"Finally!" came a woman's voice, this from the opposite side of the room, "I thought you'd never get them here!"

Gwen looked up from the floor into a face nearly as familiar to her as her own.

"Louisa?" she whispered hoarsely, disbelief filling her just as it felt as if her blood was draining from her altogether. The maid who'd grown up with her in St. John Manor, been there the day her parents each died, the day that Ben had begun to act strange... and the day they'd taken him away, "What is going on?" Gina choked out, fearing she already knew.

"Malcolm don't!" Bane shouted and Gina watched her husband lunge at his brother. But in an instant, there was a bolt of tesla power from what GIna assumed was Malcolm's hand held Tesla stunner, and the Bear of the North landed on the floor beside her with a grown.

"Bane!" she heard herself scream as she scrambled to him, touched his face, searching for a pulse.

"He'll be fine," Louisa scoffed impatiently with a roll of her eyes as she left her place next to the Tesla coil control door to stand beside Malcolm. Bane's younger brother was staring down at them both with such a twist of anger and pain, but he didn't contradict his counterpart.

"How could you?" Gina asked him in a deathly whisper, her voice breaking halfway through her words. Louisa smirked unhappily, crossing her arms against herself.

"You wouldn't understand," Louisa answered tightly, her anger nearly palpable, "I've been on this plan with Ben for over a year,"

"Ben?" Gina breathed, "He isn't dead?" she asked, unable to help the hopeful tone in her voice.

"Of course he's dead you stupid bitch!" Louisa screeched, balling her fists at her sides in outrage. Malcolm stayed quiet but nodded his chin towards something on the opposite side of the room where Louisa had been standing only moments ago.

Gina did take a good look then, for she hadn't bothered before now. The room was full of foggy morning light, weak and cold... it was not comforting at all. But it granted her a view of what could only be the work of whoever had stolen the family relic. The floor was covered in an elaborate series of symbols, some mirror, others repeated as they scrawled across the stone floor of the workshop, all swirling and twisting towards one center - there was a black stone basin, and it looked to be roughly a hundred years old. These were the same symbols that had been painted onto Gina's floor just before the fire - she'd thought then that she must've done the work in her sleep. But now she doubted that theory - it was done in such detail that no madman could have duplicated it. And strewn over the dark charcoal paint were black roses, roughly chopped like garden lettuce rather than expensive and rare flowers that they were. The bodies were strewn in every direction, again creating a kind of carpet over top of the symbols.

But this wasn't what Malcolm had urged her to look towards - no. Instead, just beyond the stone basin lay two coffins on the stone floor, each adorned in black roses and surrounded by an intricate set of symbols of its own. Neither looked familiar to her... though one had clearly been unearthed, and the other looked as if it had never been put to the ground, to begin with.

"Ben," Gina breathed, feeling as if the air had been stolen from her lungs as she spoke his name. In her chest, she knew it was her twin's body that lay inside the box that had never kissed the earth... then who -

"It's her," Malcolm spoke the words brokenly, and Gina whirled around to see that same face of pain once again, "It's the first Lady Brisbane... before you, dear sister."

"Cora..." Gina murmured in a kind of whisper, then swallowed past the dryness in her throat as Malcolm's face crumpled into a dark scowl of anger.

"She was perfect..." he said quietly, and Louis turned away in a huff, as if she'd heard this before, "She was everything a man could want... at least - everything I ever wanted..." Malcolm explained, "And then he took her from me... like it was nothing like it was just another competition from our childhood."

"Malcolm, please, you don't have to -"

"Would you get her to shut up?" Louisa screeched again, the sound of Harry banging at the door coming just behind where she and Malcolm stood.

"Remember your place, would you?" Malcolm seethed, and Louisa fell silent at the venom in his voice, "Listen, Gina - I like you just fine," he said, some of his usual self coming back to his voice now, "It's nothing personal at all... but this requires... a sacrifice..."

"What does?" Gina whispered quietly, dreading the answer she already knew.

"Gina..." Malcolm muttered, shaking his head.

"THere's much you don't know about your new in-laws, m'dear," Louisa interjected as she moved away from Mal to ready something that lay on one of the tables, "But my favorite thing is the value that can be found in their oldest family heirloom. I'm sure Lord Brisbane failed to tell you of its worth - he's so very superstitious that way... but my grandmother worked for the Brisbane Family- and she told me stories of their odd rituals... about how they ould live longer than natural lives... retain their youth and beauty... and bring the dead back to life."

"And you - you told Ben about this?" Gina sputtered in disbelief.

"We were in love, your brother and I," Louisa's voice grew quiet as she said the words, "All he wanted in the world was for your family to come back together, for your parents to bless our union... he refused to marry me without it. At first, I thought all my chances at life as a lady were gone... then I remembered those stories... and I mentioned them to Ben."

"And he tried to recreate them?" Gina guessed, thinking over the dead animals, the strange behaviors he'd exhibited just before the house fire...

"That's when they reached out to me," Malcolm explained, and Gina watched as a flash of uncertainty crossed her brother in laws face, "It seemed like an easy enough deal - they'd provide the body for the sacrifice... all I was supposed to do was help to get you here," Malcolm added, swallowing hard as he looked at Gina a little shamed facedly.

"You started the rumor about Georgina on purpose?" she guessed in a whisper, and Malcolm nodded.

"And I made sure that those letters fell into the right hands," Louisa crowed nearly cheerful at the part she'd played, "I knew you were just desperate enough to say yes to a groom sight unseen."

"But the carriage accident -"

"I had to get a few of my cousins involved for that bit," Louisa admitted with an unsatisfied shrug, "But we needed to retrieve the relic without drawing suspicion to Malcolm."

"He suspected you anyway," Gina seethed, turning on Malcolm once more, he looked away, his features so like his brothers but his countenance seemed so feeble.

"And then we had to build it up in Bane's mind as the work of a ghost, and as the family madness in yours..." Louisa continued, almost bored as she worked to mix things together at the table as if she'd studied the recipe for the spell that she'd memorized it by now.

"What about the poison?" Gina asked, stalling for as long as she dared now.

"A mistake -" Malcolm bit out in an angry tone, glaring at Louisa who only shrugged but made no attempt to defend herself.

"But the ritual can't be done without the relic," Malcolm interrupted, "And now we have everything we'll need," he added, and with that he stepped forward to take Gina by the arm, dragging her inward, towards the center of the charcoal symbols... and the stone basin.

"Malcolm - no!" Gina screamed, "You don't need to do this - don't do this please! You're not like this, you don't mean this... you, you saved me, remember? Why did you save me if you planned to kill me all along?" she demanded, wrestling with all her might as Malcolm accepted some rope from Louisa's outstretched hands.

"Doesn't work if you kill yourself," Louisa answered matter of factly as if she'd asked just this question. Malcolm avoided her eye and bound her hands behind her back so tightly that the fibers cut into her flesh.

"And your blood must fall within the basin," Malcolm added, stepping away from Gina with a grimness to his face that made her stomach sink.

"And who am I to bring back for you?" Gina asked quietly, her mouth dry as she began to shake.

"It - it only takes one sacrifice..." Malcolm explained, hesitantly and without looking her in the face, "Your blood alone will be enough."

"Blood for blood - you should've been the one to go instead of Ben... we'll fix that now," Louisa said bitterly as she drew near with a knife held out towards her former mistress.

"Louisa... please..." Gina begged.

"I'm sorry," Louisa bit out, and Gina watched a darkness fall over the young woman's face, just before the bite of the blade sliced into her heart.