My summons whipped around, as did Versai. And then they froze, not sure what to do. I noticed the lights dimming. Just around the edges of the room- our little stretch of hallway remained in the light.

“I think you all know not to move.” A very dry voice. Very steady voice too. Aristocratic to the middle part of the speaker’s bones. I saw Versai standing just a few feet from me, easily in range of her blade. A blade she didn’t even raise. Instead her eyes were laser focused on the man standing behind me.

“Im. Impossible.” She murmured.

“I could say the same to you. Though I must thank you for my temporary sanity.” I could hear a trace of warmth in the old voice, even as the tip of the knife seemed to dig in fractionally more.

“This old man was shocked to realize he was stabbing his niece in the neck. Despite all those hours of training her not to get stabbed in the neck. Over many years. Which I was roped into doing on my very rare days off. Including my birthday. Which you forgot. Twice.”

There was a dry sniff.

“And I don’t believe you have practiced your harmonichord playing at all. Not with your nails looking like that.”

“UNCLE SEBASTIAN!”

Versai scrambled up from the floor, rushing towards us. The old man stepped back, jerking me back with him. “Back! Stay back!”

Versai jerked to a halt, looking confused. Looking gutted.

“It’s the law of this mad place. So long as I have your commander hostage, so long as I am talking, I can refrain from attacking. I have learned a few rules of this place, though not enough to break them. Ultimately, you must find an opportunity to free him from me by guile or force, because I will kill him eventually.”

I could feel the old man rasping a little. He seemed unused to talking.

“I can more or less guess some of your questions. Your lord father had long since been sent to the front lines with all his banners, save the Household Guard. The Guard he left with the Marchonesse. And while I mean no disrespect to your lady mother…”

He paused a moment, then coughed and continued with more heat.

“Actually, no, I mean quite a bit of disrespect. God, I have hated that useless witch for what feels like centuries! A fine selection of a wife, if one cares about good breeding.”

There was another dry cough. Was there a problem with his lungs?

“Literally good breeding, you and your sisters turned out wonderfully, despite her “nurturing.” Thank God ap Gradden was a qualified father when he had the time and was around. We all did our best to fill in the gap your mother’s absence provided. Sometimes working very hard to keep her absent. Ardrale dove on more than a few knives for you girls. Not that she ever complained. She loved you like you were her own.

“Once the Marchioness didn’t have your father to keep her from the breakables and the four of you wisely got out, she decided to throw herself into the war effort. Supporting the home front, and her brave girls.” I could hear the curly contempt in that last sentence.

“We did the best we could. Ardrale kept the manor running despite your mother’s determined efforts to ruin it. Preshvosa more or less oversaw the land, though it was far more than she was ever trained to manage. And I? I was forced to play both spymaster, criminal syndicate leader, smuggler, town councilor and military strategist for the parts of Gradden March that didn’t attend balls.”

Fury was creeping into his voice now. “Do you know how incredibly bad management of a territory has to become if the Marquess’ brother has to operate a smuggling ring just to make sure the citizens can actually have their things when they evacuate? She declared household goods war materiel, as any goods that existed didn’t need to be manufactured again, and therefore the work could be turned to the production of weapons, armor, military wagons and the like.”

He drew a rasping breath.

“Don’t ask me how a mis-matched set of cheap clay plates and wooden cups helps in the production of iron arrowheads in their tens of thousands. Given that the March has no iron mines. I’m just a barrow boy raised above my station, you see. If I was a proper aristocrat, I would understand these things.”

“Adopted?” I asked.

“The Old Marquesse had an eye for talent. I’d say I repaid his generosity a few thousand times over by now. Not that I begrudge the labor. It was, up until the last few years, a satisfying life. Many interesting problems to solve. Cute nieces to dote on. No children of my own, alas, but I never wanted for companionship.”

Another long slow breath. The knife was digging in a little harder now.

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“I can feel my mind slipping. I think… Ah… the monsters came. Well, you know how that story goes.”

I opened my mouth to say that I did not, in fact, know how that story goes, but he gigged me a little before I could speak.

“No more questions. Nothing I want to hear from you anyhow. They came here, the Home Guard fought delaying actions where they could, the people fled wherever they could. The refugees could move pretty fast, comparatively. They were only allowed to leave with a blanket and three days rations. I did what I could for them. ‘Exporting useless wine, and turning the gold of the foolish into the strength of the March,’ was how I explained it to the Marchioness. Right up until the monsters were visible from the city walls.”

The old man’s voice was gaining in speed and heat, if not strength. “Then, THEN! Having dithered for months, even forbidding the “Necessary labor pool” from “Fleeing their posts” she realizes that perhaps, PERHAPS, training some of them to fight might have been more important than “Ensuring the labor pool remains flexible and able to nimbly adjust to the needs of the overall strategic materiel production requirements of the nation!” She doesn’t even know what those words mean! She just didn’t want to have to make decisions, so she decided that everyone needed to stay put until she decided what she needed them to do!”

