Michael could feel it within him. Liz was gone, out of the dream, and somehow, he felt relieved.

He stood with the lady, watching her watching the sea. He saw the unicorns, but he wasn't sure if she still could. She was slowly becoming human.

He felt that too, he felt her slipping away from him. As if Maria was forgetting exactly what had happened.

Before now, he had always been positive. Positive that she had known he was there, and that he was holding her body, and that he needed her to wake up.

Now all he was positive of was that he needed her to wake up, whether she knew it or not.

He needed her to be with him, he saw that now, saw it the moment he saw her crumple before the car.

But he couldn't tell her.

Not yet.

The lady turned, moving towards her room. The moon had risen and she had been watching it for hours. Watching the reflection in the sea. Watching for something, as if it could take her home.

Back to her forest, back to her soft mossy knoll, and back to her innocence.

Michael followed her into her room, standing sentinel by her door, watching over her like a stone angel. He heard footsteps coming up the stairs something like an hour later. And his voice.

It was still unsettling hearing his voice, and things that sounded like his words - the ones he saved just for Maria - coming from someone else's lips.

The room shook and the lady woke with a shriek, clutching the sheet to herself. She ran from the room, colliding with Prince Lir, and she fell back in fear. "Who are you?" she asked in a hushed whisper.

The man looked shocked, "I'm Lir," he said quietly, reaching out to her, "don't you know me? I'm Lir."

She looked up at him with huge eyes, and Michael saw something there, something he'd seen in Maria's eyes after he'd kissed her the first time.

He fought back the memories that forced themselves through him, through her.

The lady shuddered. "Lir?" she looked at him cautiously, "Prince Lir?"

He nodded, "you were dreaming, my lady."

"But I am always dreaming, even when I'm awake…" she shuddered again, trying to rid her voice of that desperate tone it held. "It is never finished…" and again, the shuddering desperate tone was back. She shook her head. "I will not trouble you, my lord prince."

"Please," he reached out and grabbed her arm, and Michael felt a flash of fury run through him as se turned to look kindly upon the prince. "Trouble me," he laughed a bit at the desperation in his own voice. "I would court you with more grace if I knew how," he dropped her arm, but she didn't turn away from him. "I just wish you wanted something of me." She turned to face him fully, her eyes brimming with hope, Michael felt himself break.

She was looking at Lir the way Maria looked at him. The way Amalthea used to look at him.

"Drown out my dreams," she wailed, not trying to hide her desperate trembling voice. "Keep me from remembering, whatever wants me to remember it…" she fell into his arms, and he held her closely to him as she shuddered, not crying, but sobbing without tears.

Michael shut his eyes tightly, turning away from the two, and for the first time since he entered the dream, he left her side, and moved down the stairs and ran.

He ran far and fast, out of the castle, out onto the rocky beach, and out into the shallow waves. He sank to his knees and let out a shattered sob, and let the warming waves surround him. He looked out and saw them -- the unicorns -- dancing on the waves, watching him strangely.

"Can you see me?" he asked them, and one slowly, oh so torturously slow and tentatively, moved away from the pull of the tide, away from the others.

And she came towards him.

He didn't move, only cried and cried, more than he had in his life.

"Can you see me?" he asked in a whisper as the beautiful creature neared him.

Tears were touching the unicorn's eyes, and he felt guilty.

"I see you, Michael," the unicorn murmured, and it was Maria's voice.

How could anything so beautiful speak with any voice but Maria's?

"And I know who you are," she bent, nuzzling his face, her reached up and stroked her muzzle lovingly, carefully, as if it were really Maria.

"Maria," he whispered, drinking in the scent of the unicorn, "oh god, Maria, I'm so sorry…"

The unicorn shushed him, pulling away to meet his eyes, there was a divine innocence there that he couldn't have missed had he been blind.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, love," the unicorn smiled, "this was meant." It seemed as if she was sighing, "this was fated. We are all simply victims of fate."

"Not you," Michael murmured, "you're not a victim of anything. You're different." He looked away, "we're all part of a story, it moves so fast, it never stops, you…" he sighed, meeting her eyes again, "you stand still."

The unicorn laughed as best she could without hurting his pride, before nuzzling his cheek again. "I may stand still, but it doesn't mean that I am not a part of the story…" she sighed, and he frowned, "I am simply a part of it longer than most."

Michael nodded, rising to his feet. He began to walk away, before turning briefly to face the unicorn again, "Maria?" he murmured, and she looked up at him, "thank you."

