Aelius was kept in the lab for a while longer. Long enough that he lost track of how many times the clock on the far wall clicked its brass gears. Corvin eventually slipped away, claiming he had tests to run or reports to file, but the man kept looking back over his shoulder like he was waiting for Aelius to try something. Like he wanted to witness the attempt. Aelius wasn't sure if that made him a sadist or just curious. Since corvin was him? Probably both.
The general, whose name he still wasn't told The old man sat back on the wide leather couch, muttered something about soldiers never sleeping enough, crossed his arms, and promptly fell asleep. Right there. In full uniform. Boots still on. Snoring like he didn't have a kingdom on standby or a stranger from another world within stabbing distance.
Aelius watched him for a while, flat stare, trying not to let the heaviness in his chest twist into something like envy. He couldn't remember the last time he slept like that, without assuming something was biting at the back of his neck.
He tested his arms a bit, rolling his shoulders. No restraints. No wards binding his movement. The general didn't add any rules, just shrugged and told the guards outside not to shoot unless Aelius tried to level the building.
Even so, Aelius knew. He wasn't dumb enough to pretend he could break his way out of here. Not without his magic running through every muscle. Without that surge, without that unnatural strength, he was just a man with a bad attitude and decent swordskill. The castle guard outnumbered him a hundred to one, and even unaugmented, they looked like people who had trained from childhood.
He stood anyway, pacing a slow circle around the lab table. The general didn't stir. Aelius glanced toward the open door. Two guards. Heavy armor. Spears out, but relaxed. They didn't look nervous. That alone told him everything. Either they didn't fear him, or they knew the entire hallway behind them was filled with people ready to dogpile him into swiss cheese the second he stepped out of line.
His jaw tightened.
He hated being caged. Hated being without power even. Hated relying on it more. Hated everything right now if he was honest.
He paced one more time, slower, hands tucked behind his back. He was annoyed that he looked restless, even more so that he was restless.
The general finally snorted awake, blinking blearily. "You still here?" he mumbled, rubbing his face.
"You told me not to leave," Aelius shot back.
"Didn't tell you not to move," the old man said, stretching like his joints were made of rusted metal. "But you decided not to bolt. Good. Shows sense."
Aelius shrugged. "Wasn't planning on suicide today."
"That so? You looked like you were thinking real hard about something."
Aelius didn't answer. The general pushed himself upright, groaning as he grabbed his cane and pointed it vaguely at him.
"My boys got a fancy brain, but it's terrible with people. He'll poke at you like a specimen until he figures out what you hate most. If he's giving you space, it's on purpose."
"I noticed."
"Good," the general grunted, stepping over to him. "Means I don't have to explain everything."
Aelius watched him silently. The old man stared back, eyes sharp despite the fatigue. A second of heavy quiet settled between them before the general let out a slow breath. The general nodded once, like he wasn't judging, wasn't prying, just accepting the information as it came. He leaned a little on his cane.
"Then maybe you'll understand why our king wants you stable. My grandson wants you studied, though it's just his excuse to keep you alive. And I want you not dead just like him'. All for different reasons, boy."
Aelius gave him a look. "I'm not your boy."
"No," the general agreed with a tired smile. "But you're a problem. And until I decide otherwise, you're mine to watch."
Aelius snorted. "Comforting."
"You'll live," the general said, waving it off. "For now, I'm taking you out of this damn lab. You look like you're ready to climb the walls."
"Where?"
"A walk," the old man said simply. "To clear your head. And so you stop looking like a trapped wolf."
Aelius hesitated. The guards tensed a little, eyes flicking toward him. He didn't like being shepherded around. But staying here meant sitting in his own thoughts or getting bored enough to actually attempt escape, and he wasn't sure which was worse.
He sighed. "Fine."
The general nodded. "Good. I'll show you the gardens. If you're going to be in this place for a while, you might as well know the paths you can roam without getting skewered."
Aelius raised a brow. "That a threat?"
"A kindness," the general said. "The threats come later."
Aelius huffed a quiet breath, almost a laugh. The old man grinned at that, motioning him toward the door.
Aelius followed.
Not because he trusted him, but because the alternative was staying still. And stillness had never been his friend.
They walked in silence for a long stretch of hallway, the kind that echoed every footstep, no matter how lightly Aelius tried to tread. The guards posted at intervals straightened the moment they saw the general, bowing their heads with crisp precision. Then their eyes would slide to Aelius, hardening like tempered steel. No words, no threats, just that razor edge of recognition. Outsider. Stranger. Possible danger.
