"I said, release her."

Elsa's voice shook with the tremor of the storm. When the guard made no move to unhand her sister, Elsa unleashed her ice, fingertips tingling as icicles pinned the guard back against the hedge. Before the Captain could take a single step, Elsa whipped round, freezing him and the rest of his men to the spot.

Her sister ran forward, burying herself in Elsa's embrace.

"Oh, Elsa. Thank God," she breathed.

Elsa peeled her sister away to survey her, brushing the blood from her lip. "Did they hurt you?"

Anna shook her head. "I'm fine."

Elsa turned her attention towards Ilia, who was watching her warily. At her side was Khublan, and the boy, Angus. All creatures of the Queen.

Things were starting to become clear to Elsa, now.

Her eyes fixed on the tall Egyptian man. "You brainwashed me," she accused Khublan.

The man shrugged. He didn't look terribly guilty. "If you'd really desired so, your Majesty, you could have slipped out of my spell long ago. You just didn't want to."

"You're saying I wanted to be brainwashed?" Elsa scoffed. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it? You were trapped in a situation you could see no exit to. You couldn't stomach you own incestuous desires." His eyes roamed knowingly over towards Anna, who shifted beside her uncomfortably. "Maybe a secret tryst with one of the staff was easier to stomach than your attraction to your own sister."

Oh God. Those strange splinters of memory were beginning to make sense. It was coming back to her: how she'd coerced Anna into kissing her in the ballroom. All those nights they'd spent together.

Elsa clamped a hand to her mouth. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"It's true that I altered your memories on the Queen's orders, but if we're assigning blame, you are complicit in this as I am, your Majesty. You couldn't bear your own guilty feelings, so you ran away."

Frost leaked into the lawn, the grass crackling as it crystallised around her feet.

The sneer crept into Khublan's voice: "Even after all this time, you still can't control your powers, can you?"

The anger in Elsa was gone, leeched out of her by the tempest the roiled inside her chest. Because, as much as she hated to admit it, Khublan was right.

"Shut up!" Elsa's attention snapped round. Beside her, Anna was red faced, her cheeks pink where she'd been back-handed, hands balled into fists. "Don't try and blame Elsa for something you did. We've had enough of your mind games. I know what you really want Elsa for— you want her to help complete the creepy mirror down in the basement."

"Yes. To complete the eternal world," said Ilia, voice conveying a powerful urgency. "Tell me, your Majesty: doesn't it sound wonderful? A world without pain, without suffering, without loss. No heartbreak, or… pain of unrequited love?"

Elsa's voice was tight: "What you're describing sounds like only one thing I know of: death. You're joking if you seriously think I'd help you after the things you've done." Anna had helped calm the storm swirling inside of her and put things back into perspective. She could think about everything else later. Right now, there was only one priority. "My sister and I will return to Arendelle, and you will not stop us."

"Apologies, your Majesty, but we've all worked too hard to let you go home just yet," said Ilia.

There was ice in the bite of Elsa's words: "Try to stop us."

"Angus," said Ilia.

The gangly redheaded boy rolled his eyes and with a Scottish inflection said, "Finally."

The ground began to shake. Anna fell against her, steadying herself.

"What's happening?" she asked.

"We're getting out of here," Elsa replied. Then her hand was hooked round her sister's wrist and they were running away from the Queen's magicians, deeper into the folly.

This, Elsa quickly realised, was their first mistake.

"We must have seen this statue five times now," Anna lamented, as they, once again, faced a dead end and the cold, stony eyes belonging to a bust of Alexander the Great.

"I was afraid of this," Elsa said, the stony eyes seeming to stare back, his quirk of a smile mocking her. "This must be part of that boy's powers. He's done something to this maze. We should have found the exit ages ago." And, she was beginning to suspect, even if they looked for hours, she doubted they would ever find the way out. But, she had an idea. "Stand behind me, Anna."

Anna moved out of the way, and the tingle of her magic was at her fingertips. Panes of knife-sharp ice cut through the hedge, shearing aside a hole large enough to climb through.

"Alright, Elsa!" Anna exclaimed. "If they're going to fight dirty, so can we."

But as Anna made for the hole in the hedge, it came to life, the branches knotting together to close the wound Elsa made. A second later, it was like she'd never touched it at all.

