Joanna Valeria Winsten was a lot of things, but a hero she was not.

 

The butter knife felt pitifully insufficient in her hands, and Niel’s stare was one of confusion rather than gratefulness. She supposed that she did look rather ridiculous in her current predicament— because dashing, last-minute heroic entrances sounded good only in your imagination, not in reality. And certainly not when you had one of your hands in a sling and the other holding cutlery for self-defence.

 

Joe didn’t know if they were saved, but she did know that she wasn’t giving up Niel without a fight. All things considered, it was miraculous luck that she and Perry had actually managed to find Gail and the Prince in this monstrous maze of a garden— because they had been going round in circles for the past twenty minutes. Apparently, Lady Joanna had enough skills to memorize the faces of all the Royal Palace staff, but not the measly direction to the stables. Joe was this close to tearing all her hair out of frustration— but then she would definitely go bald and she didn’t quite want to look anything like Gail.

 

She took a stealthy glance at the bald man in question. His bushy-eyebrows were furrowed deeper than usual— if it were even possible— and the look he was giving her was positively murderous.

 

Gail felt his left eye twitch in annoyance. It was just one obstacle after another, just when they had their objective right within their sights. The little noble girl was still getting in his way— for what purpose, he did not know. She had just met the second Prince just two hours ago, did she already fall head-over-heels in love with him?!

 

Well, no matter. The plan will not be derailed, not at this stage, and certainly not after they’d spent six whole years in its making. Lawrence’s death was a pity (Gail did not even bother to pretend that the idiot stood a chance against Shawn the Wicked), but a necessary sacrifice all the same. That mayhem was what allowed him to separate the boy Prince from his dogged bodyguard. And bless the gullible Prince— he was naïve enough to follow Gail like a clueless pup.

 

So why? Why was the damned Winsten girl waltzing back to block his way now?

 

He turned to Thomas and silently exchanged a look of understanding. A naïve boy prince, a bratty noble girl and her snivelling maid. This was a nuisance, but nothing that required much work. It was going to be an easy tussle— Gail wouldn’t even deign this as a proper fight. They needed to get the Prince out of the Palace before Rylbert Hawkins caught any wind of their plan, and they couldn’t afford to waste time dawdling here. The stables weren’t too far away now— Thomas had their escape route memorized to a tee— and even if the Catbilly drug hadn’t worked on the boy as they’d expected, Gail still had several tricks up his sleeve to make use of that plant. It had taken years for him to finally create and perfect the concoction, he will be damned if he let it go to waste now.

 

(There was a gnawing feeling in his gut— as if he was missing something obvious. Why hadn’t the drug worked in the first place?)

 

“Joey!” Prince Emmanuel was yelling at his fiancée, his eyes wide in disbelief. “What the devil are you doing here, you idiot?!”

 

“Saving your arse, that’s what.” Joe gave him a stink eye. She grabbed the sword tied to her back and threw it towards the boy before Gail could even notice the movement of her hands. The prince leapt forward to catch it in a swift elegant motion, and then gracelessly skidded across the mud in a heap of fumbling limbs.

 

“Joey! Don’t throw other people’s things!”

 

“Where’s my thank you, goddammit?!”

 

“So now you have a fancy sword.” Thomas began, halting their squabble. He was glaring at the newly arrived pair of noble girl and maid with ill-concealed disdain. “Does it look like you’re saved, Princeling?”

 

Emmanuel slid open the sword out of its scabbard. “I have a fighting chance, at least.” He was looking more nervous than before, and Joe had sinking suspicion that her own presence was the cause of that. Brat must’ve thought that he needed to protect her, out of some weird sense of chivalry. Not that she did not appreciate being protected— who in their right mind would want to die— but right now her Royal protector with his pale face and quivering lips wasn’t a very inspiring sight, even with a sword in his hand.

 

As if to prove her point, Thomas lazily pulled out his own sword from the scabbard and gave her a serene smile. Translation: This is what you’re dealing with, kids.

 

Joe swallowed her saliva and nervously scooted closer to Emmanuel.

 

The boy prince glanced between Gail and Thomas, and then discreetly back at his ‘fiancée’. She had a look of grim determination on her face. Where the devil did all that reckless confidence come from?!

 

“Listen, uh… Joey.” He whispered as quietly as he could, feeling awfully like he was trying to tame a wild animal. “I appreciate your guts for coming all this way— but neither you nor Perry are in any position to save me right now.” Hell, even I am in no position to save myself right now!

