NOTE WRITTEN BY BETTY ON THE EVE OF HER DEATH

[spacetimeapplications]

Everyone,

By the time you read this, Simon and I will be dead by my hands.

I'm sorry.

I hope the bear doesn't force this to a trial, but if he does, I'm the culprit. I poisoned the wine. I drank it together with Simon, because it's the only way I can see anymore to save him from the crown that's been taking over his body and poisoning him from within. And because I took from him once the chance to die on his own terms, with his own mind, and I owe it to him to give him that chance back.

I don't want to live without Simon. But I won't go willingly to whatever execution the bear's been planning for me either. Killing myself, spoiling his fun in sentencing me isn't much of a defiance but it will have to do.

I couldn't destroy the crown, but maybe one of you might find a way if you ever escape from here. Please try. At the very least find some place where it will be kept out of reach of people forever. And never, ever put it on.

Cynthia, you can have my cloak if you still want something to wear in memoriam. Anna, you take the lab coat since you're helping Naomi now. Let Fujimoto have Mystic Rituals and Sycamore the Pokébook. Goku can have my emergency food stockpile. Sonico can have Homura's purple ribbons and Inaba her glasses. Beat gets Hambo. Naomi, thanks in advance for the cranes. You can have first pick of everything else.

If someone could keep praying to Cecil's bloodstone for me, I'd appreciate it. I wrote the words down in my green notebook.

Inaba, I'm sorry for making you make that promise when I was already planning on dying with Simon. I was just hoping I could take the crown down with us.

Beat, despite what I've said, you aren't nearly as stupid as you think. Learn how to use your head for something other than a battering ram and you'll be fine. Thanks for keeping the Monoñata safe. I'm sorry I won't be with you to smash it.

Maybe in another life we could have been friends. Maybe in another life we all could have been friends.

Simon just knocked on my door so I'll make this short: give the bear heck for us.

Thank you,
Dr. Betty Grof

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BETTY'S LABCOAT

[spacetimeapplications]

[In the pocket of Betty's labcoat, among all the other odds and ends, there's a note in an envelope bearing her name that reads:]

What better consort for the Ice King than the Queen of False Hope? Simon was dying, but he would have died as himself and you were too selfish to even give him that. You know now what you forced him back into becoming. Don't you want to save him the only way you really can?

[There's also a picture of Betty and an ill-looking brown-haired man on a flying carpet. There's a crown in her arms but the jewels are grey, not red.]