Dan woke with a groan, touching his head. The ground beneath him was hard and rough. There was creaking and shuffling. 

“Dan,” Ron’s voice whispered. “You going to make it?”

He opened his eyes and stared up at a tall, shadowy ceiling. “Slowly,” Ron urged as Dan made his way to a sitting position. His whole body ached. 

After blinking the stars aside, he examined where they were. Dan and Ron sat in a stone brick room with bars at the front. Sage sat in the one across from them, hands encased in iron gloves and lower half of their face shut in an iron mask. 

Their rooms were furnished with two straw pallates and gallon buckets.

“What’s going on? Where are we?”

“Prison,” Sage answered. 

Dan looked between them and Ron. “Prison? What’s that?”

Sage raised their chained, gloved hands and waved them around. “How do you not know what a prison is?” Impatience obvious in their voice.

“We don’t have prisons like this,” Ron explained. “Ours are rehabilitation centers. This? This is nothing like that.” 

“Its where they send you to rot and die,” Sage answered before collapsing at the hip and plopping down on their knees. “Ugh,” they moaned.

“What’s wrong?” Ron asked. 

“Bevel and I can’t be separated.” They gulped their breaths in and seethed them out. “Witches and Golems - their tie to one another is so strong, getting separated is painful.” They lowered their head to concentrate. “This mask makes it hurt to talk.”

Dan started to hyperventilate. He remembered in a flash the wreaths, the net, and Charlie hitting them over the heads. Ron approached Dan and the red puppet collapsed in his arms.

The sound of metal on metal slamming echoed through the stone chamber. A robed human in white, red, and black approached them. “Well, well, well,” said a familiar voice. Commander Dredge. “Come to join my merry band have you? Seen the error of your ways?” 

Ron growled and puffed so he looked larger in size. Commander Dredge took a step back and turned to Sage. “Sweetie, we were able to get in contact with your mother, Madam Venessa?” When Sage didn’t respond or move, he continued, “Yes, the very one. She’s paying us handsomely to hand you over to her. She’ll be arriving any day now.” 

Then he turned once more to the puppets. By now, Ron had put Dan behind him and was completely savage-looking. Dredge said, “As f-for you two, you’ll, uh, be expected to join the Black Cauldron’s fold. Ah!” He leapt back, avoiding Ron’s swiping paw. 

“Let us out!” Ron roared.

“You’re awfully violent!” Dredge mocked, backing up against Sage’s prison. A pair of hands grabbed the commander’s ankles and the man jumped with a yelp. He tried to move his legs and stumbled forward. 

Ron bonked Commander Dredge on the head and pulled him closer. “Sorry,” Ron whispered and angled the man’s body so he could rifle through one of his pockets. 

“By the Felt!” Ron gasped and pulled out a set of keys. 

“He won’t be out for long,” Sage urged. “Dan?”

Ron looked over his shoulder and saw Dan had retreated to the back of the cell, breathing deep and whispering calm words to himself as he watched everything. He covered his face and looked down. 

Ron approached him and stroked his back, kneeling next to him to get to his level. “Hey. We’re getting out of here!” 

“Yeah!” Dan hiccupped. 

“Can you follow me?” Ron asked. Dan nodded. “Then focus on that and we’ll get outta here.” 

Sage tried to be patient as the puppet fumbled with the keys. Commander Dredge lay on the ground still, mumbling in his sleep to his ‘mummy.’

The witch knelt, groaning as the cord in their stomach tying them to Bevel continued pull them down. Their face hurt from the mask - there were pressure points around the jaw and cheeks to discourage their talking. 

After a moment, Ron and Dan came through the cell door and started on theirs. 

“We … don’t have … much time,” Sage said in short bursts. They practically had to talk through their teeth to keep from pressing the points. “The guards. They’ll come check … on Dredge … any minute.” 

The door unlocked and Ron had to pull Sage to their feet. Ron looked at the headpiece to find a way to open it. “The key isn’t here!” Sage barked. “We got to go!” 

The three followed where Commander had come from and the puppets hesitated. Sage, limping along, came to a studdering halt. “What?”

Ron was already looking through the keys to unlock the door to a group of puppets’ cell. Then turned to start working on a group of witches’ door. 

“The more escaping the better,” Ron said and unlocked the witches’ jail door.

Sage nodded vigorously and limped to the exit where there was a thick, wooden door with iron bars across it. There was a slot to peek through and Sage looked to see what looked like a break room. They strained to see if anyone was inside and decided to chance opening the door. 

Upon opening, a flood of bodies came through, pressing Sage to the door. Sage’s friends were the last two out and Ron grabbed their arm to help them along. 

The group flooded the halls and the witches stumbled down one hall in particular. Sage and the puppets follow. Sage’s sense of the bond slackened and they rushed forward to find another heavy set door. The other witches, in tattered clothes and similar masks, huddled around the door, watching Sage.

Unlock and in the group went. Here stood iron shelves with mesh doors. Inside were the miniaturized golems of all the witches and then some. The witches erupted in sobs and cries of joy.

Sage’s eyes fell to Bevel in the top row. They unlocked the shelf and each took their golem. Sage kissed Bevel and whispered, “I’m so sorry!” 

“I’m just happy to be out of there!”

Ron poked his head in. “We got company.” 

Sage found another set of keys, smaller and dainty, hanging next to the exit into the hall. They used one to unlock the nearest witch’s facemask. The witch returned the favor in time for Ron to toss a knight using their momentum. 

In a flash, a chorus of spells cast as the witches held up their golems. One with a cat golem was casting strings of binding. 

In the chaos, the four friends found each other and joined arms as they rushed out. They found the exit and burst into the sunlight.

They were at the base of an enormous, vaulted castle that extended to the sky. The towers and parapets stretched like trees to the sky and banners were their leaves. 

Around them was the guard’s training yard. A group of Fume Knights stared at the three of them before one of them shouted, “Get them! They’re escaping!”

Dan and Ronnie cast a spell of purple smoke and threw it in the middle of the yard. Smoke and glitter covered the yard. The trio made their way along the walls and found a gate exit. 

The three were overwhelmed by the sight of the city sprawled out before them. They ducked into an alleyway at the sound of boots thundering behind them. 

The three pressed their backs to the wall and waited for the soldiers to pass. Sage lowered their head and sighed a breath of relief. The other two did the same and all three slid down the wall to the dirty ground. 

“We have to go into hiding,” Sage announced. The other two nodded. “We might … have to go to my mother if we can’t find a way out of here and steer clear of the knights.”

Dan and Ronnie both gave concerned looks. 

“I know. I don’t even know mother’s feelings on puppets. But if she knows you’re with me, she might take you two in anyway.” 

“Let’s go to her then, Sage,” Ron said. “I don’t think we have many choices, unless you know some illusion magic to help Dan and me blend in?”

Sage bit their bottom lip and sighed, “Alright. I’ll teach you two what I can.”