The unicorn smiled, "thank you, Michael," she smiled, before turning back to the waves, and he felt his heart break.

He rose, turning towards the castle, planning to hide himself away from people, the light of the sun, and his painful memories. For a while at least.

He changed his mind, and found himself standing beside the gnarled old king as he laughed, mockingly, at the magician's parlor tricks.

No one dared go near the king, and that Michael stood beside him sent a message to the others…

Hope was waning quickly, and time was drawing short.

Days, weeks, months passed, and Michael now stood with the old king as reverently as he had stood beside the lady. Only his demeanor, his manner, and his eyes told a different tale that what his stance, his infrequent words, and his tongue would ever say. He had avoided the lady as reverently as he had followed her before, staying close to the king, assuring that they would never cross paths. He was mistaken in this thought, as, one afternoon, while Prince Lir was away, and the king found Amalthea standing on a wide balcony. He chuckled as she watched the road -- not the sea-- in silence, waiting anxiously for something.

"Love is slowing you down, my lady," the old king said, and Michael froze, unable to breathe, she was still Maria, however different she had become. "I will catch you at last, if you love much more."

These words hurt Michael more than anything anyone had ever said to him, because it felt as if Maria was forgetting him, replacing him with the practically perfect picture she'd created that resembled him only slightly, and spoke with his voice.

"Look," she said, unnerved by the confrontation, "your son is coming home."

The old king shook his head and laughed coldly, "Lir?" he asked, and the name sounded foul on his tongue, "he's none of mine. I picked him up on a doorstep where some peasant had left him. I was thinking that I had never been happy, and never had a son. It was pleasant at first, but it died quickly. There is only one thing that has ever made me happy…" wit this he looked earnestly at Amalthea, and then at the sea.

"What is that?" she asked quietly, honestly.

"Do not mock me," he said sternly, "I know very well what you have come for, and you know very well that I have them! Try to take them if you can, but do not mock me!" his voice rose slowly, and the severity of his tone grew with his volume.

The lady Amalthea cowered away from the king, and Michael let a small, silver tear slip from his eye, she was, indeed, more human than ever before. She regained herself quickly enough, but the show of her fear was not lost on either Michael, or Haggard.

"My lord, in all your castle, in all your realm, there is nothing of yours that I desire. Good day, your majesty." She backed away slowly, dipping gracefully as she went, but the king would not let her leave so easily.

"I know you!" he cried, his eyes flashing with insane fury. "I almost knew you as soon as I saw you coming on the road, with your cook and your clown; since then, there is no movement of yours that has not betrayed you!" his hands gripped her shoulders in a vice, and she winced, but did not cry out. "A pace, a glance, a turn of the head, the flash of your throat as you breathe, even your way of standing perfectly still, they were all my spies..." he turned away from her to look at the sea. "You made me wonder for a while. But your time is done," he leant over the banister, looking into the serene blue depths.

"The tide is turning," he said at length, not looking at her, "come and see it," he motioned for her to join him, "come here." And in that moment, he seemed very much what he was, a lonely old man, in need of a companion as endless, and as ageless as he himself was.

They stood for a while, Amalthea's eyes shifting from the road to the sea, back and forth, and the King's eyes trained on the waves.

Suddenly, he murmured softly, but fervently, startling the girl, "There they are. There they are!" his mouth spread into a gnarled grin. "They are mine! They belong to me! The Red Bull gathered them for me one by one, and I bade him drive each one into the sea!" he chuckled softly, and Michael shivered. "Now, they live there. And every tide carries them within an easy step of the land, but they dare not come out of the water! They are afraid of the Red Bull..." his excitement waned, and Michael wondered briefly if the king actually held any power over anything after all.

"I like to watch them," Haggard said softly, and again, he was reduced to a lonely man in need of a kindred spirit. "They fill me with joy..." his eyes filled with memories, threatening to brim over the edges of their carefully determined space. "The first time I felt it, I thought I was going to die…" his eyes clouded, and he spoke with such emotion that any observer would find it hard to relate the cold, angry, hollowed king with the man that spoke then. "I said to the Red Bull, 'I must have them. I must have all of them, all there are, for nothing makes me happy, but their shining, and their grace.' So the Red Bull caught them for me…" he sighed, looking out into the waters again. "Each time I see the unicorns, my unicorns, it is like that morning in the woods, and I am truly young, in spite of myself!" he turned to Amalthea, and his voice shattered his heart with it's chilling emotion. "You are the last."

"My lord, I-I do not understand. I see nothing at all in the water!" she cried, tears of terror filling her big, innocent eyes.

