"Yet another sad end."

He barely had the strength to crane his neck up; he doubted he would be able to look at her, and he was certain he did not want to. Her words had the making of a cadence to them, the final chords of the final measure.

"Now wait a moment!"

Myrtle's voice came like a splash of cool water. It gave Percy enough strength to look up at last. His grasp of the room must have escaped him for longer than he had thought; either that, or too much had happened too quickly. Evans stood over him, shielding him, his freed hand now pointing his sword at the sorceress. But she too held a blade to Evans' neck, thin and vicious-looking in its silver glare. Somehow, it did not look entirely real, but none of its threat was lost for it. Percy could not see any outcome in which Evans would not be wounded – at best.

Not far behind, Myrtle, half-crouching, half-standing, and fully oblivious of how ridiculous she looked, had dragged herself towards them, scraping along the chair she was tied to.

"I am in awe of you, my lady" she panted, holding her free hand up in a deferential gesture, "as awed as I am terrified, and as terrified as I ever will be without making a mess of my trousers. I know very little, but I know at least we did not mean to offend you. I offer you a deal – " she promptly swallowed her words back when she saw the look the sorceress sent her, " – a penance! Something to show our respect for you and for your acceptance of this curse being broken."

Percy saw Valeria shooting an anxious look at Myrtle, but she held her tongue.

"Go on" the sorceress commanded. "You do not matter enough to make me linger in silence."

Such words would have skewered Percy. They would never simply slide off him, undisturbed and undisturbing, as they did now with Myrtle, like droplets of oil on water.

"My deepest apologies, my lady" Myrtle bowed her head. Her meekness had practice, that much was plain. "I humbly presume that my lady first learned of the master of this house by hearing what others said of him. Perhaps especially what his servants said? Surely they were the first to tell the world beyond these walls how badly he behaved towards his muses. Such information is precious to a great sorceress as yourself, so as to enact your justice by fairly cursing this man. I beg you to strike me down, my lady, if I am mistaken in any of this."

"Myrtle!" Valeria growled in warning, still struggling in wretched frustration at the binding that bit into her muscles.

Percy looked at the sorceress. He could see the amusement that had sparked in her at such a display of abject submission.

"You are not wrong" she responded.

"Oh, sweet waters, thank you" Myrtle breathed a sigh of relief, pressing her hand to her chest. "My lady, not all servants are as talkative as the ones who worked in this house. Many feel bound to secrecy by loyalty to their masters. Which is a shame, really. They know everything about their masters. All the bad deeds, the gossip, the... well, all the dirt. Think of every curse that has been left unplaced because a sorceress such as you never knew of the opportunity to place it. Because a servant kept quiet. If they agreed to speak to you, to... inform you... imagine all the princes and lords that you would have cause to punish with a spell, because you would know of their wrongdoings. Imagine all the curses you could cast."

"Myrtle, stop this!" Valeria bellowed.

"And what do you propose?" the sorceress asked, unfazed by Valeria's interference.

"A guild of sorts. To connect servants who are willing to provide information about their masters, and their misdeeds, to interested fae and sorceresses. In return, the servants will be left out of any curses that are placed on their masters. Allowed to walk away unaffected."

Percy, mouth gaping, still kneeling and wretched on the floor, looked up at Evans. He was staring at the sorceress, silent. He did not shift an inch, or whisper the merest word to rebuke Myrtle's proposal.

The enchantress held the room in her hand for a long moment. Percy noticed how her eyes became murky and blunted as she held a silent deliberation with herself. And then, in an instant, their sharpness was back. She nodded to Evans, and then to Myrtle.

"Very well. We have a pact. I will appear to you again soon" she told her.

Her voice had the grave resonance of cathedral bells claiming midnight. She lowered her blade, with Evans mirroring her gesture, and she joined her hands in front of her blue robes, staring down at them all from her marble heights. She flicked a finger, and the instrument strings she had commanded fell to the floor with a silvery hiss, freeing their prey. Valeria stormed forward, her hand on the hilt of her sword, but a look from Evans steadied her rage, or at least delayed it. Percy considered standing up, but, after a brief internal debate, decided that his current prostration had a number of advantages, chief among them the fact that the sorceress' shins were less intimidating to look at than her face.

She looked behind her at Armand. To that man she had once graced with the full efforts of her curses, she now granted only a passing glance. Percy noticed that Armand had slumped over the keyboard of the harpsichord, unconscious.

"He will be fully himself soon. Such curses take time to recover from" she said.

Her tone was calm and composed, but Percy did not for a moment believe she spoke to reassure them. She seemed rather to be reassuring herself, announcing that all was happening as it should, and that any deviations in the usual paths of her magicking did not matter, if they all led to the same end. She turned back to face them.

"Now. I wish you all the fun with them" she smirked.

With the same display of molten light that had heralded her appearance, she was gone.

The room was left strangely empty, as if, with the sorceress' absence, it had been robbed of its only purpose. It subdued them all into silence. But, after a while, that odd feeling began to dispel and thin out, enough for them to shift, look around, clear their throats.