Aelius didn't flinch. He met the looks evenly and kept walking. Let them stare. He'd been glared at by things that could rot a man with a whisper. Compared to that, a few soldiers with shiny armor meant nothing.
Eventually, they reached the end of the hall. Two guards pulled open a final set of massive oak doors, hinges groaning under the weight. The general stepped through first.
Cool, wet air washed over Aelius before he even crossed the threshold.
When he did, he paused.
The garden was huge, easily swallowing the courtyard he'd glimpsed from the flight earlier. The path beneath his boots shifted from polished stone to compacted pale gravel, branching out in several directions like a network of veins. Tall trimmed hedges framed each route, hiding whatever lay beyond the first bend. A few white flowers clung to their vines despite the season, giving off a soft scent carried by the wind.
For a moment, Aelius didn't move. He wasn't used to spaces like this. Open, quiet, untouched by corruption. His grandfather had once kept a garden too, but it had been a twisted parody of growth, fed by decay instead of sunlight. Nothing like this. He wouldn't admit to the jealousy that ran through him at the fact he didn't have one of his own.
The general noticed his stillness and didn't comment. He just lifted his chin toward one of the branching paths.
"Pick a direction," he said. "You won't get lost. The guards'll drag you back if you manage to wander somewhere you shouldn't."
Aelius let out a slow breath, eyes drifting toward the bend on the right. A faint sound echoed from that way. Water. Maybe a fountain.
He started walking.
The general matched his pace, boots tapping softly against the stones. "Figured you'd prefer the garden over another hour staring at a wall," he said mildly.
Aelius shrugged. "Better than the lab. Hard not to breathe in dust and old blood in there."
The general snorted. "Aelius's cleaned that place eight times over. You must be smelling ghosts."
"Wouldn't be the first time."
The path curved gently, and the sound of water grew clearer, the soft splash of falling streams. Aelius kept walking until the hedges opened into a round clearing. A fountain sat in the center, carved from pale stone, with tiered bowls letting water trickle down in thin sheets. Moss clung to the edges, faint and green, untouched by blight.
Aelius took it in, jaw set but eyes moving with slow attention.
"No rot anywhere," he muttered. It slipped out before he could stop it.
"Should there be?" the general asked, watching him closely.
"I suppose not" Aelius said, he was going to continue before the familiar voice of knightwalker came from behind.
Knightwalker strode across the gravel, her spear angled down but ready, eyes sharp enough to cut through stone. She did not spare Aelius even a full glance as she spoke, like he was already a corpse she was tired of dealing with.
"General! We found more Earthlanders. The king has ordered me to return this one to the cells and await execution with his comrades."
The words hit like a blunt strike, heavy and casual. As if she was announcing the weather.
Aelius finally lifted his head, eyes tracking her. They stayed flat, unreadable, but not empty. There was a flicker there, quick and dark, the kind that usually meant someone was about to make an awful mistake without realizing it.
The general did not move. He just let his cane settle against the ground, a slow tap that echoed between the hedges.
"Execution," he repeated. Not loud. Not questioning. More like testing how the word felt in his mouth.
Knightwalker did not flinch. "Yes, sir. These Earthlanders were found trying to enter the castle. Likely plotting a prison break. The king has already issued the order."
Aelius drew in a slow breath through his nose.
"So he wants to kill us all," he said. Not angry. Just stating it. "effective way to solve a problem."
Knightwalker snapped him a glare at that. "Your kind brought chaos to our kingdom. You destroyed property, attacked my soldiers, and broke into the capital. You will face the consequences."
Aelius stepped away from the fountain. Just one step. Enough that Knightwalker's grip tightened around the spear shaft.
The general raised a hand slightly. A simple gesture. It stopped her cold.
"This one is not returning to the cells," he said.
Knightwalker blinked once. "Sir, the king said…"
"And I am saying," the general cut in, calm as soft rain, "that he stays with me."
She bristled. "General, you cannot override a royal order."
"I can," he said, "when the king gives orders without proper counsel. He can take issue with me later."
Aelius watched the two of them, jaw tilted just enough to hide the faint spark of surprise. He hadn't expected a fight. He had expected to watch them drag him back to a room made of stone and iron and assumptions.
He had not expected this old man to stand between him and death with the ease of someone who had done it before.
