The Sigh Of Things (16)   The devil is not all around you. The devil is in one place. And here's the rub: The devil is in that place already. Strange where the eye will fix when the mind fractures; when the firmament of logic splits apart and every cogent thought tips to slip into a bottomless pit at the center of the brain. Questions sprout like weeds through the cracks of what was once so magnificently certain, solid as a rock, absolute. He had trusted her. And what was trust but truth? So little of it there at the end. Knowledge, long counted as the closest of his friends, had turned adversarial overnight. For the first time in his life he found there were things he did not wish to know. Facts, in fact, he fought against knowing. He rejected the meaning of her letter, repulsed the motive behind her crime and actively resisted every implication that this had, in the final analysis, been a purely premeditated deceit. He knew, without knowing at all, that this was an awareness he could not afford. Were he forced to admit there had actually been a plan, a plan put into place over days or weeks or months, he would then be obliged to entertain the possibility that nothing between them had been real. For a moment, a single second standing there aside Laura's bed, he had encountered this. Behind the fury, that fear. The mockery she may have made of his faith; the absurdity of his desire. And suddenly inside his head he heard her quiet voice speaking; saying what she'd meant to say all along but had never quite put into words. My Stefan. My grotesque. My little nothing. My karikos. He could not turn away fast enough. Mask after mask he'd dropped into place to face the last eight hours, yet none seemed to cover him sufficiently enough to pass an apathetic muster. It was all he could do to resist the smile that waited so patiently behind his pain; the smile that was not a smile at all but the bitter recognition of defeat, in some way a trigger to a tear; to the madness of emotion gone awry. Smile that smile and he was done with sanity once and for all. He would never get it back. How incapable she'd made him. How utterly weak. To think he could spend another night on his back, stubbornly avoiding her side of the bed and that empty declaration of love…a camouflage set to cover a nefarious intent…and sleep? Sleep was a luxury he held in ransom for an answer. At this point any answer would do, any answer at all come three or four in the morning when he had no choice anymore but to accept everything she'd done in its entirety, as a blistering series of betrayals - and this is the moment his mind implodes because he knows, Good God he knows the game has moved beyond him. And when, without rhyme or reason, he finds himself stranded at the door like this - fatigue setting fire to his every conscious thought, his intellect deafened by the thunder of his doubt - it does surprise him just a bit to discover his eye has locked to focus on the slowly deliberate rise and fall of his brother's twenty-pound free weight. Calm, I will have it if it kills me. Calm, as the thick black iron discs curve to his chin. Calm, as they descend in a measured arc to halt two feet from the floor. Stavros sitting on his bench, his elbow balanced on his knee, curls the weight with a clean precision; each repetition effortlessly smooth and soothing in its simplicity. This clockwork labor somehow quiets the cacophony in his head to a dull, discursive roar. A small improvement, and his gratitude for this minor grace makes him wait until his brother has finished the set before stepping into the cell. Stavros lowered the weight to the floor and rose, pulling a towel from the bench. "She's made her move, then." It was all he could do to arch an eyebrow at the observation. "What…?" Stavros' head tilted toward the windowed wall. "That's not one-way glass, brother. Your servants have been scampering since late last night. No time to spend gawking at the beast in the cage. They miss it, I'm sure." The towel ran up his arm and down again. "You know, I don't really mind the little crowds or the chittering or the staring, but over time they have a tendency to forget themselves completely. I tell you, there is one ill-bred whelp who's on the verge of putting his tactless little finger up his tactless little nose. Which do you think he should lose for that? The finger or the nose?" When he turned to gauge the effect of his remark, his attention caught and his interest peaked; his eye finding more than it seemed possible to see in the face of his jailor. The scrutiny stung all the deeper when coupled with that smug, sardonic grin. "My, my, little brother. What have you lost? Wait. Allow me to rephrase. What has slipped through your fingers yet again?" "Nothing that hasn't slipped through yours once or twice," Stefan responded a bit too quickly. Stavros scoffed at this reply. "Laura's fate was sealed weeks ago. You knew. Don't tell me you haven't felt her tiny teeth snapping at your heels. She's had your scent from the start. Before the start, that's how easy you've made it." He let out a short, guttural laugh and arched his back in indignation. "Clever little karikos who steals a body from a bed, only to find that bed filled again by morning. No one the wiser, not even he! Cunning little karikos who puts his enemy's spies on the payroll. Crafty little karikos to whom it occurs not once that his drugs have been purposely tainted." His posture broke and he leaned toward his brother, his voice now quiet and cruel. "They were not so different, your formula and mine. Had you taken the proper precautions, who knows what you might have been able to achieve?" My skin was thicker yesterday. An odd thought to find in the face of such a lengthy catalogue of failures. Something inside him died just then; curled to carbon like a scrap of paper burning at the heart of a flame. Perhaps in grief, perhaps purely in response to his exhaustion, he took a risk he'd never taken before. He closed his eyes to his brother. And in that place of self-imposed darkness, on the fraying thread of a final strength, he came to embrace his contempt for himself and the role this family