Delia stepped over to Armand and cradled his deep sleep in her arms. Percy stood up at last, his legs shaking still. It was the second time he confronted an enchantress, and, for the second time too, all he had to show for it were trembling knees and bruised self-pride. He was beginning to doubt that the third time would be much better.

Evans placed a hand on his shoulder. To his frustration, Percy found himself yielding to its comfort immediately.

"Are you alright?" Evans asked.

"Are you?"

Behind them, Valeria stormed.

"How could you offer her something like that!"

Percy did not envy Myrtle in the least. He knew that it was not enough to escape Valeria's grasping hands when she was irate: even just being in her line of sight could prove too much. But Myrtle's concern seemed elsewhere.

"Wait" she held up her hand, scrambling away from Valeria's fury. "What did the sorceress mean by 'have fun with them' just now?"

They exchanged a look. In the quiet that fell then, they noticed an odd pattering from beyond the music room's doors. It was rushing closer. Percy's mind, still dazed, conjured absurd explanations: applause, rain falling from the ceiling, a hundred tap dancing mice.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It was only when the doors burst open that he realized it had been steps: dozens and dozens of hurried steps scattered on the polished parquet, cascading past the hallways, pouring a crowd into the room. There were men and women of varying ages and varying dress, though they all shared the dishevelled look of one who had dressed haphazardly, diving into the first piece of clothing within reach. Their eyes were wide open with a grotesque stupor, and a glint polished by lingering madness. Those eyes could not simply stare: they had to devour, and they devoured now the four strangers in the room.

Percy felt ill at ease at once: the more he looked at the crowd, the more he felt disquiet prickling at his skin. First he noticed the man who had white down feathers still clinging in patches to his frock. Next to him was another man who appeared to have been splattered by ink, with black splotches over his face and shirt. Then there was the woman who held herself daintily, a little apart from the others, with the hue of white porcelain not yet faded from her cheeks. A boy with nails long and sharp as blades. A woman drenched in blood-red wine, and who spilled yet more wine from her gaping jaw. A younger girl with gold leaf glowing from her ears to her collarbone. A man perched high on an air of self-importance, his hands held up in a rigid posture, his fingers coated with wax. A few of them had no feathers or wax or gold clinging to them; but they had the circumspect manner of someone who had been trapped from cover to cover with their own written words, and who had not at all liked what they had read.

The manservant with wax fingers strode forward with solemn steps. His eyes were focused on Armand and Delia by the harpsichord.

"Master, you have found your muse at last!" he cried. It sounded like a proclamation: Percy could almost hear the unfurling or parchment. "We always knew it would be you to break the curse, Miss Delia, we had every faith in you! ... Is the master quite alright?"

"He will wake up soon – I think" Delia replied quietly. "But it was not me who broke the curse."

The man's eyebrow twitched with a question. Percy stood by as Delia recounted what had happened with remarkable temperance. She did not embellish, nor omit; she laid the tale bare, and it was perhaps the bareness of it that most shocked the servants as they heard it. Intruders in the night, magical transformations and parlaying with sorceresses could only ever make for a story, not a report. And yet, Delia, in what Percy now recognized as abject exhaustion, ironed into ordinariness an extraordinary tale.

"The... master... gave up his gift?" the manservant babbled, looking from Armand to the four strangers.

"It broke the curse without the need for a muse" Delia stressed.

"The master gave up his gift?"

Percy tensed. He knew repeated words heralded either songs, or rage. And the man did not seem about to sing. He turned to Evans, gesturing with his long waxen fingers. His features blazed with fury.

"You dare to come here like thieves in the night and steal the master's gift?"

"Now wait a minute" Percy cut him off with a frown. "Just in case it wasn't clear, you do realize it broke the curse and freed you all, don't you?"

"Percy – " he heard Evans' gentle warning by his side, but it was not enough to rein him in. Nothing fuelled Percy quite like feeling wronged.

"So please, do accuse us again of being thieves in the night and go back to being candlesticks and books and whatever it is that you were before we came."

"Do you think that matters to us?" the man nearly spat, stepping towards Percy. "That any of it would matter more than the master's calling? What good is it for us to be transformed back if we've been robbed of his music?"

"He can still compose" Valeria said flatly. She had crossed her arms again, and looked like she might not uncross them for a hundred years.

"But can he fulfil his greatness? Delia" the manservant turned to her, with a pleading look that sickened Percy, "sweet Delia, you need only have been his muse for everything to be as it was!"

"But not everything was as it should be, was it? The sorceress said she cursed you for not stepping in when Armand mistreated his muses" Percy frowned.

"Of course we didn't. And of course he did" the man sniffed. "Great art requires suffering. From everyone. The servants who worked here and did not understand that are long gone."

Percy stared at the man, and the man stared back. Each looked at the other as though he were carelessly ignoring something obvious.

"Why does it require suffering?" Percy asked.