Knightwalker hesitated. That alone was rare.
She searched Aelius's face, maybe expecting fear, maybe expecting pleading.
He gave her nothing.
"He is dangerous," she said finally.
"So am I," the general replied.
That shut her up.
The wind pushed through the garden again, rustling leaves, breaking the tension just enough for everyone to breathe.
Knightwalker straightened, fist over her chest. "Fine. I will inform the king that you insist on custody over this one."
"Do that."
She turned on her heel, leaving a trail of irritation behind her like a physical thing. When she disappeared back down the path, the silence returned, heavier than before.
Aelius exhaled through his teeth. "She really hates me."
"She hates surprises," the general corrected. "You being alive happened to be one."
Aelius snorted. "Lucky me."
The general turned back toward the fountain. "Come. We are not done talking."
Aelius didn't shift right away. He kept staring down the path Knightwalker had taken, jaw working, thoughts moving faster than he ever let show. The garden felt colder now, like the air itself understood what execution meant.
Finally, he spoke, tone calm but pointed.
"You said I can go just about anywhere, right? Then take me to the dungeons. I'm actually curious to see Natsu and Wendy."
He turned toward the general, jerking his chin in the direction Knightwalker had disappeared. It wasn't subtle. He didn't try to make it subtle.
The general's eyebrow lifted. "Natsu and Wendy? Those are the names of your comrades, I assume."
Aelius clicked his tongue. "Comrades is a strong word. They're loud, mostly. Cause property damage like it's a hobby. But they're… people I know."
The general studied him a moment, weighing something behind his eyes. "You wish to check on their condition."
"I wish to know if they're still breathing," Aelius corrected. "Information first, emotion later."
"That is a very clinical way to speak of those you travelled with."
"I don't care for most people. I tolerate Wendy more than most because she's young." Aelius rolled one shoulder, casual in a way that didn't match the tension running under his skin. "Feel free to take notes."
The general's boots clicked lightly against the stone as they walked, but he angled his head just enough to study Aelius from the corner of his eye. "You speak as though caring is a burden."
"It is," Aelius said without hesitation. "Caring gets you killed. Or worse, it gets someone else killed because you hesitated. I learned that lesson early."
"You believe it applies here?"
Aelius snorted. "Look around. Your kingdom turns whole cities into fuel. Caring seems like the least practical decision someone could make."
"But you still intend to see the girl."
"Yeah. Because she shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be in any dungeon. She shouldn't be staring at people who think magic is something you drain from children like juice. She deserves better than this entire joke of a world."
His jaw tightened, the words coming out sharper than he intended. He didn't pull them back.
"And Natsu?" the general asked.
Aelius paused, tongue clicking softly as he debated answering. "Natsu survives everything," he said. "He's like a cockroach with fire. I'm less worried about him dying and more worried about him being stupid enough to take ten people with him."
"But you still go," the general said, voice quiet.
"For curiosity." Aelius didn't blink.
"Interesting," the general murmured. "You speak like a man who has spent his entire life walking toward danger, even when he claims he wants nothing to do with anyone."
Aelius shot him a dry look. "Walking toward danger is easier than walking away from it. At least this way I get to see the next punch coming."
The general actually huffed something close to a laugh. "So your strategy is… practicality."
"My strategy," Aelius said, "is staying alive long enough to finish what I came here to do."
"And what is that, exactly?"
Aelius's steps slowed for the first time since they entered the hall. His face didn't soften, but something settled behind his eyes.
"Making sure the people who didn't ask for any of this get out," he said. "Whatever happens after that? I'll deal with it."
The general watched him for another few seconds, expression unreadable.
"You see yourself as detached," the general began, voice low and thoughtful. "Yet every word betrays that you care more than you claim."
Aelius didn't even blink. He just stared back at the man with the same bored, hollow look he'd given every threat, every blade, every interrogation since he got here.
"Think what you want," he said. "I made it clear to Knightwalker, and to that abomination you call Sugarboy, that I mostly want my house back. First thing in a long while I didn't destroy."
He let that sit between them. No attempt to soften it. No attempt to reclaim the words. Just truth dropped like a stone.
The general's gaze didn't waver, but something shifted behind it. A quiet weight, thoughtful and heavy. Not pity. Not sympathy. Just recognition.
"Your house," he said slowly. "That is what matters to you."