Jaw tight, Elsa tried again, shearing away huge chunks of hedge. Which as soon as she cut them away, grew back.

"That's not fair!" said Anna.

Elsa stared at the branches tangling together. "Somehow, I got a bad feeling it wouldn't be that easy."

For a second, she let her eyes slip closed. What a fool she'd been, to come here. Yet again, through her own cowardice, she'd put her sister in danger.

"Elsa?" Her eyes opened, and she saw Anna looking at her in concern.

Her teeth ground together. "I want to try something else," she said, extending her hand out towards her.

"Um." Anna looked at her open hand in confusion and hesitation.

Would they ever be able to repair the mess they'd made of their relationship?

"If we can't go through, I'm going to try and take us up and over," Elsa explained.

"Oh. R-right. Good idea." Flashing a tight, apologetic smile that didn't reach her eyes, Anna moved in closer, clasping hold of her long faux ermine cloak.

"You'll… have you hold on tighter than that. I don't want you to fall," Elsa said, swallowing down the hardened lump in her throat.

"Right. Sure. Sorry," said Anna. Elsa felt her sister's fingers wrap round her waist, hesitant and shy. A hot rush of self-loathing ran through her for that— how even in this situation, when they were in mortal peril— Anna's touch set her heart racing.

—As a memory slipped back, and she recalled that same touch, shy at first, and then, not so shy, those nights in Elsa Austenborg's bedroom. The feeling of her fingers tracing stardust tingles through her hair, and—

Elsa swallowed, hard, trying to choke the memory down. There would be time for that, later, once Anna was safe.

"Ready?" she asked. Anna nodded.

A pillar of ice corkscrewed out of the ground, lifting them up and over the hedge maze.

—Before the walls of the maze rushed up to meet them. The higher they went, the taller they grew.

"Faster, Elsa!" said Anna, fingers digging into the bodice of her gown.

The buzz of her magic, and higher they went, corkscrewing up, up, up. But as fast as Elsa's magic travelled, the maze kept pace with them.

"It's no good," Elsa acquiesced, letting the tingle of magic fade from her fingers.

"Ur. Whoah." Her sister stared down, fingers tightening around her. "We're really, really high."

They had to be five hundred feet up off the ground.

"Did I ever tell you that your powers are, uh, really really impressive, Elsa?" Anna said, voice wavering an octave higher than usual.

"Thanks," said Elsa, a wry twist to her voice.

"Uh. Maybe you could take us down now?"

The pillar of ice corkscrewed back into the ground. Anna's grip slackened around her waist.

"I, uh, ever tell you I once jumped off a cliff when I came to get you on the North Mountain?"

"You know I apologised for that, Anna," Elsa said, voice tight and embarrassed.

They reached the ground, and Elsa's ice dissipated. Anna waved her hands. "No, that's not what I mean. I was thinking, that maybe you could create another creature like Marshmellow to help us get out of here?"

Elsa was quiet.

"What Khublan said about you not being able to completely control your powers…" Anna said softly, "he was telling the truth, wasn't he? That's why you hardly ever use them at home, when you can you do such amazing things."

Elsa gripped hold of her sleeve. Even now, she could feel the humming under the surface of her skin, her magic trying to break free of its holds. It wasn't like those years before the Great Thaw. She could control it, but, when her emotions got the better of her… like, for example, now…

"Let's just try and find the exit. There's nothing else we can do," she said. She started walking, eyes set ahead of her. They walked, and they kept on walking. Corner after corner. Dead end after dead end. No exit in sight. Her shoes rubbing up blisters that chafed with every step.

"But, Elsa, you never had any trouble controlling you powers when you were Elsa Austenborg."

Elsa tore her eyes away from the path in front of her and twisted round. Her sister had stopped, her split lip tight and hands balled.

"I knew it," Anna breathed. "It really is because of me. Because I got hurt when were kids."

"Because I hurt you, you mean," Elsa amended.

"And you're still blaming yourself for it! For something I can't even remember. That's why you came here, isn't it? Because of—" Anna's breath caught as she hesitated, before she barrelled on: "—because of that night on the balcony, when I—" another flutter of hesitation, and then her voice was firmer: "when I kissed you. You were scared of feeling what you felt, and even more, that maybe I felt the same way. You were scared you'd hurt me, so you ran away. Just like before."