had given him to play. There were other choices. He had the words - he'd always had the words - and now he would use them. "You never cease to amuse me, Stavros," he said as he turned from his brother to the wall, eyes coming open to the back of the cell and a vast expanse of smooth, unpolished stone. "Really, you're quite the entertainment. I've watched you prowl and pout and pontificate, pressing that brilliant brain of yours to the list of my most egregious flaws. It's a dark show, true, but a clever one nonetheless. Yet," he paused, his gaze dropping to the floor, "I am left a little confused by it all. How can it be that the man with every answer, with the vision to see what I could not, with a mind so evidently superior to my own, can still be found at the end of that chain? In this prison? Under my control? Call me karikos and I say to you, look around brother. You remain the captive of that very nothingness." "I will not be here long," his prisoner spat with undisguised disdain. "Really?" remarked Stefan, painting a look of surprise on his face. "I take it you have a plan, then. Something in the works. Something that does not depend upon the assistance of anyone else. Because, Stavros, I would hate to think you were waiting on a savior." And here the moment had arrived. He looked with a solemn earnestness into the narrowed eye of his prisoner and delivered the coup de grace. "She's made her move already, brother. It certainly cannot have escaped your notice that no one came for you." The strongest blade, the blade of the samurai, is a metal folded over and over upon itself. Time is taken in the forging to bend, to shape, to press those folds a hundred times flat and flat again. What rises from the fire at the last is a weapon that will not be broken, no matter the fierceness of the battle or the might of the force set against it. It was this blade of words Stefan plunged into his brother, and the sharp edge carved a brutal course hot across the surface of his soul. A boundary falls, both can feel it. Down goes the demon prince, plummeting into his past, counting the years lost to a coffin and a mother biding her time. Laura. Stefan. Nikolas. The many, many Cassadine kin. No one came for you. Fingers gripped to the lip of a chasm buried deep in the bowels of a hospital's core; his enemy a witness to the choice, to the fall, to the death. No one came for you. Hours ago, this passing night, a path was taken by the one savior he had always counted true. His protector. His preserver. His perpetual source of corporeal salvation. And when her foot found the fork in the road…No one came for you. Even now, escaping now - laying a trail a child could follow…no one would. No one would come. Stefan put a voice to a torment both profound and perniciously active in the raging heart of his brother. And this voice would echo through the ages. A century would pass and this great prince long gone dead - the wind through his crypt would still whisper to the stone, No one came for you. The anger spins on its axis, realigning the power of his pain. And the air grows cold. "The manner of her taking." The words were soft and exceedingly grave; a muted menace riding on the tone. His hackles rose as it occurred to him then that in altering the rules for himself, he had given that same license to his brother. Stavros had sighted the wound and planned to lay it bare. A blow for a blow. And Stefan found himself scrambling for the one tactic he hadn't sought in years: an improvised defense. "By whom was Laura spirited away? Stop structuring your face, Stefan. Assemble what you will for the outside world, I am your brother in blood. I knew the moment you stepped into the room." A soundless calm descended between them. Stefan waited for the mimicry that was sure to follow. It did not. Derision then. Where was the derision? Surely there would be a shaming. At the very least a belittlement. He could have ticked off on his fingers the myriad predictable responses he had every reason to expect might emerge from the mouth of this lifelong opponent. Silence was not one of them. Instead, Stavros seemed to sink into his skin; to become, if this were possible, more present in the moment. It was as if he'd gathered all the energy around him and pulled it in, creating a density of being that verged on the impenetrable. Yet a closer look at the hardened shell revealed the truth. His was not a solid mass but a viscous liquidity of power; the thick elixir of a raw, uncontestable resolve. He contained this darkly seething force with an almost regal composure, as if the authority of existence itself - its use, its purpose, its meaning - had been gifted him at birth. "There are so many things to regret in life," he began with the gravity of an injured god. "The choices we make, the people we trust, the fact that we are born to a time no longer cognizant of nobility, destiny or duty to a faith beyond our ken. Live as I have lived, lose what I have lost, and regret becomes your friend, your boon companion. She is comforting, my regret, on a dark night, in a cold bed. She soothes me. Many are the grim and galling hours stretching endlessly toward the dawn when all I've had to embrace me, to seduce me, to relieve me of my aching need, were the tenderly capable ministrations of my sweet, green-eyed regret." And when the god ceased speaking to stand the lord before him, it was all quite suddenly enough. What had never been enough before this day had finally reached the mark. He didn't think - not a thought before his body was in motion, before his arms extended, before he heeled his palms into his brother's chest, thrust him off his feet and sent him sprawling backward over the bench. The leash, slack for a moment in the air, cracked hard against the floor of the cell - a pistol-shot of sound to signify the start of this unholy communion. Stefan shrugged the jacket from his shoulders and carefully folded back his sleeves. The decision to commit his response to the realm of violent confrontation had now been made. There were no further considerations. "Tell me," his brother ordered softly from the floor behind the bench. "Tell me you are still