Before she turned and started walking after Dorothea Sam noticed a slight shift in the Marshal's face. Before they had been gazing at each other with hard, stony expressions. Sam's expressionless face was masking her intense distaste for the man and she had no idea what he was truly feeling. Though she guessed he couldn't have felt particularly warm about her. But then he was looking at her as though he was seeing her clearly for the first time and it made her shift a bit uneasily before she turned and started back towards the old fortress.

She could practically feel his eyes as they walked and it made her shiver sightly. It didn't help that night had fallen and though the pathway was clear do to the light from the moon and the stars it did not stop the cold. The chill bit through the sweater she was wearing and she folded her arms over herself as she walked. She'd have given anything for a jacket, but it wasn't as though she had been prepared to come here. She was lucky that she was wearing long sleeves and pants at all, and shoes as well. She imagined what it would have been like to run through the woods in her pajamas and bare feet and became grateful for her boots as leaves crunched beneath the soles.

They broke through the trees and came upon the fortress. Sam would have liked never to have seen it again and her gaze strayed over to the window they had escaped from. Not much longer than an hour had passed since she had jumped from there but so much had happened in that short amount of time. The Marshal moved in front of them as they reached the door and he opened it for them. After a moment of stillness Dorothea went in with all of the grace a cat could muster. There was surprisingly a lot. Sam looked up from Dorothea's tail to the Marshal and saw him looking at her strangely again. The only way she could think to explain it was that his eyes didn't seem as cold as they had before. She furrowed her eyebrows slightly as she looked at him questioningly, and then he gestured her forward into the old building. Sam complied without a word.

It was dark, especially after the door was closed behind them, and even though the Marshal lit some candles it didn't do much. Sam's eyes had to do a lot of adjusting to this level of lighting and silently swore to never take electricity for granted again. Nor indoor heating. She was still freezing. She watched as the man produced an animal cage, which Dorothea balked at initially but she didn't have much of a choice and it didn't take long for her to get inside of the thing. Sam looked up at the Marshal expectantly, waiting to be taken to her own cage. Which she assumed would be darker and colder than anywhere else in this place. But then he said something quite unexpected and it took a second for her mind to register what he had instructed for her to do.

"Excuse me?" Her gray eyes flickered over to the table he had told her to hide under, then to Dorothea in her cage, before looking back at the Marshal. "You're not taking me to the dungeon...or something?" Sam squinted her eyes slightly as she considered him for a moment and then sighed. "Okay. You're in charge." She went over to the table he had indicated, the one she'd barely noticed beside the large cabinet, and got down to crawl underneath. She looked back at him curiously. "You're serious about this?" Barely waiting for a response from the stoic man, Sam did as she was told and hid under the table. She sat there, shrouded in darkness with her arms wrapped around her kees as she stayed completely silent and breathed quietly through her nose.

~~~

Queen Narissa kept a calm, composed face as she practically glided down a hallway. But internally she was panicking and furious, had been since a man had knocked on her door and told her that Prince Liam had arrived at the castle and urgently needed to speak with her husband. Prince Liam was here? He was supposed to be in Itelia waiting for Dorothea's arrival tomorrow! If he was here now, had traveled on the road connecting their two kingdoms, then he had to have seen the scene she and her guardsman had left... He had to know that Dorothea was missing. 

She hadn't been counting on the kingdoms realizing this fact until Dorothea failed to arrive in Itelia the next day. This didn't dent her plans, she could move quickly and recover from this, but it unnerved her. The boy had obviously tried to make some sort of romantic gesture for his love and discovered the abduction early. But it was night and too dark for any real search to begin. As long as she maintained her calm exterior (which would not be a problem) she would be fine here. Everything else depended on Marshal Derrick and him finding her stepdaughter.

Narissa had told the man to go fetch her daughter. Raquelle would be a shoulder for Liam to cry on, a support system for him when the bad news got worse in the upcoming days. And then they would be wed. Not that Liam had much choice anyway. There were no other princess of Eldonia to choose from. But it would be so much better if his future bride were there to comfort him after his childhood love was taken from him. Narissa almost rolled her eyes at the thought. This marriage arrangement between Liam and Dorothea wasn't simply an arrangement. Though the two had been matched by their fathers early on to ensure that Dorothea would be queen of her birth kingdom and Liam would be a king (he was the second son and couldn't be the king of Itelia), Liam had actually gone and fallen in love with her. Narissa had seen it in his eyes. He didn't care about the kingdom or the crown. He only cared about Dorothea. Which would make matching him and Raquelle so much more challenging than it had to be.

She descended down a staircase to the entrance hall, long gold waves falling to her waist and her ice blue eyes picking out the prince and his steward in an instant. "Prince Liam!" Narissa feigned concern as she paused at the last step. "We were not expecting you. Shouldn't you be in Itelia waiting for Dorothea to arrive tomorrow?"

Liam looked at the queen, trying not to rouse alarm. He wanted Dorothea's father to know first. "That's why I'm here, your Grace. I must speak with your husband immediately. Where is he?"

"He should be here at any moment, please come this way." Narissa led the two young men into a chamber, furnished with velvet chairs and a fireplace that filled the room with warmth. "Please sit. make yourselves comfortable. The king should be here soon."

Will sat, but Liam wasn't able to. He paced in front of the fire as he clutched the scrap of cloth in his pocket.