Elsa blood was pounding in her eardrums. She pulled herself away. "We need to keep looking for the way out, Anna—" She walked. One foot in front of the other. Eyes forward. She didn't look back. She couldn't.

But Anna refused to let up. "Don't you get it, Elsa? This will never be resolved until we talk about it. We'll just keep going round and round, going nowhere."

Dead end after dead end. The exit no where in sight.

"I know you're just trying to protect me, but you need to learn to trust me, too, Elsa. I'm not afraid."

No, of course she wasn't, for wasn't that why Elsa loved her? Her wonderful, beautiful, fearless sister.

"Elsa, I love you."

The maze opened out before Elsa. A stone gazebo, with a table and two chairs. A tea tray and teapot with two cups.

The very centre of the maze.

Elsa turned back to face her sister, Anna's feet planted solidly on the ground with her eyes wet.

"You don't mean that. Not in that way. You're confused, Anna," Elsa said.

"I've never been more certain of anything in my life."

Elsa struggled for words, for a way to convince Anna that this wasn't right. "We can't do this. Imagine— imagine how the people in Arendelle would react if they found out."

"I don't care," said Anna, stepping towards her, and a shiver ran through her, knowing that her sister was being completely sincere.

She swallowed. "What— what would our parents think?"

Anna paused, hesitating. "It's not like I planned for any of this to happen either, you know. Don't you think I'd go back to thinking of you just as a sister if I could? You're right. Of course they wouldn't be happy… but, I don't think they'd like to see us like this, either. Running away from one another. Being unhappy and dishonest with one another. I think they…" her voice grew stronger and she took another step forward, "no, I know that they would want us to be happy."

Still, Elsa held back. "There's no way of knowing what they would have wanted."

"No," Anna echoed sadly. "There's not. I used to think that our parents were perfect… now I know that most of what's happened could have been avoided if they hadn't made the mistakes they made. They loved us… but they're gone. And we have to make our decisions by ourselves, whether they're mistakes or not."

Elsa ached to be swayed by Anna's entreaties. To love her, as she wanted to be loved, as she'd always ached to love her. But part of her reared back, the part of her that remembered the blast hitting her sister on the head, that had frozen her heart, that had given her frostbite, all because she dared to get close to her. It screamed in Elsa's ears: stay away from her! You're dangerous! You'll hurt her!

And yet… Elsa Austenborg had never hurt Ann. She'd never lost control. There had never even been any control for her to lose. Her powers were a part of her, as intrinsic as breathing.

Anna sheared away the gulf between them, taking those last few steps towards her. Her hands came up to cup her cheeks. Elsa fought the urge to flinch away.

"I'll hurt you…" she whispered, frightened.

"You won't," said Anna. Reflected in her eyes was such fierce love and trust that Elsa felt something in her heart snap. Like frost, cracking away. "Say it with me: you won't hurt me."

"Anna…"

"Just do it."

"I— I won't hurt you," Elsa said. The magic under her skin crackled, and then begun to fade away. She said it again: "I won't hurt you." Anna's eyes widened, and Elsa's raised her hands to touch her sister's face. Her words singing out in jubilation: "I won't hurt you!" She traced the curves of Anna's face, the dips of her dimples, her beaming mouth. Her magic obeyed her, glowing warm inside her body, reaching deep into her stomach. She was smiling, so hard that that the corners of her mouth ached. Anna was laughing, and she was laughing, for no other reason than the joy it was to laugh.

Without knowing who started it, she was kissing Anna. Or Anna was kissing her. Or— what did it matter? That bright, warm spot of sunlight she carried in her stomach flared like a sunspot, illuminating every part of her, shining out of her. She was glowing. In Anna's arms, she glowed.

"A-Anna? Queen Elsa?"

The word was a puncture. Eyes snagging on a group of people by an opening into the maze, the bright honey joy evaporated out of Elsa like butter in a pan. She jerked back clumsily, the whites of Anna's eyes brightening in confusion. Until she followed Elsa's open-mouthed stare.

The word slipped form Anna's mouth, a little lost child: "Kristoff?"

Kristoff stood by an opening in the hedge-maze, staring at them with both parts confusion and shock. By his side was Admiral Westergard and four of their men, tunics embossed with the Arendelle crocus.