there, Stefan. Tell me you haven't withdrawn to a safer distance on the merit of a single blow." "Come as it suits you, Stavros. Unless, of course, you would prefer the role of prey." The crown of his head came first into view, then two shoulders hunched to brace the arms that drove him up off the slate. Stavros spared no glance for his brother but made instead to clear the field for battle; his hands closing to grip the bench and toss it to the side. Had he not taken this moment prior to engaging his foe he would have seen the first step, perhaps even spun on the fourth. Stefan's body launching, twisting, spinning flat in the air would have brought an instinctual response. As it was, his chest came naked to the spear of his brother's feet, and the force of the blow pitched him back to crash against the hard stone wall of the cell. Stefan dropped like a rock at the point of impact, absorbing the pain of the fall and the lancing ache of the curl of chain he found beneath him. He clawed for the twenty pound weight and pulled it close, withdrawing the chain to wrap it tight around the center bar, effectively anchoring the links to impede his brother's movement. It would not stop him, but it would definitely slow him down. His peripheral vision caught the shadow above him and caused him to roll from his spot, leaving Stavros to pounce on nothing more than empty black slate. He found his feet just in time to meet the roaring charge of his brother - a charge cut short by the tug of the newly-weighted chain. Stavros howled in fury at his shortened range and turned to look for its cause, his free hand loose and flailing through the air. By the time his brother compensated for the extra weight, Stefan had caught this hand by the wrist, pivoted to the side and delivered three swift kicks to Stavros' ribs, then attempted to land one final shot higher and harder to the head. Stavros had been prepared for the last and managed to duck beneath the blow. Stefan's foot, not meeting its object, continued its arc through the open air and left his entire right side woefully vulnerable to attack. Before that foot reached the ground, his brother had slammed a fist into his kidney and with a well-aimed strike swept Stefan's straight leg out from underneath him, sending him head-first onto the floor; his brain concussed and swimming in and out of consciousness. Like a calf brought down for branding, Stavros trussed his prize with the chain, binding both arms and legs together in a matter of seconds. With a strength composed in equal parts of rage and pain, he dragged his brother back to the center of the cell. Stefan, curled in half on his side, struggled for an instant in this bind of iron until he felt another length of chain come to circle his throat. While it may be the very last thought he had, it did occur to him then that he'd provided this dog with entirely too much leash. "Sound the alarm and I will kill him." It was only when his brother yanked at the noose to make this point that Stefan saw the man standing in the doorway; his face paralyzed in shock. He could determine from the uniform that this man was a guard stationed at the front gate of the estate. While there was certainly a criticism to be made on the subject of abandoning his post, the timing of his appearance seemed propitious enough to overlook that complaint. His brother, however, was not in as forgiving a mood. To underscore his meaning, Stavros jerked his tether to Stefan's throat, narrowing the airway and causing his captive to gag. "I just…," said the guard in a rush of panic, stumbling over his words. "I have…," he mumbled, forgetting what he had until his head dropped down to his hand and the envelope - such a shock to see - it had been holding. His arm thrust out to wave the paper through the air. "This." "Well bring it forward, boy." Stavros wrapped the strangling chain around his wrist and freed a hand for the letter. "Come on, come on. I'm in the middle of something here. He doesn't have all day, you know." The envelope flew the last four feet, the guard tossing it in fear and running out of the cell. His terror kept him moving down the hall, out of sight and, hopefully, in search of help. Stefan thought he could manage the very few minutes it would take to sound the alarm, and while Stavros tore through the letter with his teeth, he worked to control his breathing. This task became a good deal easier when the chain was loosened, then drawn away completely. In fact, the entire length went slack and he scrabbled with the links, wrestling in counterpoint to their bind. His hands were free by the time the card landed on the floor in front of him. He glanced over his shoulder and found a smile on his brother's face. "Mother is calling us in to dinner," he remarked with a wry amusement. Stefan turned back to the card and read its bold engraving: Prince Stavros Nikolai Mikkosovich Cassadine and Count Stefan Darius Mikkosovich Cassadine are invited to join their mother, the Dowager Princess Helena Cassadine, for a viewing of her newly-acquired rose, to be followed by an evening of dinner and discussion. Your attendance is requested this night at the hour of seven o'clock. Both must arrive to be admitted. No encumbrances allowed. Any alteration of these conditions will result in misfortune for all. And there it was, the first move in a much more complicated game. Stefan lifted himself off the floor, his mind awhirl with the prospect and its every possible permutation. So deep were his thoughts he barely noticed Stavros at his side or the coat, his coat, he took from that hand. It wasn't until he felt the grip on his arm that his mind came back to focus on his brother. "I will need to be released." "Yes," replied Stefan. "Yes, you will." Then he turned on his heel, leaving the cell, his brother and this festering fraternal conflict behind. There is no way to know how he might have reacted had he remained within view just a few moments more, had he seen his brother pull the page from his belt - a page that until just recently had resided in the pocket of that very same coat. How might he have felt to watch this man narrow his eye to that