossroads, with no way forward that will not hurt me."

"You alright?" Grayson looked him over with an appraising eye. "I can sense you're free, but you still look like the abyss, and she's getting heavy."

"I don't know," Jean whispered, forcing himself to stand. "But soon, I will have to find out."

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