Aelius rolled his jaw like he was thinking through how to explain something simple to someone who insisted on being dense. "It was the only place I built with my own hands," he said. "Not magic. Not blood. Not survival. Just… me. For once."
The words came out blunt, almost careless, but the edges of them carried something older. Something worn down by years. "And then your world took it," Aelius said. "Didn't ask. Didn't warn. Just ripped the ground out from under it. Under me."
The general's steps slowed again, matching Aelius's pace as they moved deeper into the garden paths.
"You attach meaning to what you build," the general said. "Many men do."
Aelius scoffed lightly. "I attach meaning to very few things. That's the difference."
"And yet losing it troubles you."
"No," Aelius corrected, tone sharpening. "Being robbed of it troubles me. You lose something because you were careless. Or weak. I wasn't. You took it. That's different."
The general nodded once, absorbing that with the same disciplined calm he'd carried since the start.
"And yet," he said, "you still walk toward the dungeon instead of the exit."
Aelius's eyes narrowed just a fraction. Not defensively. Just acknowledging the accuracy.
"I can want my house back," he said, "and still be curious about my guildmates. Besides, don't speak as if I can leave; I'm still a prisoner here. Or has dementia set in, old man?"
The general's lips twitched, just barely. "A detached man would not bother."
"I'm not detached," Aelius said. "I'm selective. There's a difference."
They passed under an archway of twisted branches, shadows falling across Aelius's face, making the hollowness in his eyes look deeper for a moment.
"You have a strange way of showing loyalty," the general said.
Aelius snorted. "Yeah, well. It's the only way I know how to do it."
They kept walking. Neither spoke for several breaths.
They slipped back into the cool stone hall, the garden's air closing behind them like a door on a different world. Aelius didn't bother looking around. He'd already memorized the layout of every hall they'd walked through, every turn, every potential exit. Habit more than hope.
The general took a left, boots steady against the floor. "I'm sure you will, son," he said, tone strangely warm for a man who'd been two breaths from signing Aelius's execution order an hour ago. "But I think I'm getting a good grip on you."
Aelius arched a brow. "Congrats."
"You're definitely broken," the general continued, unfazed. "And by much more than my counterpart ever did."
Aelius let out a short laugh, humourless but not entirely dismissive. "Broken's a strong word."
"It's the correct word."
They kept walking. Torches guttered along the walls, their light catching the lines on the general's face, making him look older than he had outside. Tired, maybe. Aelius didn't care enough to guess.
"You speak like someone who's been carved down," the general said. "Piece by piece. Painfully. Intentionally. And you wear that hollowness the way other men wear armor."
Aelius shrugged like the topic bored him. "Everyone gets carved down. I just stopped pretending it's tragic."
"That is not what makes you broken," the general said. "It's that you expect nothing from anyone. Not trust. Not kindness. Not even fear. You assume your life begins and ends with what you alone can take or lose."
Aelius tilted his head, eyes half lidded. "You say that like it's wrong."
"It is not wrong," the general said. "It is sad."
Aelius's jaw tightened. He hated that. Hated that word. Hated how it tried to lasso him into something soft. Something human. "Don't project," he said flatly.
"I'm observing."
"You're assuming," Aelius corrected. "You see silence and think sorrow. You see numbness and think tragedy. Maybe I'm just done wasting my breath."
"No," the general replied, steady as a stone pillar. "You are not done. You are exhausted."
Something flickered in Aelius's chest. Irritation. Or the ghost of something else he refused to name.
"You don't know me," Aelius said.
"I know men," the general said. "And you are carrying more weight than you should. Enough that even your counterpart here feels pity instead of fear. That alone tells me more than your words ever could."
They descended a stairwell that spiralled inward. Shadows stretched across the steps. Aelius followed, silent, eyes sharp but distant.
"So what?" Aelius muttered. "You want to fix me? Patch the cracks? Give me some sentimental speech about healing?"
"No," the general answered. "I am far too old for that. And you are far too far gone to listen."
Aelius snorted. "Then what's your point?"
dangerous precisely because of the state you are in. Not despite it."
Aelius let out a tired groan, the kind that came from someone who'd heard this sort of thing one too many times. "What is with you old people and your half-baked philosophies you slap on like glue? It's not gonna stitch me back together. And I know I told you your philosophical lines don't work."
The general didn't flinch, didn't slow, didn't even look offended. "I'm not offering them to fix you."