first, carefully-scripted line: My love, my heart, Stefan… The Sigh Of Things (17)   We can prove anything of ourselves even that these be our names: Saboteur. Guardian. Not dirty. Stained. It was not the same at all. Dirt could be removed. This is how silly it was to have her hand hover hesitantly over the basket of soaps, to press a finger to their tissue paper wrappings, to pluck one up from the many and decipher the script on its tiny, tiny label. Lavender. Honey. Sage. Narcissus. Her hand closed around this last for its piquant irony alone. As close to a soap for betrayal as was likely to be found on the grounds of this great estate. Yet it would not wash away the stain, just the dirt picked up along the journey; the dust of a traitorous passage. And once again it was here with the water, the inherent absurdity of purpose. Dry was not the condition needing treatment. That was cold; the cold that had seeped through her pores in the night, chilled the stream of her blood and tracked its course to her shamefully disobedient heart. A cold unsatisfied to rest like ice on the surface of her pain, but for some inexplicable reason had found the need to burrow beneath it. And now her hands were cold, her bones were cold, her soul was cold, and every thought that crept across her mind trekked across a landscape of crusted snow. Though she twisted only the hot water faucet for her shower, she knew there would not be enough heat, had it been fired by the sun, to provide this substance with the power to cut the bond of that arctic chill. The exercise would only make her wet. Cold and wet. The first time she raised her arm from her side, where it had remained since early morning, was to lift her hair against the steaming spray; to fan the curls flat for the nozzle and allow the water to wash them away. The shifting of muscle in that arm loosened the flesh beneath the metal and caused the band to slip a bit against the skin; a tactile reminder of her capture and its consequence; the tangible expression of her sudden transformation from redeemer to slave. As if such a proof were necessary. As if she might somehow lose the knowledge of her ignorance and its every precious penalty. Enough, she thought, discarding her denial to pull the arm in front of her and look at this monstrosity in full. Not such a large thing after all. Too small, in fact, for the damage she'd been warned it could do. Her right hand came to close over the band and she gripped it tightly. Now, she commanded. Do it now. Moments passed and the sound of the shower came back to her ear. Nothing. Cold and wet and…nothing. She turned her face into the stream of water and allowed her tears to mingle with the spray. How she'd slept she didn't know, except that it had been a shallow state, tenuous enough to find its breaking harsh when the traitor tapped her on the shoulder. Sancia's hand brought her to the surface with an uncomfortable sense of disruption; physically angry with the rousing and not at all pleased to find herself so neatly lifted to her feet from that soft sitting room chair. She wrestled this discomfort as they marched her down and down and across and then down into the spider's subterranean lair. All was lost to the fugue of sleep until those first few words were spoken. Good morning, my dear, and welcome - like the clarion call of an alarm to her system; tripping her heart to a quickened beat and sending her mind in frantic search for focus. Her eye scattered to the prominent elements of the scene set out before her. Helena in a plum silk suit, smile pressed, skin luminescent. A shorter Asian man wearing a grey, protective smock and a visor drawn to the top of his head. Sancia, of course; a flat absence of energy beside her. And in front of her? A square steel table with a torch, a cloth and several metal bands arrayed across it. "Allow me to introduce Mr. Chen," her captor began, the voice almost bright with enthusiasm. "Mr. Chen comes from…Beijing, isn't it?" His hooded eyes closed for a moment to acknowledge that fact. "A brilliant man. A scientist, in a way. Our Mr. Chen has a gift for engineering and a wonderfully convenient expertise in the development of devices; a selection of which you see displayed on the table before you. Mr. Chen, if you please." The man plucked a silver ring from the table, lifted it in his hands and triggered a hidden catch; popping the circle open to reveal two pieces of metal connected by a hinge. Its construction was not so very different from a sterling bangle bracelet she'd owned as a child. And when he extended that open band, low at the level of her left hand, she had very nearly offered her wrist; so clearly the action she was meant to take. Instead, she resisted the instinct, her eyes darting from the piece to his face. What she saw there made her take a step back. "Sancia," cooed Helena, the name a soft command. The traitor moved behind her, pinning her right wrist to her side and forcing the left to the surface of the table. Regret struggled for a moment, her back pressing against Sancia's chest, her arms tensing in the restrictive embrace. The futility of the act, coupled with her contempt for the woman who held her fast, made her angry enough to spit the first accusation that came to mind. "He trusted you!" "And still does," was the gentle reply. The band came to circle her wrist. Chen then slid a section of protective cloth between the metal and her skin. His visor snapped into place and the torch was lit. Regret watched in horror as the clasp was welded shut, bonding the two sections together and consigning this manacle to her arm for what could quite possibly be the rest of her life. He then closed his torch and raised a large bowl of ice water to the table. Her wrist, cloth and all, was plunged into the bath. "Stay," he said, motioning downward with the flat of his hand to indicate the wait for the metal to cool. "What have you done to me?" Regret was surprised at the evenness of her tone as her gaze lifted to question the woman who had banded her as efficiently as a falconer would a hawk. "Oh, my dear," Helena admonished, pursing her lips. "Nothing so terrible as you suppose. It's just a