"Do you still deny yourself?" he whispered low, menacingly. "Do you dare still pretend to be human?" his eyes flashed with anger and a hint of disappointment. "I'll hurl you down to the others with my own hands if you dare deny yourself!"

"What are you saying?" she cried frantically, backing away from him.

"It must be so," he said, more to himself than to her, "I cannot be mistaken. Yet - your eyes. Your eyes have become empty, as Lir's…" his eyes widened in horrified realization. "As any eyes that… never saw unicorns."

His looked deeply into her eyes and brushed the hair off her forehead, to reveal nothing of the mark she had borne before.

He sighed, shaking his head, "it makes no difference, I can wait. The end will be the same. I can wait."

The king turned without a goodbye, and delved back into the deeps of the hollowed stone castle.

Amalthea bowed her head into her arms and began to sob, and Michael couldn't leave her while her tears flowed so fervently.

He didn't move to touch her, to comfort her, but he watching in tormented agony as she sobbed, until the magician appeared in the doorway, and took her in his arms, shushing her lovingly. "Shhh, don't, don't, don't," he begged her, holding her against his chest. "It's all right. We'll find them. Come on, come with me," he took her arm and led her towards the stairs. "Oh, please, please don't cry," he said again, when her tears did not relent. "If you've become human enough to cry then no magic in the world can change you back. Just come with me. Shh, don't cry. I promise you we'll find them," they disappeared down the stairwell and Michael hesitated only for a moment, before following.

He could not… no…

He would not let her be taken from him again.

They were in the great lower hall, standing before a skull, laughing in the hollow emptiness of the room.

"Shut up you pretentious kneecap! How would you like a punch in the eye?" the magician said haughtily, angrily, it was odd hearing Alex's voice intoned in such a violent way.

Molly chuckled good-naturedly, and placed a calming hand on the magician's arm. "Schmendrick, you made it laugh anyway," she said reasonably, "maybe that's all you need for the riddle."

The skull cackled and shook, "it isn't!" it laughed again, and the four onlookers shivered in their respective places.

Michael sat far back from the rest, his eyes trained on Amalthea's shining form.

Isabel stood near her counterpart, Molly, her eyes filled with wonder as the answers to everything were about to unfold.

Alex paced, anxiously, knowing the story, knowing the end, knowing everything, and trying, in vain, to decipher what it all meant, and how it applied to the situation.

Kyle alone was still and thoughtless. His eyes were fixed on the skull's jaw, remembering every word, every detail from the book he'd read as a child. His secrets had been unfurled to the one man he truly hated, for the sake of his sister.

He'd told Michael that afternoon, when he'd found the other boy sitting on one of the broad balconies. "Guerin?"

The other boy had glared at him coldly, "what do you want?"

"There's something you should see," he said quietly, knowing that the story was rapidly coming to a close. "Something that you might want to know."

"What could you possibly say to me that I would want to hear?" Michael had said, his back to the dark boy.

"It's not what I have to say, but what the story says, Guerin, Isabel asked me to bring you to see it."

"I don't care," the other boy had sighed, shaking his head, his eyes fixed on the sea, "nothing she or you or anyone could say can make me care again."

Kyle had felt burning fury at this, and flew to Michael's side, his eyes blazing with hatred and malice.

"You may not care about yourself, or Isabel, or Alex, or me," he began, his voice trained yet menacing, "or anything else for that matter, and that's just fine with me. But if you even for a moment pretend not to care for my sister I swear, I will kill you with my own hands."

Michael's eyes met his, and something like sorrow filled the alien's gaze. "Your sister?" he asked, "Maria?"

Kyle nodded tersely, "Maria, my golden little sister-to-be, you did this to her, by breaking her heart, and burning her soul." Michael's eyes filled with a strange, reverent fear as Kyle spoke, but the other boy took no notice of it.

"You think I don't know? You think I'm as blind as all that? I've known about so many things for longer than you could imagine. You aren't normal, Michael, you never have been. You're just like her, something stellar, something different…" he trailed off, looking into the water, "you two are both stone figures, standing still while the world turns round. I've always hated you for it, and I've admired her for it. She's going to be my sister…" he looked at Michael, "that's my secret," he said matter-of-factly. "That's my special piece of Maria that was mine, just mine. I've given it to you, Guerin, if that won't change your fucking mind, then you can throw yourself into the water with your own kind. I know Maria won't want anything to do with you if she knows about this." He turned and walked away.

Michael followed, and they were now in the lower hall.