How was it that though her limbs felt numb and dead, Elsa's skin tingled, her chest blazing hot with prickling panic? That hot, panicky feeling rose up through her throat and snatched away her breath. She felt like she could barely breathe.

She heard Anna speaking shakily, but the words were slippery, slipping away from Elsa like soap bubbles. She couldn't concentrate.

"Ah. Um. Kristoff," she heard Anna say dimly, registering instead her sister's hands seeking the comforting familiarity of her braids, and instead falling dejectedly to pull at her apron. "What— what are you all doing here?"

Kristoff spoke blandly, without tone: "Finding the two of you. The Admiral managed to get a message back to Arendelle and request back-up. The Palace has been captured. We thought you must have been, too. But, apparently not."

"Um," said Anna.

Elsa closed her eyes, but it didn't block out the pulsing red panic. This couldn't be happening.

"Kristoff," she heard her sister implore. "Admiral Westergard. It's not what it looks like. I— can explain." Anna burst into a halting, confusing account about how Elsa's memories were altered— "And I had to be a maid, and there was this plot with an evil magic mirror, and Ilia said there was going to be a sacrifice, and—" Anna's attempt at speech sizzled away into nothing. A dry wasteland of a silence stretched between them. Elsa had never before seen the Admiral at a loss for words. "Um. It's hard to explain," said Anna.

There was no way to explain what the other party had just seen, and Anna knew it. The Admiral had seen them. The men from Arendelle—strangers!— had seen them.

One clear thought cut through the mulch of Elsa's muddled thoughts— that maybe this was her punishment.

"No, I get it," said Kristoff.

"You do?" said Anna, voice arcing up in relief.

"This is why we broke up, isn't it?" he said, extending his hands to gesture vaguely between them. This. "To be honest, I always wondered if there was someone you had feelings for." With a wry, angry twist to his mouth, he said, "Never imagined it'd be your sister though. You got me there. This is just… really messed up, Anna."

Elsa saw how Anna's whitened knuckles, tightened over her apron strings, were shaking. More than anything she wanted to reach out and comfort her, but she couldn't— not without incriminating them further.

The Admiral spoke now, his moustache wilted, looking both parts embarrassed and appalled. "Your Majesty, your Highness, this is— truly shocking. I hardly know what to say. All of Arendelle knows how close the two of you are. But this incest— it's an abomination. It's unacceptable. If the people were to learn of this—" Elsa didn't need to listen to what the people would do if they knew. She'd already imagined it dozens, hundreds of times. Had seen, clearly, the protests, the revolts. Her forced abdication, and then— if she were lucky— banishment, to some Danish nunnery.

But, because she'd never for a second considered her sister might return her feelings, she'd never imagined that this might happen to Anna.

Oh God. No, I can't let that happen to Anna.

The control she held over her powers slipped from her hands like a block of butter, and the grass began to frost over, ice crackling up the pillars of the gazebo.

Anna stepped back as her shoes started to ice over, eyes flicking up to her with concern. "Elsa…"

"This is my fault. Don't blame Anna for this, Kristoff," Elsa said, voice cracked and chipped, as ice continued to crackle up the gazebo, frost creeping into the hedge. "I coerced her. She never wanted this." Her eyes found the Admiral's. "I'm a witch after all, aren't I?" Her arms she spread wide, to the unstoppable spread of ice. Everything was so broken, so screwed up, that she even managed to smile.

Her only thought: protect Anna.

"Well, this is what witches do. I wanted Anna, so I took her. So what?" Elsa swallowed down the waver in her voice. "What are you going to do about it?"

It doesn't matter what happens to me. So long as Anna is safe.

A flash of red in her periphery as Anna's head whipped round. "What? That isn't true. Elsa, you can't—"

You sacrificed yourself for me. It's time I repaid the favour.

"You want her?" Elsa managed to call airily, when all she felt was fire, ripping her arteries apart. The Admiral looked nervous; Kristoff, confused; the men had hands on their weapons.

Anger flashed across her sister's face. "Elsa, stop it!"

She shoved her sister towards them, spitting, "Take her. I'm bored with her, anyway."

You'll be a great queen, Anna.