Oh he was flying now. I made eye contact with Rakim. All of us were in sight of the old man, but I reckoned Rakim was the only one with a real chance to make a move. Versai’s eyes were wide with horror. Hands twitching uselessly at her sides.

“Someone, I’m guessing old Brudden, explained to the vile moron that they simply did not have enough bodies to hold the city wall. Especially since she had ordered the militia disbanded as it harmed morale by suggesting our efforts on the front line would somehow be insufficient.”

I didn’t know it was possible to pour so much venom into so few words.

“So she ordered the city evacuated, except for the High Town, with its spell towers and enchanted barriers and goddamn five year granary! All of which would have been fine, if the monsters weren’t already in sight of the walls. Do you know how fast a peasant marches? Or a random townsfolk with a wagon?”

He was panting now, voice going dry. “Fifteen miles a day. Fifteen, if they are fit and the roads aren’t too bad. Twenty, if they push hard, and don’t mind losing people to accidents and disease. The monsters can run forty, effortlessly, and average sixty. Sixty miles a day, and can fight at the end of it too. Your mother killed the City, Versai! She killed Gradden March!”

He took a long breath. “Well I’m an old man. I’ve done my bit for family and Crown. You girls were out doing heroic things, Gradden was bathing his banners in blood all across the Iron Hills- I was done. No more webs to spin, no more wisdom to whisper into deaf ears. So I spoke with the few sensible people I knew in the lower town. Reached out to the old militia. I asked the same question to them that I’d asked the damn Marchioness. “Are you confident about running sixty miles a day, every day, forever?”

“You rallied the Floating Quarter.” Versai’s voice was soft, tinged with horror and exhaustion. “You rallied the… the…”

“Oh yes. All the unspeakable-in-polite-company crowd. Most of them scattered and ran, of course. They had the morale of damp bread and the discipline of a toddler in a pastry shop. They didn’t owe our family a single damn thing. I didn’t blame them. Mocked their shortsightedness, but didn’t blame them. Some stayed. We built barricades. We fought like hell, trying to buy at least some time. Hoping that at least somebody would make it out alive.”

I felt the knife pressing harder. “Whatever you are going to do, do it fast, Sweety. I can’t keep this monologue going much longer. It was Crusher Jim, Madame, and I at the end. She had her girls with her, and no unit of Ironblood Knights could touch them for loyalty or discipline. Crusher and his bully boys didn’t give a damn about life and death, they just saw a sea of blood waiting for them and for once in their lives they got to swim as much as they liked.”

The old timer traced the tip of the knife along the side of my neck, eventually running it down my back and over to my kidneys. I kept very, very still.

“As for myself? I rounded up my more reliable smugglers, gambling hall operators, spies, informants, commodity speculators and other enjoyers of games of lies and chance. We provided the long range bombardment, trying to thin the monsters out before Crusher’s boys started wading in.”

I saw Rakim shifting slightly. She had kept her gun on the old man this whole time, of course, though there was no chance of her shooting him with him standing directly behind me. Was she… aiming a little away from the old man, now?

“The inevitable happened, and we have been trapped in this madhouse ever since. Forced to kill over, and over, and over. Mindless repetition. I have no idea how many I have butchered in these halls, or how often I have been butchered. I have only been able to speak because you and I, Versai, share the same origin. Or so I think. It feels thematically appropriate. I keep trying to find the edges of the funhouse mirror. With some success.”

He was shuddering now. I could see the lights flickering. The air is growing colder, denser. Something was breaking and we wouldn’t like the results when it did. “While there is still time- there is a safe in that room, built into the third table from the door. The code is your birthday. Someone led your mother into that madness, I was never able to find out who. One of Crusher Jim’s boys had one of her maids on the side- if the truth lies anywhere in this madhouse, it’s in Jim’s fighting pit.”

Rakim’s rifle cracked once, and I swear I felt the bullet slide past me. It caught Sebastian in the arm, making him jerk the blade away from me. I stole a move from Versa and shoved my ass backwards as I dove forward. There was a rip of fire from Rakim, and a heavy crack from Mika’s crossbolt. I kept crawling away from the old man until the shooting stopped.

“Good. Good. It’s not goodbye forever, Versai. Not in this place. Just goodbye for now. Always loved…”

“Uncle Sebastian? Uncle? UNCLE!” Versai was on the old man, hugging him. He had a long face, and kind eyes. There was something in the corner of his mouth that hinted at wickedness, at knowing all the best jokes. All those scandalous things your parents wouldn’t want you to hear, he would tell you.

“I just found you. I just found you. I finally found someone I could talk to. You can’t go. You can’t go. You can’t leave me like this, Uncle. Come on. I know. I’ll play Bluebells for you. You love listening to me play Bluebells. You can sing and I can play. Then we can go to the moat and skip stones across. I bet I can do four skips now. You would be so proud of me. We can talk about how Hanna is doing or, or, or, Gisel. I can tell you about how beautiful she looked dancing with the Third Prince. You could tell me all the gossip from home. Then you could hug me and kiss me on the forehead the way you alway do. Please. Please say something. Please. UNCLE!”