"Then what are you offering?" Aelius asked, stepping around a set of stairs as they descended deeper, the air cooling and the torches thinning. "Because so far all I've gotten is poetic doom, broken boy commentary, and a very long walk to a dungeon I could've found on my own."
"A mirror," the general answered. "One that shows you what you are, rather than what you pretend to be."
Aelius snorted. "Cute. You think I pretend. I don't. I'm fully aware of what I am."
"Then say it," the general said, stopping just long enough to tilt his head toward him. "In plain words."
Aelius paused on the stairs, jaw tightening. The torchlight caught the edge of his eyes, sharp and weary.
"I'm someone who's done more damage than I can ever clean up," he said quietly. "And I don't lose sleep over it. Not anymore."
The general's brows lifted a fraction. "Yet you walk toward the cells for two people you claim to barely care about."
Aelius clicked his tongue. "Curiosity. Remember? I want to see if they're breathing."
"Of course," the general said, though his tone made it clear he didn't believe that for a second. "Your curiosity takes the shape of loyalty far more often than you realize."
"Stop trying to define me," Aelius muttered, brushing past him as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. "I'm not one of your recruits you can mold with wise old sayings."
"No," the general said behind him, following after. "You're far more difficult than that."
Aelius threw him a look. "Is that admiration or annoyance?"
"A bit of both," the general answered as they reached the heavy door leading into the dungeon hall. "Which tends to be the case with all people worth worrying about."
Aelius scoffed, but the sound carried a faint crack around the edges.
"Open the damn door," he said. "Before your metaphors start peeling paint."
The general pushed the iron bar aside with a rough clang and heaved the heavy door open. Cold air rolled out, thick with that damp stone smell every dungeon in every kingdom seemed cursed with. The torches burned low here, barely enough to keep the shadows from swallowing the corners.
Aelius stepped in first, eyes adjusting fast. He scanned the rows of cells without slowing, one after another, until one familiar configuration of stone and iron hit him like a slap.
His cell. The one he'd been dragged out of earlier.
And in it, leaning against the same wall he had been chained to earlier, sat Natsu Dragneel. Pink hair a mess, wrists bound, but posture aggressively annoyed anyway. Steam practically puffed off him from sheer irritation.
Next to him, Lucy Heartfilia sat cross-legged despite her shackles, doing her best to soothe him with her usual mix of gentleness and exasperation.
And wedged between them, curled defensively with her knees pulled to her chest, was Wendy Marvell. Smaller chains. Tear tracks drying on her cheeks. But alive.
Aelius stopped.
"Heartfilia," he muttered, blinking once. "And the kid. Good. Thought they might've split you up."
Wendy's head shot up at the sound of his voice, blue eyes wide. "Aelius? You're okay?"
Before he could answer, Natsu snapped his head around so fast it might've cracked something. "OI! Aelius! You're alive! They said they were dragging you off to get executed or interrogated or poked with weird royal sticks or something!"
Lucy pressed a hand to her forehead. "Natsu, nobody said anything about sticks."
"You don't know that! This place is weird!" he barked, yanking at the chains so hard the wall groaned. "Hey! Metal thing! Break!"
The chain did not break.
Natsu growled like a feral animal gearing up for round two.
Aelius stared at him with a look that hovered between disbelief and annoyance. "How are you the one locked up and somehow still louder than everyone else in the building?"
Lucy perked up when she saw him. "You're not in chains anymore. That's a good sign. Did you escape?"
Aelius gave her a dry look, then tilted his head toward the general beside him. "The armed escort make you think that, Heartfilia? Maybe you should take a break from being around the fire-breathing leech next to you. He's lowering your perception of reality."
Natsu immediately bristled. "HEY! Who're you calling a leech!"
"You," Aelius replied without missing a beat. "Loud, reckless, eats anything, clingy. Leech fits."
Wendy's hand shot up in a panic. "Um! Um! Please don't fight, you two! The guards will come back!"
Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose. "She's right. Can we please not do this?"
Aelius shrugged. "I'm not fighting. I'm observing."
Natsu leaned as close to the bars as the chains allowed, glaring. "I'll show you observing! I'll melt this whole room!"
"You'll melt your own feet," Aelius said.
"Worth it!"
"Absolutely not," Lucy said, tugging uselessly on his arm.
Aelius let their noise burn itself out, then spoke over them, voice steady. "I'm not here to trade insults. I came to confirm you three are alive."
Wendy nodded quickly, trying to be brave. "We are. Just scared."
