Gwil stood up.

“Wohohugh.” And then fell down.

“Hey, is my brain sticking out anywhere?” he asked Leira, who had sort of caught him.

Her fingernails tickled across his scalp as she checked over his head. “Oh, no!” She clamped her hand over her mouth. “Gwil, I can see inside your skull.”

His eyes widened. “Oh, no!”

“It’s… it’s pitch-black inside, completely empty save for a few cobwebs.”

Gwil laughed, and that made his stomach rumble. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, I could eat,” Leira said.

Cort, who was pacing around, positioning the fighters throughout the manor’s entry hall, leaned down and hissed, “We’re in the middle of a raid on an enemy stronghold.”

“So what?” Gwil said. “We have Ansel.”

Ansoir still stood in the doorway with thirty-some frenzied statues bearing down on him. He turned at the mention of his name and Gwil gave him a thumbs up.

“What are they gonna do?” Gwil said. “The statues are useless against us. All they have left is a few normal people and the sheriff.” He raised his voice. “I bet everyone is starving, and I bet they’ve got real good food here.”

Some excited chattering broke out at that.

“Mmm,” Leira said. “They probably have gourmet chefs. We’ll make ‘em cook for us—at knifepoint if we have to.”

“Leira!” Gwil said. “We didn’t get to go to the restaurant.”

“Erm, well, I did, actually. I went to four of them.”

Gwil groaned and clutched his stomach. “C’mon, Cort. It’s important that we eat this bastard’s nice food.”

Cort waffled his head back and forth while scowling. “Ansoir. Where’re the kitchens?”

He pointed down the hall without turning around. “That way. Just past the dining hall. I must say, I’m famished myself. I’ve not eaten since breakfast.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Cort said.

Gwil hopped to his feet. “I’ll bring you something, Asnel.”

Leira whistled. “This place is nice.” She ran her finger along the jade trim set in the wall’s midpoint.

The entrance hall was three stories tall. A big, glitzy crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. A grand marble staircase ran up to a landing lined with bookshelves and statues.”

“Shit, are those alive, Ansoir?” Cort asked.

“No, no,” Ansoir said. “My father doesn’t give sentience to the statues that will only serve as decorations. That’d be a boring life.”

“You could fit half of Reverie in here,” Gwil said.

“Huh? What’s… that, Gwil?” Leira said, softly and slowly.

Gwil didn’t hear her, because at the same time, he’d asked, “How many people live here, Ansoir?”

“Just myself and my father, of course,” Ansoir said. “Oh, right, and thirty-some slaves.”

Cort kicked at the inside of Ansoir’s ankle and grabbed his shoulders. “Keep your stance wide,” he barked. “And your arms up.”

“My muscles are aching,” Ansoir whined.

“Yeah? Well, imagine how pissed off I’ll be if you let the statues through and use that as motivation.”

Leira glared at the horde of statues. “Huh. I wonder why they don’t just break through the wall.”

Cort gasped.

“Ahh, why would you say that, Leira?” Gwil said.

“I think we’re safe from that, actually,” Ansoir said. “Their critical thinking abilities are lacking, and their problem-solving skills are rudimentary. They often get stuck like this.”

“I’m not staking our lives on some mumbo-jumbo rock psychology,” Cort said. “I’ll stay here. Just don’t take too long. Dammit, Gwil, why’d you leave my hammer out there?”

Gwil started marching down the hall. “C’mon everyone! Let’s go eat!” His words triggered a stampede as the escapees rushed down the hall. He called back to Cort and Ansoir. “I’ll bring you guys something really good.”

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Leira caught up to him. “Gwil, the other end of the manor is like a giant cave. I came to a party here last night. But that’s where the Burgermeister hangs out. And the sheriff too, I bet.”

“Cool,” Gwil said. “I’m gonna waste them both after we eat.”

Gwil gasped upon entering the dining hall. All this space just for eating. The floor was tiled with red-veined onyx. Glowing Kaia orbs lined the walls. There were six long tables, already set with white tablecloths, gleaming golden plates and cutlery, and glistening crystal glasses.

The prisoners had seated themselves like guests at a perfectly normal but very rowdy dinner party. They were banging on the tables, smashing plates, and guzzling wine out of the bottles that had been set out.

They laughed like they didn’t have a care in the world, and their eyes glittered as much as anything else in the room.

“Oooh!” Gwil yelled.

Little robots wheeled between the tables, carrying wine and champagne and water and juice and bread and assortments of hors d’oeurvres. Gwil saw little fish bites and egg things and stuffed mushrooms.

“What the hell!” he yelled.

“I know!” Leira said.

Gwil ran up to a robot, scooped a little sandwich from its tray, stuffed it into his mouth, and then picked up the robot.

It had a balancing mechanism in its head that kept the tray upright, but the robot did not seem to enjoy being picked up. Its little wheeled legs spasmed like a frightened animal. Gwil set it back down.

He went to poke at its stomach, but the robot ignored him, bumping into his leg until he allowed it to move past.

“Aw man,” he said. “They’re kind of rude.”