bracelet, after all. And for me, an insurance of sorts. Contained within that trinket is a small, almost inconsequential amount of explosive. Only enough to kill you and, perhaps, the person standing next to you. No, no. Have no fear. As long as you remain within three miles of this estate you will be as safe as I or anyone else might make you. However, were you to wander beyond that radius…well," she left off, allowing her fingers to pop in pantomime of the blast. Chen was pulling her arm from the bowl and drying it off. Once her wrist was returned to her she examined the band and then turned the metal to face the sharp corner of the table. "Were I to smash this trinket to the edge," she inquired quietly, "would you die as well?" Helena laughed. "Ah, Regret! You underestimate the cunning of our engineer. They are quite indestructible, aren't they Mr. Chen? Bathe them, badger them, bang them about, they will not blow apart until the range of their signal has been surpassed. Three miles, remember. Just three." With this she turned to nod at her scientist, who prepared the surface of the table yet again. "Sancia?" Regret could feel a stiffening in the woman at her back. Though it was only a momentary seize in posture, she found a healthy dose of vindication in this traitor's response. That this betrayer would be manacled as well seemed fitting to her. And a three mile tether would certainly limit the amount of damage she'd be able to inflict upon…her heart faltered in the seconds it took to discover she couldn't use his name. Not yet. Not even in her mind. A look from spy to spymaster passed directly over her head and Helena's eyes glittered. "You promised me an action, my dear. We must make good on our markers if we are to trust each other at all. Come, give Mr. Chen your wrist." Obedient as ever, Sancia slipped around Regret and placed her arm on the table. "I will not be going back then," she stated flatly, more to herself than to anyone else in the room. "Of course you will, my little cub! We've adjusted the settings for precisely that. Twenty-five miles, I believe." Helena stepped forward to place a hand on Sancia's arm, just above where Chen would be directing his flame. "We've also given you a trigger. Should Laura mount the defense you believe her incapable of, well, it will not matter where you stand in the end." Regret watched the play of light on the woman's face and came to the conclusion that if, in fact, a spider could gloat it would not look so very much different than this. The pain alone should have pulled her away from the memory of Helena's smile; a fresh cut dripping her blood to mix with the water cascading down her arm. If not the pain then the sound of her wrist beating against the shower wall; the sad, steady strike of metal to the tile; strong enough to crack the glaze and chip the face of it to fragments. How long had she been standing there hammering at a truth she could not change? How long had she been wanting and trying and waiting to die? She would never know. It was not until another hand came through the curtain to grasp hold of her own; another arm wearing that same metal band thrusting forward to stop this achingly rhythmic refrain, that she returned once again to herself. She pulled the curtain back and was caught short by the intensity of Laura's eyes. An instant only, before that spark flickered and the blue dulled flat. To be able to do this. To be able to retreat. There were very few things in life Regret found herself envious of. At that moment, cold and wet, her naked mind stretched to the point of madness, she counted this talent to be one of them. "Have you rid the cabinets of your poisons yet, or are you looking for something in particular?" She was startled by the sight of him there, in the door. That twelve small hours could have wrought such a change was hard to believe. He was drawn now, grey and tight, like an old sailor's knot straining at the center of a storm. Sleep had not been an option, she could see. Nor quiet contemplation, judging by the bruises she could spot swelling at the side of his neck. Still, he held fast - perhaps only to the purpose of binding his canvas to the mast; of holding afloat; of remaining, to his best degree, seaworthy. "You question my loyalty." "You imagine you've left something to question." The remark was far too enigmatic for her taste and made her wonder at the distance he put between them. "You were there. When she contacted me last night, you were there. You know I had nothing to do with Laura's disappearance." Stefan closed the door behind him, shutting out the noise of the building beyond. His eye scanned the pharmacy countertops, the table, the desk. She had no idea what he was looking for. Proof, she surmised. Proof of something. "When did you start working for my mother?" he asked as he moved along the wall, his hand trailing the thick, black-enameled lip of a shelf. "You know this, Stefan." "Humor me." He reached the corner of the room and turned, leaning back against the edge of the desk. "Illuminate me, Sancia. Concoct a tale and tell it." "I was approached within twenty-four hours of Laura's arrival at this estate," she began, confused by the request yet willing to honor it. "You told me to take the meeting. I did. You told me to resist her. I did. You told me to make her work for the turning. This I did." She paused for direction and met with nothing but the weight of his implacable stare. "You said not to succumb to her offer. Not until it was clear she had only one card left to play. This would be my father. The father I do not have. The father you created for me; a man overcome by addiction and debt. My weakness. Her wedge. I did as you asked, Stefan. I don't understand. You know this." "Oh Sancia," he chided, softly clicking his tongue. "What do I know? In the end, really, what have you given me to know?" "All that I could discover," she replied without hesitation. "I told you where she lived. I told you what she wanted. Her aim was Laura. Laura was a means to an end. That end involved both her sons. I've told you this, Stefan." She watched as he studied her and saw his eye catch the bandage on her