Anna stumbled and tripped, and immediately Kristoff was by her side. Hair whipped round as she shouted, "Don't do this to us again, Elsa!"

Elsa summoned a huge boulder of ice to block the way, and she turned away.

She ran. She stumbled. She picked herself up and kept running, blisters burning on the soles of her feet, until she felt nothing. Turn after turn. Dead end after dead end. She didn't know where she was or where she was going.

Elsa was lost in the maze.

When Kristoff lent down to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, Anna didn't feel it. The words that left his mouth left it in an underwater babble and might have been are you alright or do you want a turkish delight. The ends of her digits were tingling. A huge ice boulder blocked the path to Elsa. She was gone.

She thought she'd finally got through to her sister, and she'd run off and left her, again.

Pulling herself from her stupor, she managed out, "We have to go after her."

"You're kidding, right?" said Kristoff. "I thought for sure she was going to turn us into ice cubes."

"Elsa would never hurt anyone. You know that, Kristoff!" Anna said, staring hard at him.

"I thought that way too, a few minutes ago."

But that wasn't right. Kristoff knew Elsa. They could be a little stiff and awkward with one another, but: There's no way Kristoff would think my sister capable of hurting a fly.

A sense of dread had settled at the pit of her stomach. "So what do you propose, Admiral? That we just leave Elsa and return to Arendelle?"

"Immediately, your Highness. The council will need to discuss it, but I'm afraid you may need to do your duty as Crown Princess far earlier than we'd ever planned. Clearly, Queen Elsa is not fit for the throne. The council has tried to keep the best part of it from you, but there have always been dissenters about the Queen's… abilities."

But the people love Elsa. She could see them now, at the tournament— the uproarious applause they'd given her. They adored her.

That fear in her gut was right. God, she'd been so stupid!

She shoved Kristoff's concerned hand away. "You do a poor impression of Kristoff, Ilia."

In the space of a blink, Kristoff and the Admiral and his men were gone. In their place was Ilia, Angus and men from the Spring Palace. And before she could even get up, they'd accosted her, hands wrenched behind her back.

"I knew something didn't feel right. What, I kiss Elsa and suddenly we've got a whole audience?" Anna spat. "You were playing to Elsa's fears, weren't you? You knew you could separate us and that Elsa would try to protect me."

"She's very predictable," said Ilia. "It's quite charming, actually."

Anna's eyes snapped up as Khublan turned the corner, carrying her limp older sister in his arms.

"It's fascinating," he said, turning up a wry smile at Anna. "She's the strongest of all of us. The Snow Queen, who once froze an entire kingdom. She could control the whole world, if she so chose. Yet, because she loves you, she's just a helpless girl."

"Not everyone is like you," Anna shot at him.

The wry smile deepened. "I assure you, I nor Ilia want world conquest. Love and fear are stronger bonds than those made of metal."

Anna had thought Elsa unconscious, but now she saw her twitch in Khublan's arms, rolling her head to the side. Her eyes stared into nothing, rimmed with white.

"W-what have you done to her?" Anna asked, aghast.

"Khublan's memory charm won't be as effective now she's broken through it the once, so I put her somewhere to keep her quiet. At least until we put the mirror back together tomorrow," Ilia said.

It made Anna feel sick, how Elsa's eyes rolled without seeing, lips moving without speaking. Anger came from deep at the base of her belly: "You're a monster."

"A monster? Please," said Ilia.

"You might have powers like my sister, but she's nothing like any of you. Maybe you think she's weak, but she'd never use her abilities to hurt people, or to manipulate. She's selfless, and she's kind. She's stronger than all you put together!"

Ilia and Angus exchanged a look. "Very moving, Princess. But if you recall, it's us who have captured you," Ilia said dryly, before she felt the blow at the back of her head. Spots flickering in front of her eyes from the pain, the world blinked into darkness.

The world is transformed into an icy tundra. Elsa stumbles through the snow, the blizzard hitting her face, spitting in her eyes. She shelters her face with her hand, hair sticking to her numb lips, the wind bruising her skin pink and overripe.

The wind rips the word from her and tears it away into the sky— "An—na!"

The blizzard parts in front of her for a split second, long enough for Elsa to see far out into the glacier, stretching out endlessly in every direction.

Elsa's knees hit the powdered snow. The cold has never bothered her but still, she shivers.