Lucy added, "Sore, hungry, annoyed… but okay."
Natsu yanked the chains again. "And ready to get out!"
"You're not getting out," the general said simply.
Natsu froze mid-yank. "Huh?"
Aelius lifted a hand. "He means not now. Calm down before you choke on your own yelling."
Lucy sighed. "He probably will."
"HEY! Aelius! Why aren't you in chains like us?" Natsu suddenly blurted, shooting forward so fast the shackles snapped him right back into place like a dog hitting the end of a leash.
Aelius watched the whole display with the deadpan patience of someone long past being surprised by Natsu's existence. "Right. That. Well, technically, I'm still a prisoner."
He lifted a hand and gestured lazily toward the general beside him.
"This old bastard is the Edolas version of my grandfather," Aelius said. "And the Edolas version of me apparently has some pull around here. So instead of a cell, I get a… mildly roomy box. Still a cage."
Natsu's eyes narrowed like he was trying to solve a puzzle he absolutely did not have the pieces for. "So you're a prisoner. But not… prisoner prisoner."
"Yes, Natsu," Aelius replied flatly. "Congratulations. You've grasped the concept of different jail arrangements."
Lucy gave Aelius a helpless look. "You don't have to be so blunt."
"Yes, he does," Wendy whispered. "Otherwise, the Natsu won't understand."
"HEY! I understood fine!" Natsu snapped.
"You didn't," Aelius told him.
Lucy winced. "Aelius, please."
Aelius ignored her, turning his attention back to the cell. "I'm still under watch. Still stuck in the castle. If I breathe too loudly, someone reports it. So don't confuse this with freedom."
Natsu glared. "Then why do you get to walk around?"
"Because Edolas me asked them not to chop my head off. Yet."
Lucy blinked. "That's… oddly considerate."
Aelius shrugged again, slow and careless, like he was physically incapable of giving the moment more weight than a passing breeze. "Probably not," he said. "We did all come here to take away their stolen power source. So, from their point of view, that makes us terrorists. Saboteurs. Enemies of the kingdom. They've got their rules, and the penalty for people like us is usually death. Nice and simple."
The words landed in the cell like stones dropped into still water.
None of them splashed. They just sank.
Wendy drew in a tiny breath that shivered on the way out. Her knees pulled closer to her chest, fingers curling white. "You… you don't seem worried."
"I'm not," Aelius replied, leaning his shoulder casually against the nearest pillar. "Worry doesn't change anything. Doesn't stop blades. Doesn't stop decisions already made." He flicked a glance toward the ceiling, expression unreadable. "I've had enough death sentences in my life to know the fear gets old."
Lucy's face softened, lips parting as though the right response hovered there but never quite landed. "That's not something you should be used to," she murmured.
"Heartfilia," Aelius said, tone halfway between patient and tired, "You watched me die the day we met." His gaze slid back to her. "I'm not giving up, but I'm also not pretending we're in anything but deep trouble."
Natsu scowled at the floor, shoulders coiling with a silent, frustrated energy he couldn't burn around. "I hate this," he muttered. "All of it. Chains. This place. Not being able to punch someone in the mouth and fix things."
"Punching doesn't fix everything," Lucy said quietly.
"It fixes enough," Natsu growled.
Aelius huffed something that might have been a humourless laugh. "If it did, we wouldn't be here. Edolas wouldn't need a power source made of other worlds' people. And I wouldn't be staring at my alternate self, wondering how two lives can split so damn far apart."
The general didn't comment. He just stood there, hands behind his back, watching Aelius with the strange quiet of a man turning complicated thoughts over behind an old soldier's eyes.
Lucy swallowed hard. "So what happens now?"
Aelius opened his mouth to answer.
But he didn't get the chance.
The heavy iron door slammed open with enough force to rattle the chains bolted to the stone. One guard jumped. Natsu tensed like he was a half-second away from throwing himself at the bars.
Knightwalker strode in like a blade given human shape. No wasted steps. No wasted breath.
Her eyes swept the room once, sharp as a guillotine. She stopped on Aelius. Then flicked to Lucy.
Her voice was absolutely final.
"By order of Her Majesty, Queen Shaggote," Knightwalker announced, "the blonde woman is to be taken for immediate execution."
The words hit the dungeon like a torch thrown into dry brush.
Wendy gasped. Natsu lunged against his restraints so violently that the chain bit into his wrists. Lucy went perfectly still, breath catching in her throat.