arm. A brow lifted, but he made no mention of the gauze or what might lay beneath it. "Yes," he said evenly. "I know what you've told me. Tell me again, if you will, what purpose she meant you to serve. What was your assignment?" Her head tipped to view him at an angle, as if this would clarify his question. "I was meant to deliver Laura to Helena." "And she has been delivered. Yet you remain. Why are you here, Sancia?" How far had he fallen in the night? How long had he been straining to catch hold of a reason; of a hard truth to grab against the gravitational force of his loss? Too long, she thought, to be plunging through such a suspicious darkness. Too long if he sincerely believed she would, on any pretext, for any cause, come to the point of betraying him. "I am here because this is where you've put me. This is where you require me to be." And he asked once more, "Why are you here, Sancia?" Somehow, in a manner she could not ascertain, his trust had been lost; stolen as surely as Laura in the hours she'd been gone. A tricky business it was, holding aloft between two Cassadine masters. The serve was his, true, but the ball was never out of play; never permitted to bounce across a line without aim or a single, specific objective. For reasons she did not understand, he had plucked her from the air and tossed her to the ground. Challenging the call would not change it. Her time with him had come to an end. "You answer the question yourself, Stefan. Your doubt makes me useless to you. With your permission," she nodded, taking a step away. "I will pack my bags and be gone within the hour." "Where?" he asked in an ill-disguised pretense at idle curiosity. "Where will you go?" She felt the pressure of the bandage then, snug to her wrist. She managed a smile. "Not much farther, I'm afraid." The reality of the statement struck her and she took a shallow breath. "Honestly? Back. Back to Helena. I've managed to prevent Laura from being drugged. I'd like to keep that from happening again. Perhaps I can help them. I don't know." Stefan pushed himself off the desk and came to stand before her. Close he looked all the more haggard, the scent of him a mix of emollient and dull, aching pain. "I have an offer," he stated, as if he were sticking a notice on a post. "Whatever knife she's holding to your throat, I am willing to work toward its removal. But only if you tell me everything, Sancia. All of it." "All of what?" she asked through a bitter laugh. "Would you like me to lie? I can. I will. For you. I can pretend, for you, that I knew she intended to replace Laura in that hospital bed. I can pretend, for you, that I knew she would come for Laura last night. I can pretend, again for you, that I am her creature completely. Is that what you need, Stefan? Because I will give it, if this is what you ask." He let out an exasperated sigh yet pushed to coax this bargaining along. "Start with the formula. Tell me how you altered my formula to keep Laura from waking." He gave an instant to her silence. "No? Then tell me this. When did you approach her? Before she left or after she returned?" It was like a game of blindman's bluff, this spinning in the dark. "I have no idea what you're talking about. What alteration? Whom did I approach? Just tell me what's happened, Stefan, and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability." His turn to laugh, if one could call that a laugh. More a vexatious wheeze of amusement. "And give you grist for your deceptions? I think not." "Then, by all means, continue to inform me through accusation. I'll catch up eventually." Sancia sensed his fury mounting, the muscles in his jaw flexing with ire. "You saw what she wanted, this ridiculous idea. Here was your opening. How long did it take you to recruit the maid? To suggest Regret befriend her, encourage her, carry her along to your purpose? She had no method. No means of her own. You probably told her you'd take her to the airport! And she believed you, as naïve as she is. They were pawns. Pawns in a scheme orchestrated by the only other person on this estate who knew Helena wanted Laura. Who knew Helena was a threat hovering over my head. You planned this abduction, down to the sedative you gave to the guard. Admit it, Sancia. Admit it and be done." Such a circuitous path for his mind to take. And then the light dawned. "I see," she said, sighing as she put the pieces into place. And she did see. She did understand. "You never told Regret about Helena. You didn't, did you? Helena was one of those restricted bits of information you've been holding so closely to your vest. So she didn't know. She had no way of knowing." Her brain began to construct the puzzle; first slowly, then fast and faster until she almost had it all. "She wanted you to take Laura back to the hospital. She went to visit those children. She returned, yet not truly. Not to you. Not to you so much as to…as to Laura." "NO!" he roared, his fists coming to the front of her shirt and lifting her to her toes. "I was you! She needed you!" "She needed no one," Sancia corrected, meeting his glare with one of her own. "You can't give her credit for the skill, can you? The betrayal, yes. But not the skill. Not against you. For this she would have needed my help. Not the help of an elderly maid who scrubs your floors, but the help of a worthy opponent. Tell me I'm wrong, Stefan. Put me down and prove to me I'm wrong." His arms began to shake, and she with them. The descent was quick and awkward, Sancia finding her footing just as he turned to contend with his grief. Or his shock. Well, she decided, it was high time to clean up this mess; long past time to put order to those twisted thoughts in his head. She pitched her voice to an impassive note and delivered her assessment to his back. "Regret recruited the maid, Stefan, and the maid was Helena's. The plan to abduct Laura belongs to Regret. There is no escaping this. While it was Helena's intent to have me mastermind the theft of Laura - a truth we knew and were planning for - Regret, in the end, fell like an apple in her lap. Opportunity, Stefan. Chance. A stroke of luck. You can't plan against that. You'd be foolish