The question had perhaps sounded more earnest than he had meant it to. The manservant waved about his wax fingers.

"Because if an artist does not have wounds to show for his art, how will people believe that he was sincere in its making?"

Percy beheld that strange tribe assembled before him. He saw their gathered faces and their outraged expressions. He saw the way they held themselves, arms tensed as bowstrings and hands eager to shape violence. He realized, suddenly stunned, that he ought to feel afraid. There was nothing easier – that thought was all it took. The man stepped closer.

"You squandered his talent, took his gift from us, and that demands reparations" he said, a threat weighing down his words.

"He didn't want it anymore!" Percy shot back. Anger flared in his voice.

"That does not matter. You could not understand. You are an outsider."

The servants moved closer, encircling them with a menacing hiss of shuffling shoes on polished parquet. Percy felt his back hit Myrtle as he backed away from the simmering crowd. He stumbled a little as Evans and Valeria moved in front to shield them both, swords drawn out. Valeria took a single step forward.

"You" she said, looking at the woman with porcelain cheeks. "I guess you still break? And you" she turned to the manservant who had spoken, with obvious, dripping disdain, "I guess you still melt? Then I suggest you keep your arses well removed, and you let these outsiders leave and never come back."

She held her sword with the grim ease of practice, and she made a point of displaying it. Slowly, with dragging reluctance, the crowd parted. Percy could almost hear the tearing sound as that human mesh ripped itself in two, just enough to let them pass. He felt his tunic rustle against creased aprons and crumpled uniforms. The fabric hissed, baring its teeth. The sound made Percy shiver, and his shiver grazed the red-hot sight of a boy burning for a fight.

The boy shoved Percy. It caught him off guard, tricking his right foot over the left, and sending him tumbling against Myrtle. The crowd swelled, sneers sizzling and murmurs rumbling. To his disgust, Percy felt the haze of tears in his eyes. Why? He had only been shoved; it had not hurt at all. But he hated how frail he was, and how easy to push. He hated knowing that he would have grown up falling face first onto muddy ditches and dusty roads, had it not been for his status pushing away all others before they pushed him. And now that he was stripped of it, here he was, struggling to stand, knowing they would push again.

A resounding crash brought his focus back. Evans had rushed in front of him with a mad urgency kindling his every motion, and he pushed back the boy who had shoved Percy. Percy had seen that same brutal grace before, back in the dream that they had fought through. With one swooping gesture, smooth and fierce, Evans sent the boy plunging into the crowd. It had none of the corrosive malice or self-satisfied bluntness of retribution. It had no impulse of rage or vengeance: it was nothing more than the force of a boulder caught in its own motion. There was no point asking waves why they crashed, or stones why they crushed, and Percy now saw in Evans the same ruthless simplicity. It stunned him for a moment, to see nature rushing to his defence.

The boy toppled four or five others as he tumbled backwards. Evans gripped Percy's hand at once, and Percy felt he was all of him tangled in those fingers. A shove, a push, and now its ripples stirred over the crowd and sparked it into a mob. In his panic-blurred vision, Percy saw a tall dog-faced man lunge a punch at Valeria, but she blocked his arm, halting his fist inches from her face before ramming a kick into his groin.

It won them a slight hesitation from the other servants, enough for them to push their way out of the room and emerge with a great gasp onto the hallway. Valeria tried to shield their retreat, keeping her sword pointed at the mob. Percy could see her frustration roughening up her movements, where before there had only been a practiced polish.

Evans still held his hand, pulling him on. Myrtle hurried along by their side, her eyes cast down. Behind them, the mob poured out of the music room, inching towards them with oozing menace. Percy had read much about feral beasts: a speck of instinct told him this was much the same. It would be best to not run, to not even hint at running. At the head of the mob was the manservant who had spoken earlier, still holding up his arms. Percy expected at any moment to see his wax-fingers sparking alight, setting the mob behind him ablaze.

They hurried along the hallway. Their pace picked up, irresistibly, when they saw the stairs that led down to the entrance foyer. It was just a little tinder, but it was enough. The assembled servants reached for candelabras, heavy ornaments, decorative spears on the wall. It was no good to stand empty-handed in a mob.

They tried not to clatter down the stairs, to be slow, quiet, calm; to pretend they didn't notice the feet racing behind them. When they reached the last step, and the manor's front door loomed before them in dark oak, Percy breathed.

And Myrtle tripped. She lunged forward, catching herself before falling flat on the flagstones.

The spark reached the tinder, and the mob burst. The servants crashed down the stairs, brandishing their fists and whatever their fists had grabbed. A cry rushed from them like a tearing gale.

Evans' hand tightened around Percy's. Percy heard him say something, but he could not understand it with the sludge of shouts and growls behind them. Valeria battered down the door, slamming her broad shoulders against it over and over again.

Outside, the late hour lulled the gardens in restful silence. The façade of the house slumbered, its eyes shuttered and curtained in sleep. Suddenly, it heaved, gagged open, and out its gaping door ran four fugitives into the waning night.