“I followed him. Of course I did. He was one of the Pilgrim’s great generals. He was one of the butchers of the Axiamat,” the Lord said, sunken eyes turning to the middle distance. Perhaps he saw the world as it was so long ago, there. “He survived the cataclysm when the sky fell in the City’s wake. Of course, there were no Lords then. He was just another one of us — a chimera like any other.”

  “The Pilgrim had only just fallen,” the Witch said softly, listening.

  “Fallen,” the Lord laughed again, weakly. “Oh, you were not there. You were probably just a little girl at the time... a little girl. Would that this never troubled you. No, the Pilgrim refused to obey the old Genekeeper any longer, and he was struck down for doing so.”

  Her head turned. Despite her lack of expression, that subtle motion of her skull told her husband that she wanted to know more.

  “We were all brought low when the sky fell, and the armies vast were brought to our knees, the Pilgrim himself struck into the heart of the Axiamat. He went to deliver the finishing blow himself... but saw something there, something that changed him. So when the deed was done, he cast down his weapon and refused the Genekeeper... And that was the end of him, for a time, I suppose.”

  Given pause, the Wire-Witch held onto her husband’s hand, trying not to let the fear that those words instilled into her show. Eventually, she asked, “And were you not his heir apparent?”

  “I was... I was, but I was also an impressionable youth, all too easily lead astray.”

  “And where was my mother in all this?” Her voice trembled. “Where was the Immortal?”

  “That I oft wonder. I do. But you — your sisters — only revealed yourselves in the nursing fall, when Acetyn turned from the Pilgrim’s war to host, to grow into what it is today. Presumably the Immortal always was there, throughout it all. The last living woman. The last living human. But where did she come from? Where was she hiding?”

  “So what happened then?”

  “The Pilgrim’s defeat left an empty throne. Every City that had been united at his word went their own way. Every creature — every chimera — that walked the waste was left to their own ends.”

  “My sisters...”

  “The Vat-Mothers appeared, yes. First in Acetyn, then elsewhere. But at first, you were mere curiosities, weren’t you?”

  “It did not feel that way.”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t. Nevertheless, you were beneath our notice. A humbling notion, given all that has since happened. Centric Hash was, instead, focused upon his rivals. Without the Pilgrim to unite us, blades emerged from the dark. Each of his champions fancied themselves the next great ruler.”

  “So what became of them?”

  “Some were defeated in battle, their names cast to obscurity. Others learned to bend the knee. But we were not acting unopposed. As we consolidated power, so too did others. The greatest of Centric’s victories secured for him the Gates of Acetyn, where the remains of the Pilgrim himself were interred. That was when he declared himself the ruler of the City. That was when he carved out his domain proper, and embraced the creeping spread of your sister’s culture. That was when he became... Lord Centric Hash.”

  “But he was not content with that.”

  “No. No, he was never content... For the battle was costly, and fighting the chaos of the City to hold the realm slew us almost to the last. Understand... you must understand... that Acetyn was younger — faster growing, hungry — and had not yet been broken into obedience as it has today.”

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  “So how did he find the strength to continue?”

  “In the secretive laboratories of an incorporeal daemon named SepGNT, he sought an elixer of power that promised immortality. Little did he know that he would have to sacrifice his own life in the pursuit of that curse.”

  The Wire-Witch’s entire body seized. She knew that name. She knew that so-called curse very well indeed. If her husband noticed her reaction, he did not let it show.

  “In an unholy union of flesh and starmetal, Lord Centric emerged changed. His once noble features were now marred by mechanical grafts, pulsating veins intertwined with cold steel. He wielded newfound strength. But it was not enough... No. Nothing was ever enough for him, not before, nor after that transformation.”

  After some time in silence, the Witch summoned the calm to ask, “What then?”

  “He became ruthless. His followers, those unfortunate enough to die in service, became corrupted by his mechanised malevolence. Worse than he, they were rendered mindless, lifeless husks set in motion for the sole task of slaughter. His Catabolite horde, dead flesh driven by mechatronic control… Lord Centric’s own courtiers feared him, and his subjects bowed to the abomination he had become.”

  “This I remember well,” the Witch admitted under her breath.

  “So you should. Lord Centric’s insatiable ambition knew no bounds. Yet he found himself haunted by the consequences of his unholy pact. He was driven near mad by the agony of his own ruined body. He crushed rival fiefdoms until he reached the demesne of your sister...”

  “She held him at bay for a time.”

  “For a time. And in his rage and frustration, he started to feed on the very people that he claimed to protect.”

  “Hence the betrayal.”

  “Hence the betrayal. It came when Lord Centric finally bludgeoned his way into the Enelasian court, carried upon his tide of the tormented dead. The only being who had the power to hold him fast — your sister, the so-called Vat-Mother.”

  A soft tut, disappointed, perhaps merely teasing, the Witch then said, “More opportunistic than heroic when you put it like that.”

  The Lord laughed again, breaking into a splutter and a wheeze. “I never claimed heroism amongst my achievements.”

  “Yet I did imagine it such, My Lord.”

  “Kind of you, My Lady. But nay. We turned our blades upon him when he was weak. It was the only way.”

  “Then you finally took the throne. Hence the uneasy truce that has lasted all this time.”

  “Hence, you came to me to cement that truce,” the Lord said quietly.

  “Nay.”

  Their gazes met.

  “I came of my own accord, My Lord...”

  “My Lady...”

  They squeezed each other’s hands one last time.

  Quiet filled the sanctum, and, for a time, perhaps, they appreciated one another — their shared history, the moment that they first met. Such a time could never last.

  The Lord spoke first. “But do not think I am unaware of why you ask about this. For I, too, noticed Trishek Hash serving the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim returned from the dead, an amalgamation of man and machine, said to wield terrible power that he never did afore.”

  The Witch looked away, retracting her hands to her lap.

  So he continued. “I, too, know your own proclivities, My Lady, for the cursed — for the wretched cybernetic aspects of witchcraft.”

  The Witch let loose a tense breath. A knock at the door interrupted their moment. When she looked up to him again, she found the Lord of Bones, rarely so alert, studying her countenance.

  “Would you get that for me, My Lady?”

  So the Wire-Witch stood and walked over to the door, her mind racing. What did the Lord of Bones already know? How could she make him understand? At the armoured entrance to the Lord’s sanctum, the Witch paused, taking a moment to consider how she would dismiss the unwanted intrusion and return to assuage his concerns. However, when she touched the fleshy receptor controlling the heavy doorway, and its many plates unlocked and rolled aside, the Witch was stunned, and all her misbegotten plans were put to rest.

  For there, at the threshold, impossibly, stood the one woman who could never be there.

  The Vat-Mother of Acetyn — her skull beneath its glassy dome, the scarlet lips of her mask twisted into a bitter smile — greeted her younger sister with venom in her voice.

  “Dear sister. Might I come in?”