to think you could even try." He would be a rock about this. A stone in a pool; rooted, resistant and twice as silent. "They are fine, Stefan. Both of them. Laura is as she was when you last saw her. Regret will care for her now." If he found any consolation in the words, she saw no sign to confirm it. Sancia pulled her left wrist forward and released the butterfly clip from the bandage. Round and round, she unwrapped the gauze and laid the bracelet bare. Then she turned to the table and stretched the arm, from elbow to hand, across its surface. "Stefan, if you can find a moment, there is something I think you might like to see." His grudging eye came over his shoulder and caught the glint of the light on the band. Curiosity pulled him closer and sent an unspoken question through the air. "It's a bomb," she answered flatly. "And now you know everything." The Sigh Of Things (18)   It is quiet in the afternoons of I have always been here… He twisted the key in the ignition and turned the engine off. Though the Mercedes ran soft to the ear and idled like a hum beneath the breath, the silence he found waiting for him once this engine stilled was startlingly thick; deep enough to envelop; to drown beneath. It was a testament to German engineering that every door closed flush, every window fit snug to its seal, every vent curved at an angle to prevent the introduction of the outside environment. Even the air, rich as it had assuredly been only moments ago, seemed quite suddenly thin to his lungs and in some way over-used. In his attempt to ignore that illusion, he turned his attention to the space around him and found it irritatingly close. This was a large car to feel so small as it did; so confining to him now; so completely tight. He pulled the keys from their housing, lifted his jacket from the seat and opened the door. He stood out of range of her camera, ten feet from the gated entrance to her estate. He had given her the chance to admit him - waited longer than any man's patience would allow beneath that unblinking mechanical eye - before he pulled off the driveway in disgust and brought the car to rest at the side of the road. Because it was his habit, he took his comfort in the knowledge that she had commanded both sons be present before gaining admittance to her domain. Also, because it was his habit, he took his disquiet in the knowledge that Stavros would not have been made to wait. For his brother, allowances would have been made. Well, one thing was certain. His brother would be late. Stavros was always late. Form. In the end it was just good form to be present for his prisoner's release. And while it stuck in his craw like a fishbone - this silent overseeing of a madman set loose once again in the world - he could find little point to the keeping. Do nothing which is of no use. Musashi. The Book Of Five Rings. This captive would eat at his resources, if only in the energy required to contain him. Should Helena mount a rescue it would mean a further diversion of force to do battle on what was now a secondary front. Laura was the aim, after all. Not Stavros, whose value to his brother had evaporated overnight. He'd given thought to a trade, then dismissed it. Her desire was for both sons, not just the one. An exchange would serve no purpose, attain no closure to her grand design. And it was foolish to imagine any gain could be achieved by dragging his brother through the weeks to come like a tiger on the tail of a chain. No. He would open the door to the pen and permit this chaos its release. Let him wreak his havocs on his mother for awhile. Let her expend those energies. A stray and oddly gratifying thought. A single instant of concern, when he clutched Sancia's wrist as he had, fingers folding around that gauze to press against what he thought was a wound. Punishment? he had asked, his gaze straying from his grip to her face. Punishment indeed. Still, he was far too eager to launch himself once again into the wide, witless world than to take the moment it would require to give this curiosity its due. A change of clothing and the toss of the keys to one of the estate's old pick-up trucks and he was gone. Such an expensive acquisition. Lost. And though he couldn't calculate it now, Stefan knew the cost of letting his brother go would somehow be higher in the end; more substantial; more exacting. A lesson born of history. Dusk settled like a blanket over this leafy lane; its bluish-grey light folding into and through the mantled tree branches, the walls of hedge and the bounty of verdant bushes and shrubs that lined her narrow road. There would be fog this night, he could feel it in the texture of the breeze; a salted condensation too chilled by half to mix effortlessly into the heat of the day. So short a distance from the sea - those clouds would form, would slither in, would bank and blend all around her, adding to the ephemeral quality of the evening. A chimerical hour in his life. A mysterious milestone. His mother required him. This was such an astonishing truth that he felt the lie of it automatically. The untrustworthy taste of a phenomenon he could neither explain nor ignore. So he put it apart, outside of his mind, until further evidence was presented. If it were, in fact, presented. Though he couldn't see Helena's estate through the foliage that rose against his eye, it was known to him nonetheless. Here was one of the properties he had himself considered when scouting a location for Laura; her treatment, her convalescence. Twenty-three acres of fine waterfront property lay behind this hedge; long swathes of manicured lawn, an Italian marble fountain, a graceful reflecting pool and a rose garden as old as the house itself. There had even been a promontory, if he remembered correctly, jutting out over a cove. A sturdy cliff not so very different from the one he'd treasured in his youth; his island perch; his sanctuary from all things Cassadine. All it needed was a bench and this, in the end, had come as a strike against the taking. Why craft a future in the cradle of the past? He had imagined his heart would have enough to contend with once he had her there, standing right in