The cold

Weeping rose

Neil decided to spend the night at the castle, he wanted to know what Abbadon's special team would come up with at midnight and besides that from what little he did recall of the guestroom he spent the night in , the bed was impossibly soft and jumpy, royalty really did know how to live in style. He had called his mom to tell her he wouldn't be home that night,  and all was good on her end with Spots keeping her company. The room was awfully quite,  except for Loki, who was bouncing a squeaky ball time and time again, making Nerezza scowl because the sound irritated her sensitive ears . Neil sighed, it was still a few hours to midnight ,this would probably be a long wait.

In another room in the same castle,  on a floor just above the basement, Henrietta's body lay on an examination table, the table surrounded by six fey. All six of them were very old, the youngest on earth for at least a few centuries, all very well versed at what they do. Three of them were nomads, neutral, two were sent from the Seelie court to help, even Queen Ballona spared one of her most favored fey for the cause. It was the fey from the unseelie court, Ath's idea to immerse the body in liquid iron, in which case certain spells , if carved into the body, would show up. Ath was a rather geeky fellow who spent quite a few centuries studying ritualistic sacrificial spells, the more gory it was, the more interested he was in knowing it. Although these murders didn't look like sacrifices in the traditional sense, their sheer numbers and the fact that they occurred on days when the moon wouldn't grace the sky, made the possibility quite real to him, what with the blood moon occurring in a few months , a brief period of time when the doors of Ement were slightly weaker. He stood at the side watching, not wanting to get his hands dirty, letting the other fey do all the work. Wrest, a fey from the seelie court even scowled slightly at his action but kept mum, too nice to pick a fight. Ath never liked Wrest anyway, the man too philosophical for his own good. He wondered what good a seelie healer would do here, heal the dead, perhaps?They waited for the iron to drain away, none of them wanting to get hurt by touching it. Ath was right of course, spells and symbols were carved into Henrietta's whole body, it was rather gruesome. Marcus , one of the nomads let out a gasp, the answer staring at them in the face. None of them, not even Ath, felt victorious over finding the purpose of the murders, the answer wasn't something any of them wished for. They rushed to the room where the king was waiting , Wrest surprised to see Glutton's nephew in it.

The door to the room opened with a bang , six agitated feys rushing in. Neil was taken by surprise when he saw the creepy man his aunt was talking to the other day walk in, he was one of those people Neil assumed he would never see again, someone he wasn't really interested in seeing what with his weird candle dialogues . One of the fey, a geeky looking guy with big soda glasses stepped forward. "It's a sacrifice , aye , ye'all be doomed.  Eva' heard of the weeping rose? A spell to open the gates o' hell, 'ell 'ats what 'tis, ye got yerselves a few months a'most if ye don't sometin" the geeky fey said, in his surprisingly terrible english. "R.I.P english" Loki murmured quietly beside Neil, Neil trying to maintain a straight face and not burst into a laugh, not really understanding the gravity of the situation. 

The others in the room did understand though, the message was clear enough, if they didn't stop those behind the killing spree before the blood moon then the beings of Ement would wreak havoc on their world, with nothing to keep them at bay once the gates were open." With evil descending upon us, perish will the tree of life" the creepy man said sadly, not that his words made much sense to Neil. "Mind 'im not, laddy, Wresht an 'is philosophical bull , word on't mean much nyway" Ath said, upon noticing Neil's puzzled expression. 

Neil pinched his arm hard, especially when Loki snickered beside him, trying his best not to laugh out loud. It was a wonder how literally no one took offence to the things Loki did, did they not notice Loki snickering or occasionally  passing snide comments? Loki was literally the only one in the room that was still all jovial and snarky, the others looking like someone had ran over their pet cat, all grim faced and serious. Neil knew what was happening was something big, the only problem being he had no idea who or what Ement was, must be a real scary person if he made Abbadon look worried. "Well, we at least know that only a blood fey can do the actual spell so that's there", Marcus said, looking at Neil suspiciously. Abbadon dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand, the boy couldn't even keep a vaila and an ork off him, the motion was just ridiculous. He wondered if the vaila was a part of it, she probably was, especially if she managed to remain elusive till date. 

Abbadon was neither stupid nor overly optimistic, he knew that if they didn't get all the help they could from both sides there was a very real chance they'd lose, he also knew that the people behind this whole thing didn't have their facts right either, what did they expect, the demons from Ement to go all friendly on them merely because they facilitated the opening of the gate. Things just didn't work that way. As good as believing in the triumph of good over evil was, Abbadon decided to make a few back up plans if they were indeed too late, who was truly good, anyway?