 

“Who said anything about saving?!” Joe snapped back, and then lowered her voice quickly. “We are just here to stall for time. If there’s an opening, we turn tails and run. If not— out only option is to wait for Shawn.”

 

“Stall for time?! Really Joey? Do you think that you’re good enough to buy time against two grown men with weapons?!”

 

“Silence! I don’t want to hear that from someone who almost willingly followed his kidnapper and got us in this situation in the first place!”

 

“You’re going to bring that up now?!”

 

“Quiet.” That single word dripping with repressed rage stopped their exchange abruptly. “Shut yer mouths.” Gail finally brandished his own dagger at them, his expression thoroughly pissed off. “No one’s going anywhere from ‘ere. And no one moves a muscle unless they want to get sliced in half.”

 

That voice was cold and ruthless, as if daring anyone to test its patience.

 

Joe could tell that he wasn’t bluffing. If anything, he looked impatient and reckless. She supposed that she would have been too, if she were this close to smuggling her hostage out of the enemy camp and some scrawny kid sauntered out of the bushes to block her way.

 

…..If she ever started entertaining the thoughts of kidnapping someone— that is.

 

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Gail motioned his head at Thomas, “Go ahead and kill the girl and the maid. We don’t want to leave any witnesses around.”

 

Joe blanched at the undisguised threat. So we’re going to get sliced in half anyway?!

 

Thomas flashed a triumphant grin, muttering “Aye, aye”, and took two menacing steps closer. Immediately, Emmanuel leapt up like a jackrabbit and blocked his way. The boy prince was literally shaking in his boots, but his grip never loosened from the sword.

 

“D-Don’t harm them.” He stuttered, not feeling the least bit reassured even with his beloved weapon in his hands. “I will not make a fuss anymore— but don’t harm them, please.” He did not know what had possessed him to stand against the man, he did not know what made him offer himself up without a fuss to a pair of traitors and terrorists, but he did know with a certainty down to his bone marrow that Joe and her maid did not deserve to get dragged into hell with him. This fight wasn’t theirs to fight to begin with.

 

The sight must have amused Thomas.

 

“Gail, are you sure we cannot have some fun with the girl before we kill her? It’s been a while since I got handed the opportunity to deal with a noble Lady on a silver platter, heh heh heh.”

 

Gail didn’t flinch. “We don’t have time for that. Hurry the hell up!”

 

Thomas pulled back his sword and kicked Emmanuel square in the chest, sending him crashing into the ground with a sickening crack.

 

“NIEL!!”

 

Joe couldn’t stifle the scream that ripped out of her throat. She dashed frantically to his side, knees skidding in the dirt and her uninjured hand reaching out for the boy groaning in pain. He slurred out words that sounded something like Get away from here! before clutching his chest and wheezing like an asthma patient.

 

Thomas did not give them the time to breathe. He was behind Joe in a flash, sword held above his arms with the aim to kill. With inhuman reflexes, Emmanuel grabbed the girl and rolled her over on the ground, simultaneously swapping their positions and shielding her with his own body— just as Thomas brought down his sword in one brutal swing.

 

He snapped his eyes shut instinctively, heart hammering in pure terror as he anticipated the inevitable strike upon his neck. Many years later, when Emmanuel would remember this split moment of decision— with a sword above his neck and Joey frantically calling his name beneath him, he would think that it was perhaps the single most illogical action in his entire life— and one that he would never regret even in death, even if this was the very last thing he did before he died.

 

Luckily for the prince, the reality of that day had played out much differently.

 

“Shit!” Thomas swore loudly— at the same time that Gail yelled with bloodshot eyes. “Careful dumbass!”— and managed to halt his strike just shy of a few centimetres from the boy’s nape.

 

“What the devil are ya doing?!” Gail screamed bloody murder, “We cannot get the boy killed!”

 

I could use this to my advantage, Emmanuel thought in a rush of adrenaline, but Joe seemed to have gathered her wits faster. She saw Thomas frozen in his tracks right above the prince, and hurled the butter knife straight at his face with all the strength she could muster.

