[Insert Creative Title Here]

Astrid

Astrid wasn't comfortable.

First was the mysterious problem of the air, or whatever it was, breaking. She knew it probably had something to do with her strange dream, but she couldn't tell exactly what it meant.

Second was the fall. Landing on solid stone hurt. A lot. And the guards probably heard it and were coming after her.

And when she had landed on the ground and broke Esther out of her cell, she had another confusing vision. As she looked into Esther's face, three images overlaying each other appeared in her head. Multiple discordant, infinite strings, not unlike the irreal threads, darted across Esther's face for a split second, darkening it and concealing it from her mind's eye. Finally, an image of Esther lying dead, bloodied and broken, flashed into her head and disappeared.

She decided not to mention this to Esther, who was walking ahead of her, as they crossed the rest of the hall uninterrupted. Night had fallen, and the activities of the guards had decreased, as the sounds inside the palace amounted to a dead whisper. Ahead of them lay a two-way fork.

"Are we getting close to the stronghold?" Astrid whispered to Esther.

"The whole thing is a stronghold. They won't put prisoners under where the king and queen live. But to answer your question, yes. Isabella's collection is in the middle of the castle. Around it is a sort of moat though, just a long drop to stone, and there's only one way in or out."

"We better be quick then."

Esther again consulted the half-drawn blueprints of the castle, retracing their steps and counting how close it was to the central vault. Mapping it all together in her dynamic head, she drew a mental path from the intersection to the vault.

"I've got it," Esther whispered. "Let's go."

Distant commotion reached their ears, as a discordant array of sounds echoed through the hallways of the castle. Footsteps.

"Stay calm, we have not yet been discovered. They are simply changing posts." Esther whispered to Astrid.

"But we may be about to. They are certainly suspicious of our earlier intrusion," Astrid whispered back.

"Yeah, let's hurry."