Shiori nodded toward the spiral stairwell, the dagger-like locks of their hair wavering. “She’s expecting you.”

“She is?” asked Commander Zideo.

Shiori shrugged. “I mean… c’mon. Wouldn’t you?”

“Wouldn’t I… expect me?” Zideo tracked. “I guess?”

Helmgarth cleared his throat. “Best not to keep her majesty waiting, m’lord.”

The three of us ascended the dim staircase with the Princess’s guardian behind us. This is not how I would have done it, and I flatter myself to claim some experience as a guard-dog. It made more sense to me to be physically between the object of my protection and the threat, although we were no real threat. It’s not a huge deal. I’m just saying.

The interior of the tower seemed a little brighter by the slightest margin. Although I might prefer the symbolic explanation, romantic though I be, there was a perfectly practical reason. The hole Addrion had blasted in the wall permitted a bright swath of sunlight to stream into that corrective hallway, the short passage which reconciled the top and bottom halves of the crooked tower of Ludopolis. That room was lit in relative brilliance, and the interior shaft benefited in both directions from a residual glow of indirect daylight. I liked the atmosphere, although I knew it would not last long, as one of the court’s lower-polygon nobles of some kind and a hard-hatted rodent with a wrench fussed over its dimensions, debating repair.

We surmounted the stairs and stood at the door to the Princess’s reception chamber, the odd rainbow room that seemed more library than throne room. I suppose the Lower Courts implied the existence of an Upper Court, and that this must be they, but it struck me as somehow mundane with regard to to her majesty’s position. Where were the feather-capped door guards? Where were the trumpet-blowing heralds? But these are human things and of no consequence to a dog—best not to dwell on human matters, as Ma instructed me when I was but a pup.

Shiori opened the door, and a kaleidoscope of rainbow light spilled out like an overturned goblet full of the most brilliant jewels.

We were motioned inside. There was no grand entrance this time, as her majesty greedily pulled one final drag from the cigarette before throwing it. It did not go directly off the balcony as planned, and she grasped the tresses of her gown and shuffled it off the edge through a gap in the crenelles. The sleeves of her denim jacket were rolled up to the elbow, although she still wore her long, delicate gloves. Smoke spilled over her lips and out from her nostrils with a strange draconic dignity, illuminated by every hue.

Addrion, leaning one shoulder on the archway with her arms crossed, jumped to attention upon seeing us before remembering to effect the metallic air of uncooperation to which she seemed duty-bound. She winked at me, though, and my tail swept the floor beneath me clean.

The Princess waited a long time while the two humans knelt and I sat pretty.

“We b-” began Zideo, but Helmgarth’s hand struck his shoulder softly and so fast that if you blinked, you might think it had not happened. Zideo scrunched his face, drawing in all his features toward one central point, and sighed. Addrion made as though to scratch an itch beneath her nose, concealing her amusement.

Her majesty let her mirror-concealed gaze fall over the three of us for what I perceived as an awkward amount of time. After a very long time, she said, “Nereus is safely back in Ludopolis.”

It seemed to require no acknowledgment. I am sure Zideo repressed a “yep.”

“I am also informed that Gobo is back in Pengoon Peaks… but under the protection of his former citizens and his long-lost love.” I recalled Sir Guenevere’s long hair and the sheen of her lance. “These people are important to me, and you have the city’s gratitude.”

All eyes—even Helmgarth’s, furtively—went to Zideo to see if he would fall for the trap, but he mastered himself and said nothing.

“I understand that one of my most beloved agents has fallen?”

Helmgarth nodded. “Bailey fell in the task which your majesty bestowed upon him and Nereus, and was slain in the depths beneath Platformia.”

She let the silence excoriate us as though we, the messengers, were responsible. Then she sighed. “And DuChamp?”

Helmgarth tilted his head to read whether Zideo would answer. Zideo did the same. “That’s complicated,” said Zideo.

Addrion snorted. “What’s complicated? He went to their side.”

“He wanted out,” said Zideo, deigning to raise his head. “He wanted to defect. He thought we were there to bring him back.” He caught a glimpse of her mirror shades and remembered himself, lowering his head. “He sacrificed himself to get me the Radian.”

“And for me,” said Helmgarth, “and Master McBarky. He had a second chance… and spent it on us. He led us to the Book.”

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Addrion rolled her eyes. The Princess nodded. “And do you have it?”

“Yeah,” said Zideo. “Yes, your majesty. Can I rise?” The back of Helmgarth’s hand whipped his shoulder again with the speed of a frog’s tongue. “What? I’m cramping up.”

The Princess consented. “Rise.” He produced the dusty tome without an inquiry, and thus spared us the freezing effect of its operation. He handed it to her.

She looked it over, front and back. She ran her fingertips across its spine and covers, smudging the silk gloves perhaps permanently. A thin ribbon hung out about an inch from somewhere in the depths of its pages.

“I ask this of you as a boon,” she said, “not a trade. This is one of the great artifacts of the Total Conversion, and could change everything for us. Will you part with it willingly?”