 

Thomas swore again and ducked away in the nick of time, the knife only grazing his cheek. The man lost his balance momentarily and stepped away, unsure of what to do. Emmanuel took the opportunity to jump back on his feet and aimed a feeble slash at Thomas’s midsection, which obviously did no damage to his opponent whatsoever. The prince wheezed and gasped for breath. His chest was hurting like hell, but the reaction from Thomas was enough proof that unlike Joey and her maid, they wanted him alive.

 

Joe struggled to get up on her feet, and then winced. Her scraped knees and shins stung, and she was beginning to suspect that she had actually sprained an ankle this time.

 

Why did nothing ever worked the way she wanted it to?! No, scratch that— why the hell was she still thinking that things will work out the way she wanted them to?!

 

Emmanuel stumbled closer to her, his heart beating a over hundred miles a minute.

 

A shadow loomed above them. Thomas must have recovered from his slight misstep, and was now leering at her like a creep. “Get up, my Lady. Aren’t you a noble? Don’t you nobilities get off on looking down on us?” His lips twisted into a smile that looked anything but pleasant. “Are you sure that you should be sitting on the dirt like that, my Lady? Get up over here and let me kill you honourably, mmkay?”

 

The wound from the knife graze was bleeding on his cheek, and Thomas licked the blood off like a rabid dog. The sight was mildly disgusting and thoroughly unsanitary. Joe frantically tried to gather the bearings of her mind, screamed a little inside, almost bit her tongue off, before giving up and fixing Thomas with what she could only hope was face of infinite wisdom that she did not currently possess.

 

“Are—Are you sure that’s good idea? Not just kidnapping a noble, but killing one as well? There guards will find our bodies sooner or later.” She tried to sound convincing but failed, “Won’t it— err, paint a bigger target on your back?”

 

Thomas stared back coolly without any reaction. Joe briefly considered pulling the ‘My father will hear about it!’ card, but the look on the man’s face said that he didn’t give a shit about that. He was tapping the sword lightly on his boot— a picture of perfect innocence, as if he was merely considering what to buy for dinner instead of killing two people in cold blood.

 

The girl felt several drops of sweat trickle down her throat. Memories of the Grimm canyon were beginning to surface on her mind, and a traitorous part of her heart secretly hoped for the Devil to take possession of her body again. But there was neither a Devil nor any Nero to save her in this predicament, only her foolish recklessness and empty threats.

 

Her courage was failing her right when she thought that she had it by the balls.

 

“What the devil are you doing, fool?!” Lady Joanna screamed like a banshee inside her head, “If you get us killed right now, I promise I will— I will haunt you forever! Don’t underestimate how obsessive teenagers can be, dammit! I will loom over you when you’re eating breakfast or taking a dump! You will be too scared to go to toilet alone! You want that, asshole?!”

 

Wow! The fear was sure doing a number on her choice of vocabulary. Joe knew that she didn’t quite have it in her to recite a long, badass spiel of glory in the face of danger, so she settled for a mean scowl with an air of indifference that of course, fooled no one.

 

Emmanuel briefly glanced at her face and gave her a look of pity. He was clearly thinking that she has lost her marbles.

 

“Look. Y-You gotta think long term about these things, yes?” Joe blurted out before she could stop herself. The office-worker in her was still alive and kicking, it seemed. “You’re practically in enemy territory here. Wouldn’t, uhh— keeping us a hostage be a better idea?”

 

Lady Joanna screeched inside her head. “Excuse me?!”

 

Gail gave an irritated snort. Thomas even didn’t bother to deign her with a reply. He took two menacing steps closer, sword in hand and glinting in the sun like a diamond— and lunged. “Don’t sit on your ass!” The villainess hollered, “RUN!” and Joe scrambled up on her knees to sprint in the opposite direction.

 

She could not go very far, however, because Gail had nimbly jumped in front of her escape route, having suddenly decided that he no longer wanted to play the audience. The danger on Emmanuel must have spurred him on to finish things faster, and he looked like he couldn’t trust Thomas anymore.  Joe halted like a deer caught in headlights, mind spinning and trying to messily calculate how far she could run with a limp, when Gail gripped his dagger and swung the blade straight at her neck.

 

The incoming strike was blocked with a loud clang. Niel had leapt on shaky legs between Joe and a livid Gail, his sword outstretched and arms strained. Joe ducked behind the prince, suddenly feeling lightheaded. Without Niel, she would have died at least five times over today. Really, the boy prince would make a better hero than she could ever be.

 

In her moment of vulnerability, Joe forgot the enemy chasing right behind her.