Leira was eating these breaded ring-shaped things which she’d stacked onto each of her fingers. She tried to say something, and then swallowed and tried again. “I don’t think those little guys have anything like minds. They can’t do anything besides their jobs. They’re more like tools than animals.”

Gwil snatched up two trays and brought them to an open spot at a table.

“There are robots that can talk and stuff though,” Leira assured him as she sat down.

“What’s crazy is the food is even better than the robots,” Gwil said through a mouthful. “Do you think those little things are cooking this stuff? We should steal a couple.”

Cheeks bulging like a squirrel, Leira nodded as she popped open a bottle of champagne.

***

“I can’t fuckin’ believe they’re eating dinner,” Jackson said, cackling. “That kid is somethin’ else! I’m half-tempted to let him run riot across the World and watch the shitshow.” He took a big swig of whiskey. “But scratching my chopper, that’s unforgiveable. And destroying the Kaia, too. That pissed me off a lot. Stondemaier!”

“Looks like he’s asleep, boss,” Toothpick said.

So he was. Jackson went to stand over the pile of rubble. Stondemaier slept with his head on the chest of his farcical wife. Ophelia tracked Jackson with her lifeless stone eyes. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and loosed a piercing whistle.

Stondemaier’s gravelly body crackled as he twisted around in panic. His eyes flickered open, and they were even duller than Ophelia’s.

Seeing such pitiful cluelessness made the sheriff wanna get violent.

“Alright, Stony, this has gone on long enough.” He turned to Bart and said, “Give me that hammer.”

“Yes, sir,” Bart said.

Jackson raised the hammer. “If you don’t make it so those fuckin’ statues can squash your son like the insect he is, she dies. Three…”

Stondemaier set his jaw. Crazy old bastard.

“Two…”

“One…”

Stondemaier’s jaw burst open like a dam, and he started hacking up bits of rock. “I’ll do it.”

The cracks in his scaly skin began to glow.

“Aye, that’s what the fuck I thought,” Jackson said. “That little idiot ain’t worth a damn.”

***

Cort sat at the foot of the stairs; head bowed between his legs. He smiled at the lively clangor echoing down the hall.

“Erm, Cortemius?” Ansoir said. “Might I implore you to come hold my arms up?”

“Eh? Did she put you up to-” Then Cort rushed him.

Ansoir turned at the sound of his footsteps and yelled, “I’m sorry!”

Cort dove and tackled him to the ground.

The horde of statues poured into the manor, with three of the big Taluses bringing up the rear. The door frame collapsed as they burst through.

Cort covered himself and Ansoir as much as he could, but really, he was just preparing to be beaten to death. Too many. No escape.

But the statues rushed past them, frenzied as horses on the whip. They scattered down the hallways and up the stairs. The big ones demolished the paths that were too narrow to accommodate them.

Cort sat up. Not a single Talus remained in the entrance hall, though the entire manor shook at their rampage.

Ansoir sobbed as he brushed off his jacket.

“Thank you,” he said, and then he began scratching his tongue with his fingernails as if trying to scrape off the word. “I thought we were dead.”

“Same,” Cort said. “And I was pretty pissed at myself for coming to save you.”

“Why did they attack me? Oh, gods. Does that mean my father is dead?”

“Isn’t he a Hallow? Bringing those things to life is an Invoke, yeah?”

Ansoir nodded.

“Then he’s obviously not fucking dead,” Cort said. “Or the statues would’ve died with him. Use your head for once.”

Ansoir began tamping down sections of his bulbous afro, deep in thought. “Well, the Taluses get very antsy when they cannot complete a task. I expect the order they’re following is something simple like, ‘kill the escaped slaves’ or ‘end the uprising.’ My father has lost his capacity to issue more complex orders on such a large scale. My best guess is that they are desperate to find the bulk of you slaves and ignored us, since there’s only two of us.” He gasped. “The sheriff must be torturing my father—that’s what happened!”

Madness was devouring the manor. Screams, crashes, shattering glass, as constant as a waterfall. A lot of the Taluses had gone toward the dining hall.

Cort was about to go charging after them, but no. Gwil will have things under control. He needed to cover their bases and see the things that Gwil would miss.

“Where are they? The sheriff and your father.”

“The throne room, definitely,” Ansoir said. “It’s very well fortified. Please, you must understand—the sheriff is the one that needs to be stopped. My father is completely out of his mind. He’s old and sick. His sole desire is delighting that heinous abomination of my mother. Her greatest joy in life was throwing splendid parties, you see, so that’s all he does, as if trying to stoke a spark in that stone mockery. Though I must say-”

“Shut the fuck up, man,” Cort said. “I don’t care about your familial problems. Your father controls the Taluses. That needs to be addressed. One way or another.”

Ansoir crawled over to where Brock lay, still sizzling with Kaia and leaking noxious smoke.

His pulse thumping in his ears, Cort pressed his palms against his temples. The World was like a big cairn that had been stacked by an idiot—fragile, full of vulnerabilities. And everything that happened affected everything else. One loose stone could topple the whole thing.

“That’s it. I’m getting my hammer.”