Zideo shrugged using only his facial features. “That thing has caused me more trouble than good. It’s all yours… err, all her majesty’s. I kinda don’t want to know what all is in there.” Addrion struggled to check herself. She failed to conceal the fact that she thought this was a gift of enormous magnitude, like she was getting away with murder. “Is her majesty able to open it?”

“Whether I read it or store it on my coffee table is no concern of yours.” A chill wind seemed to sweep in from the balcony, although it was warm out. Zideo showed her his palms.

“Friendly fire, fam,” he protested. “Throw it into the river, for all I care. I’m just trying to get home.” Even I knew this was a boorish way to steer the conversation. And yet, I longed to return to the comfort of Lisa’s couch. I had much to tell the Howl Network in Airy Zone.

“Why not stay?” she said. “There are other Shards, you know. And Fort Weepus still stands.”

“I know,” he said. “But… I gotta know what happened to me. And my stream. So if you can send me back…” He faltered. This was the point, in more mundane conversations, where he assumed the other person would pick up the social queues. However, monarchy brooks no such responsibility. Her majesty waited, if not patiently, for him to continue. “I’d… be a… big fan.” He nodded in conclusion. “Of that. Is there like a… magic wand, or….?”

She put her hands behind her back. “Come back tomorrow,” she said.

“Tomorrow? What?” he echoed. “Why? Can’t we just go now?”

Addrion took a step forward, quite ready to shut him up, but the lift of one finger from her majesty stopped her in her tracks.

“Today, tonight, the city celebrates. We celebrate the return of the sun. After all that’s happened, the people of Ludopolis will fear that tonight will not end. Then in the morning, when they see the sun again, they will know they can return to their duties, their everyday lives.”

“Okay? What does that have–”

“It means,” interrupted Addrion, “that if you get an invitation from her majesty, you take it instead of questioning it. Read the room, Zidiot.”

He set his jaw. “We had a deal.”

The Princess said nothing.

“I get the sun,” he pushed. “You send me home. That’s what you said.”

“M’lord…”

“No, I’m sorry, a deal is a deal. Even with royalty. And you know what?” He lifted a finger, inadvisably, in the Princess’s general direction. “I know your dirty little secret. I know you’ve been yoinking people like me out of my world. Do you use them all to do your dirty work?” I could smell sweat on him. “You just say, ‘oh, you’re a gamer, you should run some errands for me and fight my little secret wars for me’? Is that what you do?”

Addrion’s eyes went wide, and there was murder in them. He was fortunate that he had spoken so boldly, because she was stunned at the audacity.

Zideo had not yet expended his energy. “This,” he said, drawing forth the so-called stick-of-joy, “is not from here. This is real-real. Physical.” He wiggled it around in the air and pressed the button a few times. I was unsure what was supposed to happen. “This is from my world. That means I’m not the first person you kidnapped. You can’t just do that to people.”

It was often hard to read granular emotions in the Princess’s eyes, but she tilted her head and raised her eyebrows, effecting a look that was not possible to misinterpret.

“Yeah, sorry or whatever, but you can’t just grab people out of their gaming chairs and enslave them. It’s not right. And why didn’t this go back with whoever came before me?” He gesticulated angrily with it, its short cable nearly whipping me. “Is the last one even alive?”

The Princess’s glove reached for him, a timely intercession; for I am sure Addrion would have destroyed him if not for her majesty’s hand.

She touched his hand and he froze. For a moment, I thought he had been paused by magic like the book’s. Rather, he was so surprised at this gesture from her majesty that his whole body seized up.

“Come back,” she said, her voice calm but decisive. “Tomorrow.” She pressed down on his arm, and he dropped it to his side. He was quite literally stunned, and by the rapid eye movements and body temperature, I could tell he was trying to decide how angry he still was.

The rules of human conversational etiquette and pecking order bewilder me. But it seemed to me that for her to reach out to him was more of a transgression than ours had been when we crossed through the membrane of realities within his glowing rectangle. It told him something–I was not certain what–but that was enough to stave off his urgency. Perhaps it was a spell. Who knew if such things even worked on our kind?

The door creaked open behind us, where Shiori welcomed us out of the room. We were dismissed.

The two humans exchanged glances in the stairwell, I at the rear. Each had something to say to the other, and neither wanted to say it in Shiori’s presence. We descended the spiral staircase, the well-lit middle passageway, and went out through the Lower Courts under the gossiping eyes of nobles and hardhat-wearing workers. They did not speak until we reached the smelly dry river.

“She can’t do it,” said Zideo. “Can she?”

Helmgarth leaned over the edge of the bridge, spat, and drew his fingertips across his face like claws. “No.” He let out a breath longer than I thought his lungs had capacity for, so long that it seemed more like he was deflating. “Perhaps.”

The question “Why” formed on Zideo’s mouth, but then he shook his head and dispelled it. “Bro, this shit is sending me. I cannot, with you people.” He walked away, leaving the seneschal alone on the bridge over an empty and stinking riverbed.