 

Thomas saw the girl’s back wide open, smirked at the anticipation of victory, and charged in straight like a raging bull. The noble brat would pay for throwing that knife on his face, ohh— how he wanted to shove her into the dirt, to slash her pretty face, and look down upon her like all those nobilities do to the commoners around them. He wanted to have his sweet time humiliating her— but the mission came first and poor, poor Thomas had to settle with slicing her open instead. Maybe he could watch, relish in her final moments when she’d bleed out and beg for sweet mercy?

 

A blur of movement on his left, and a solid body collided with his own. Thomas, thrown off from his murderous musings and his trajectory, snarled and rounded angrily at the sudden intruder. There was no one at his left, which left the man momentarily confused, before a searing pain exploded on his right side.

 

Who the hell— ?!

 

It was neither the prince nor the girl— Thomas staggered backwards as Perry twirled a table knife in her hands, a look of lazy concentration on her face. There was a small gash on his right side of the chest, deep enough to soak his shirt through blood.

 

“You bitch!” He spat furiously, clutching his bleeding wound with his unarmed hand. The yell shifted Gail’s attention for a split second, and Emmanuel took that opening to spit into the bald man’s eyes, instantly jumping back out of his dagger’s reach.

 

“Thomas, my dear comrade.” Gail’s voice was an eerie calm when he wiped the spit with his sleeves. “What do you think you are doing, playing around here with a girl and her maid?”

 

Maid?! Emmanuel’s mind went blank momentarily.

 

Perry?! Joe whipped around so fast she almost had a whiplash. She saw her maid with a bloodied knife and almost tripped on her feet.

 

The taunt only seemed fuelled Thomas’s anger further. He pivoted on his heels and brought down his sword diagonally on Perry’s right shoulder. The maid twirled away on her feet like a ballerina and twisted the knife deep into his left shoulder instead.

 

The man howled in agony, clamping down on the wound like a feral animal.

 

“Please do not move too much, it will be troublesome for both of us.” Replied the maid, as if reprimanding a child who’d scraped his knees on the dirt. She swayed to the side as Thomas snarled and swung right where she stood— the strike landed on thin air and got his sword stuck in the ground with a thwack. Perry wasted no time to bury the knife into his torso.

 

Thomas tilted dangerously, blood gushing out of the wound. “SHIT!”

 

He turned around, his pride refusing to be put down by a woman, and pulled out his weapon with sheer strength in one final dangerous arc, aiming straight at the maid’s head.

 

But this time, Thomas’s back was wide open to Joe instead— and the girl did the only thing she could remember from her battle in the Canyon.

 

Perry ducked down smoothly, just as Joe swung up her foot and kicked the man straight between his legs.

 

Thomas wrangled out a garbled scream before curling into a ball in the ground.

 

“That was beautiful, Milady.” Perry flashed a thumbs up at the girl, as if Joe had just shown her a neat party trick instead of smashing a man’s family jewels.

 

Joe weakly grinned back.

 

The man in question was moaning in agony, clutching his stomach wound with all the will he could muster. Poor guy was still kicking around through sheer spite, Perry thought with detached curiosity, as she stomped hard on his fingers which were still trying to reach his sword. Thomas let out a strangled hiss at the impact, and finally seemed to realize his predicament when the maid crouched down beside him in one smooth motion.

 

“Nothing personal.” She smiled and plunged the knife straight into his neck.

 

-------------------

 

Emmanuel heard the scream behind him, but did not dare his eyes off Gail. He did not know how long he would last— fending off these people who seemed like monsters in human skin— but he would be damned if he let them hurt innocent people for their twisted

 

A flicker of absolute bewilderment passed over Gail’s face for a heartbeat— as if someone had just passionately declared that a tuft of hair was now growing on his bald head— and Emmanuel yet again resisted the urge to look behind him. Judging from the fact that the scream had come from Thomas and not from Joe or Perry, the Prince guessed that they were unharmed at the moment. A sliver of confusion immediately replaced the relief in his head. How the devil did the two of them get Thomas off his back?!

“….That damned maid!” His bald opponent was muttering, and Emmanuel instantly felt his confusion quadruple.

 

Gail, however, did not give him the luxury to ponder upon it further. He thrust his dagger straight at the prince’s eye. The boy let out a startled shriek and blocked it clumsily with his sword, eyes scrunched shut with fear— and Gail instantly seized the opportunity to crouch down and knock Emmanuel’s feet off the ground with a sweeping kick at his calves.

