Binding Ties (Grimm)

(13)

Warnings: mentions of death and blood.

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'I don't know any of the names on this list.' Rosalee sighed. 'I know who was at the wedding, but--'

'There's got to be a connection, all right? Somebody who was at your wedding has to know someone who was on Trubel's list.' Juliette replied.

'How am I supposed to know who everybody knows.'

'Without asking them?' Briar questioned.

'We should go over your wedding guest list.' Juliette suggested.

'I'll have to get it. It's on my computer.'

'No, you sent me a copy! I think I still have it!' Juliette said, walking over to the computer desk. 'If I can find it -- good thing I'm so messy.'

'Do you want me to call Monroe's parents?'

'And let them know what's going on?' Rosalee yelled. 'No, no. I already thought about that. They'd be on the first plane here.'

'Is that a bad thing?' Briar asked.

'I don't want to have to put them through that. Until we know something, one way or the other.'

'Well, let's just hope it isn't the other...' Briar muttered.

++

'I don't know.' Rosalee sighed. She was now surrounded by stacks of paper, but hadn't appeared to make any real progress. 'I can't make the connection. Because I don't know the connection I'm looking for.'

'Bud was sure someone at the wedding knew Shaw.'

'Yes, but I don't know Shaw.' Rosalee complained.

'Kind of like when Nick's mom brought Adalind here. You know, she didn't know that we knew her, and Adalind didn't know that she was Nick's mom.' Juliette said.

'Yeah, if we could only know what we didn't know before it just all blows up in our faces.'

'I keep thinking about Adalind. She was a hexenbiest, Briar's a hexenbiest, and their mum was a hexenbiest.'

'So?' Rosalee groaned.

'So...both Adalind and Briar must have been born that way.'

'Yeah, we were.' Briar confirmed.

'But she lost her powers and then got them back, so...' Juliette suggested.

'So does that mean that you don't have to be born a hexenbiest?' Briar finished, raising a sceptical eyebrow at Juliette. 'You could become one?'

Juliette nodded.

'I think so, and what I know, which isn't very much.' Rosalee added. 'Just that apparently the transformation is pretty gruelling.

'Mm-hmm.' Juliette mumbled.

'And the ones that are made and not born are even more deadly--' Rosalee continued. 'Why?'

Juliette's eyes awkwardly shifted over to Briar - who motioned at Juliette in a way that said she should come clean - and then back to Rosalee.

'I'm asking,' Juliette said, pausing as she tried to figure out her phrasing. 'Because...that's what happened to me.'

'What?' Rosalee exclaimed. 'How?'

'It was a side effect of Adalind's curse.' Juliette sighed. 'I've only known about it since yesterday, but please, don't focus on me -- right now you're more important.'

'Yeah, you don't need another thing on your plate.' Briar added. In response, Rosalee nodded slowly.

'What am I not seeing here? What am I missing?' Rosalee said.