front of him. But the house itself had broken the deal at the last with the choking grandiosity of its interior design. From the formal presentation staircase, the thickly-marbled foyer, the endless stretch of a tunnel of wood the realtor claimed was a dining room and the all-too-massive receiving hall - now apparently regarded as a great room - the first floor resembled nothing so much as a museum in its proportions. The library…well, the library had been appealing but not enough to look beyond the rest. Primarily for the reason that he would have to leave it on occasion. Laura would be in residence, after all. Add to this the fact that all the living quarters were located on the second floor - the grand master, six substantial bedrooms and one two-bedroom suite - and he knew immediately it would not serve the needs of a person in recovery. More a debutante bride, a decadent royal or a dowager possessed of entirely too much personal property. And to this last had it come, he thought wryly. Stefan recalled he'd cut the showing short at that point, yet when Sancia brought him the news of Helena's leasing this estate he had immediately revisited his discarded choice. Blueprints were acquired, copies of her construction permits obtained. Areas of improvement had been studied carefully; reviewed by contractors, security specialists and a handful of military men whose expertise in the fields of invasion and extraction gave him a unique perspective on the precautions she was taking and the countermeasures required to surmount them. By the time Sancia came to him with the logistics of this imprisonment, he had already suspected Laura would be held in the two-bedroom suite. The amount of work done to reinforce this area had been prodigious. The windows, the doors, the wiring for special sensors and monitoring devices had all but marked this area with an "X". Plans for his assault were made long ago, the tactics involved practiced with diligence and honed to perfection. He had been ready for this contingency. He had been prepared. And now, so suddenly, not. If there were a way to blame Sancia for the trigger mechanism in her band, he had not bothered to look for it. This, he knew, would be the last accusation she would suffer and the one to lay the final straw atop the already bowing back of their trust. He should want to trust her. Most men in his position would want that, would need it in fact. Yet it was a quirk in his nature to prefer having confidence in no one, to depend on no single individual, especially in the aftermath of betrayal. When the ranks closed, they closed to one. Not two or six or seventy-five. The effort it took to permit her even this small acknowledgement, this feeble faith in her continuing loyalty, was daunting in the extreme and strained the equilibrium of his strategic mind to a degree it could hardly afford. Resisted affording, were he to be honest with himself. That he could not now rescue Laura without risking the life of this woman galled him beyond measure. Of course, when all options had been explored and all other avenues of escape exhausted, her life would indeed be sacrificed as a last resort. Both agreed on this. Both accepted it. Both understood the necessity of that final forfeit. A grace note to the struggle of including her in this, for him, unnatural circle of two. Stefan tipped the coat sleeve back from his wrist to look at his watch. Four hours they'd been at it; Sancia and the expert he'd flown in that afternoon. X-rays, metallurgical analysis, every exterior examination and test that could be performed on that fetter she'd had welded to her wrist would have been completed by now. Had they found a pocket of space somewhere beneath the surface, perhaps by the hinge, that would permit a drilling? Would there be enough of a hollow to thread the fiber-optic camera though and provide themselves the ability to explore the workings of Helena's device? Could they keep from interfering with the signal that would trigger the explosive? Could they find a way to disconnect, if not the distance sensor, then at least the manual relay so that no purposed touch could detonate the bomb on a whim? Any progress on this front would be welcome, and instructive for the eventual removal of Laura's own shackle. For even if an escape were successful, that limited range of hers would defeat a true freedom. And he would have her free. Laura would be free. The distant growl of a car engine interrupted his thoughts, laying a harshness over the quiet serenity he'd found along this empty road. His eye turned toward the noise, narrowing immediately to the small black dot that blighted this otherwise pristinely green panorama. As the vehicle raced toward him he marked it a Ferrari; flat and sleek and as gauche to this setting as a lump of coal in a forest of emeralds. Nouveau riche, he surmised. A dot-com robber-baron or some baseborn immigrant fluffed up by the fluctuating price of oil. As he had no wish to be noticed by the driver, much less greeted or hailed for something so mundane as a lost direction, he turned quite purposefully away from the road. Yet the car still slowed, still stopped to idle with an angry purr aside his own. "Good enough to capture yet not quite fine enough to greet in the street. Poorly met, brother. Very poorly met." I am fortunate to be facing away, he thought, as he schooled his features to an expression of bored indifference. When he finally did turn, the question of how his brother had managed to trade an old pick-up truck for a relatively new sportscar was soon coupled with a query regarding that pressed white dress shirt and the expensive platinum watch now buckled to a wrist languishing above the driver's side door. "You're late." "Nonsense, Stefan," his brother chided. "As nothing begins without me it stands to reason I am never ever late." A shadowed movement of his right hand shifted the car into gear and in an instant burst of speed it had spurted forward to turn into her drive. Damn him. Damn him straight to hell, he thought as he was forced into action to follow Stavros through. Second, if the gate remained open. He would be coming in second once again.