 

Several things happened at once.

 

The boy prince stumbled backwards in surprise, and Gail knocked his sword off his hand with a quick flick of his dagger’s dull side. Before Emmanuel find his bearings again, the man wrestled him down in the dirt with the strength of a bull and locked his hands behind his back. The boy hissed in agony, face pressed helplessly on the ground.

 

Joe shrieked, “Shit— Niel!” at the same time when Gail yelled sharply from his spot, “Nobody move!” and pressed his dagger threateningly at the prince’s exposed neck.

 

…..What followed his declaration was certainly not something Gail had anticipated.

 

The threat had taken one second too late to registered on Joe’s frantic brain, because she abandoned all pretences of logical thought and threw herself on Gail’s throat with a full body tackle and an embarrassingly loud grunt of victory.

 

The move was so unexpected to Gail that he forgot about his own threat and could only utter a shocked “Huh—?!” before the wiry girl all but pounced on him, sling, dress and all.

 

His dagger slipped from his finger dangerously close to Emmanuel’s neck, almost giving the boy prince a heart attack.

 

“Joey!!” He wanted to yell, but his mouth was instantly muffled with Joe’s layered skirt and face-full of stockinged feet. At any other moment, Emmanuel would have died from the embarrassment, but right now he was more in danger of dying in a heart attach or decapacitated by a dagger— which ever came first.

 

There was a brief tussle, during which Gail let out a shrill “Bitch, you bit me!” and Perry hauled the boy Prince out of the tangle of limbs with a single hand. Emmanuel scrambled out like a cockroach and hastily swiped the dagger out of the bald man’s reach. Joe was indeed biting down hard on his right bicep and pulling at his hair with her good arm— and if the situation weren’t so dire, Emmanuel would have collapsed in helpless laughter at the scene in front of him.

 

Perry stopped his arm when he poised the dagger at Gail. “Don’t.” she said with a calm that Emmanuel was truly beginning to envy. “You’ll miss and hurt Lady Joanna.”

 

Gail had finally had enough and slapped Joe square across the face. She got tossed aside like a ragdoll with an ugly shriek. Emmanuel felt his heart leap into his throat, but Perry did not even blink. She snatched the dagger from his hand and pushed him out of the way in one single motion, and pounced on the bald man with a single-minded intention to kill.

 

The blow landed on empty ground. Gail rolled over out of the maid’s reach and scrambled up on his feet. Of all the things that he thought could get in the way of his mission today, a fucking maid was not on the list. Where the devil had things gone wrong?

 

The man tried to calm him breathing and peered into his opponent’s eyes. People usually had one of three kinds of mentality in a fight— the stupid ones that fought out of notions of honour and justice, the cocky ones that they thought they had the upper hand, and the mildly intelligent ones that instantly recognized when they were far outclassed by their opponents and ran away at the first opportunity.

 

Gail hated the first type the most. He tried to gauge his opponent’s reaction.

 

The maid’s expression revealed nothing.

 

“Take Lady Joanna away from here, Your Highness.” She was telling the boy Prince panting behind her. Joe groaned on the ground a few meters away from him, and Emmanuel could tell that the tussle with Gail had worsened the condition of her wounded arm. He glanced at the maid worriedly, “What about you, Miss Perry?”

 

Perry’s face remained as blank as a slate. “I have some dirty laundry to take care of.”

 

Gail bristled at the detached tone.

 

I cannot win against this bitch with a weapon, he thought furiously, and sent a wide roundhouse kick at the maid. It was so unexpected that Perry could only pull back in the nick of time— but the foot collided with her right hand and sent the dagger flying at a terrifying distance.

 

Joe watched in horror. “Perry!”

 

Perry flexed her fingers experimentally. It wasn’t broken, but she hadn’t expected the man to actually respond with a kick. Gail was cleverer and faster than Thomas— he pounced at the maid without a moment’s hesitation and brought his fist down on her face. The woman blocked his hand with a frightening speed and used the momentum to throw him over her shoulder like a potato sack.

 

Gail sprang right back up as soon as he landed— Perry briefly admired the doggedness— and lunged back at her from behind. “How fucking long are you going to last—” he yelled triumphantly, face split into a wide grin, “— Without a fucking weapon?!”

 

Perry smashed a ceramic plate on his grinning face.