"That medallion is new, Arthur," Thursday remarks without thinking over the midday meal.

Arthur freezes, fork halfway from his mouth, as a guilty expression crosses his face. His left hand rises in an aborted motion to the pale medallion hanging from his neck. "Uh, yeah, it is," he says, putting his fork down with the air of one preparing their defenses. "You're the first one who's noticed."

The Marshals are looking at him with expressions ranging from surprise to approval, all of which serve to annoy the Trustee. Thursday ignores them for the sake of his mood. Just because he has little to do with Arthur - an effect from when the boy was young and would become upset whenever Thursday approached - does not mean he knows nothing about Arthur.

"Was it a gift?" Thursday asks. Tuesday plies the boy with all sorts of things every time Arthur goes to the Far Reaches, but he does not usually carry them around in this fashion. If the other Trustees are starting to give Arthur significant gifts, Thursday does not want to fall behind.

"Yeah," Arthur says, but does not elaborate. Usually he is quite straightforward, so this brief answer intrigues Thursday. However, before he gets the chance to inquire any further Arthur starts crying. He isn't sobbing or anything - but tears start leaking from his eyes and Thursday has sudden flashbacks of Arthur's infancy.

The Marshals are glaring at him as if Thursday is the cause of Arthur's tears. He stiffens; all he's done is ask the boy some questions, and had Arthur attempted to change the subject Thursday would have allowed it. Probably. He does not often speak with Arthur - the boy does not initiate conversation and Thursday is still hesitant to begin it himself.

"You do not have to speak of it if you don't want to, Arthur," Dawn says quickly.

"No, I- it's not a secret, just..." Arthur looks more perplexed than upset as he wipes at his eyes with one sleeve. He stares at Thursday, frowning.

"What is it?" Thursday asks, his voice harsher than he intends. The familiar frustration from Arthur's infancy has returned, but at least now Thursday can ask the boy what is wrong.

"Something... something's talking in my head. It sounds familiar, but I've never heard it before," Arthur says. "This is weird. I heard it in my head and then I just started crying."

Thursday freezes. The Will picks up its insidious hissing almost immediately, but that is enough for Thursday to realize that its voice had been absent from his own mind, no matter how briefly.

"Oh, it stopped," Arthur says, confirming his suspicions.

Thursday looks at his Times, who he imagines would be the next likely targets for the Will's machinations. "Have you experienced anything like what Arthur just described?"

The Marshals shake their heads, obviously confused. Well, that is no surprise. Thursday knows that his own behaviour over the past ten millennia is enough to alienate them.

"So you know what it is, sir?" Noon asks cautiously.

"I do," Thursday confirms flatly. Instead of clouding his judgement, his fury has focussed his attention to a fine point. The Will's vitriol is little more than a background hum in his mind, worthy of no attention whatsoever.

Thursday's primary purpose is obedience, followed closely by protection. When the Will was focussed only on Thursday, he bore its mental assaults without complaint. His own role was relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things and he was never created with exceptional self-preservation. After all, he deserved the Will's abuse for going along with the other Trustees and breaking the Will, never mind that he was ordered to do so. It is not as if he disagreed with those orders.

Now that he knows his binding of the Will is weak enough for the snake to communicate with Arthur - and that it would stoop so low as to attack a mere child - his way is clear. Arthur is in the custody of all the Trustees, who have a duty to raise him to the best of their abilities and protect him from harm.

Across the table, Arthur winces, and Thursday realizes that the Will is silent once more. That is the end of enough.

Thursday draws the Fourth Key, causing the Marshals to start to their feet. At least one chair clatters to the floor as they draw their weapons, uncertainty painted across their features as they look around the dining room - which is otherwise deserted - for some threat.

The snake's coils shift, tightening around the massive sword's hilt and cross-guard as he glares at it. All his fury from the past ten millennia is intent upon on binding the snake to silence and inertia, his own will channelled through the Key and against the snake. It shudders, going stiff, and does not move again.

The silence in his own mind is deafening. Thursday had grown accustomed to the steady, vicious commentary from the Will. Its absence, while welcome, is utterly unfamiliar.

Would this complete a binding have been possible in the past, had Thursday merely brought his entire will to bear? Has he suffered needlessly these past ten thousand years?

"Thursday?" Arthur asks, startling him from the privacy of his thoughts.

"Yes, Arthur?" He returns the Key to its badge; there is no point in dwelling on the past now.

"What happened?" Arthur is more hesitant than when he poses questions to the Marshals; but then, Thursday is not so close to the boy as his Times are, and he knows that he is much more volatile as well.

"Can you still hear the voice?" Thursday asks, declining to respond. The Trustees have not decided when to tell Arthur about the Will, and he does not wish to incur any more ill will from his fellows than he already has in the past.

"No. Quiet again. What was it?"

"I would like to know as well, sir," Dusk says, predictably lending Arthur his support. The three Times sit again, Noon pausing to right his toppled chair, when they realize that whatever threat Thursday faced has been dealt with.

"The Will," Thursday says shortly. "I cannot tell you more than that," he adds for Arthur's benefit, when the boy opens his mouth to speak. The Marshals know what Thursday is talking about already. "If you wish to know more, ask Sunday. I suppose Saturday might tell you too, just to be contrary."

"She's getting better," Arthur defends. Thursday wonders if the boy would extend him the same courtesy were another Trustee to malign him within Arthur's hearing.

"That she is," Thursday acknowledges. They are all changing in small but meaningful ways. Perhaps reverting would be a better word. Either way, the House is slowly being restored. He decides to change the subject. "I believe the Will was making you cry whenever I was around when you were a baby, though what its motive was I cannot begin to fathom."

Arthur nods slowly. "That makes sense. I was reading this book in the Middle House about conditioning... Um, don't tell Friday's Dawn, he still thinks I should be reading those dumb levelled readers," Arthur adds quickly. "Anyway, maybe it just made me cry when I was a baby and stopped when I got old enough to realize how weird it would be to have a voice in my head. Then when it tried talking to me now, that triggered my conditioned response, crying."

"What did it speak to you about?"

Arthur touched the medallion. "It asked about the Mariner. He's the one who gave me the medallion, and I guess the Will recognized it?"

"I see," Thursday says. As far as he knows, the Mariner has been absent for millennia, but then again non-Army Denizens have little cause to come to the Great Maze. "If you ever experience an unknown voice in your head again, you should inform the nearest Trustee. Or Time," he adds, thinking of Wednesday and Friday's absences.

Arthur nods. "Of course."

The meal resumes, but the previously pleasant atmosphere is strained. The Marshals sneak looks at Thursday and Arthur. Thursday ignores them, and Arthur seems distracted by his own thoughts.