Notes:

I cannot keep the existentialism out of my writings. It crept back in, folks. It's angst time again. My favorite hour.

And if you thought that there was more than a touch of Tokyo Babylon in the last chapter's death scene, well, you're not wrong. It's been half a year, and it still messes me up.

Cain

My world fades into the bleak grey of the London fog. From my bed, I watch it advance, quietly consuming the trees at the edge of the horizon. I can almost see him, his kind smile as he throws open the curtains, wordlessly announcing the morning. Every time I revisit the memory, it seems less substantial, as if it, like Riff, is slowly fading from my mind. I grip the pillow, as hot tears fall down my face. I have lost everything, again. Riff was my Atlas, my foundation. He and I were as inseparable as the air.

("As if you were my true son.")

"Then why did you abandon me!" I throw the pillow across the room. "We could have done this together, you and I! I could have kept you alive, had you not been so damned foolish!"

Even as the words fall from my lips, I know them to be false, and I sob as if my heart has a thousand pins in it—as if it is held open to the world like a specimen. A curiosity to marvel and jeer at. Look at the black heart of the calamity child, who thought he could escape the family curse. Riff tried to protect me from the sight of his decay, but I remember Michaela's death, and my mind easily stitches the two images together.

"...how could you leave me here? Riff..."

All is for naught. For all my efforts, Father has truly won this time—I failed to kill him, I failed to save Riff. Part of me wants nothing more than to blame Riff's death on Jezabel, but I know truly that I was the one who saw hope where there was none. I was the one who refused to let go. I endangered Mary on a whim, I used another man's memory as leverage, and for what? A few suspicion-ridden days of a past that could never be recreated.

And now, nothing remains of him. Only the memories that will flicker and fade, like letters in a fire. He spoke of my being a man, but how could he not see that I became a man too soon. I am the child without a childhood. Is it wrong of me to want what I had so briefly? That illusion of security and loyalty?

Movement at the door interrupts my thoughts. For a moment, I wonder if it is Jezabel, come to claim my eyes; if so, then he has chosen his timing well, for I will offer his blade no resistance. That would finally put an end to the family curse. And then one of us, at least, would get what he desires. My wish, however, is not to be. Mary peers from behind the door, hesitant and worried. Somehow, she has aged since I last saw her. Her eyes are too old for her youthful appearance.

"Mary?" The hoarseness of my voice pains me. I do not even sound like myself.

"Big brother? I-"

She tries to feign a smile, and I clasp her tightly to me, ashamed that I had thought only of my own pain. How could I leave her all alone in the world again, when I am the only one she can truly call family? She, in turn, burrows into my shirt, and begins to cry, despite her struggle not to. It only deepens my shame. I have to be strong for her, because no one else will be. I must protect her innocence. I must bear the weight of both of us, so that she may have what remains of her childhood.

(Have I stolen her childhood as well? Or is the Hargreaves curse that its children must grow old long before it is time?)

"I'm here, Mary. I'm here. I won't ever leave you."

She nods mutely.

Remembering how Riff comforted me all those years ago in the garden, I rock her gently, as a mother would, and murmur sweet reassurances to her: a dream of endless summer and tea parties. Sunflowers and bluebells and whispering trees. I continue this until the tension has drained from her and her tears have subsided into hiccups.

"Riff is gone, isn't he?"

"He's on a journey," I lie.

"He's dead." She hesitates as if she wants to add something, but decides against it.

I wonder at how she came to know about this so quickly, but I say nothing. That would just confirm her suspicions.

"Is it truly just us now?" she asks, as she wipes away the remainder of her tears.

I pause, as my thoughts travel back to my brother. "Not quite."

Mary gives me a hesitant look, worry in those cornflower-blue eyes of hers. "But don't you know?"

I frown. "Know what?"

Jezabel

Life has become akin to the tides, a ceaseless, monotonous push-and-pull of life and sleep. Sleep and life. Cain has abandoned me to his grief—the natural outcome of his foolishness—as I predicted. Unconditional love is merely a hoax that keeps society together, for what could be more fearful than reality, where only a thin veneer of politeness and civility conceals the cruelty of life?

I dream in red; flowing, coagulating, drying, weeping, bleeding red. The secrets and not-secrets that reveal themselves with a twist of the knife, like pearls from an oyster. Sometimes, Cassian waits for me at the window, asking me with those fathomless, dead eyes questions I cannot answer. Sometimes, Father stands in the doorway, glaring down at his wayward almost-son—the impossible gaze of God. Sometimes, Cassandra hides in the blankets, and I spend the night, shaking, in wait for a man who never arrives. Sometimes, Snark runs beyond the door, bleating but always out of reach.

Almost-son, almost-brother. I am an endless compilation of almosts that have never sufficed, so it hardly pains me that Cain has left me alone; after all, I have served the only purpose he could see in me, and what use is a tool to one who has no need of it? (What is the use of a son whose devotion is lacking?) Having no use left, I quietly dissolve myself in the world beyond the window. It is a simple enough trick, but the problem is more returning than leaving. I drown myself in the vast emptiness and forget my rotting body.

I cannot bring myself to eat anything. Snark is in every meal they push at me, and I cannot bear the weight of more sins. Sometimes, my heart trembles artlessly in its panic, as if it knows, as I do, the inevitable outcome of my refusal. I recognize the symptoms, of course, but I hardly care now. I'm terribly weary, weary enough to shed my skin and return to the world I know best. (The question remains, though—will it know me? I have changed.)

Having spent a lifetime fantasizing about it, I thought it would bring me amusement and satisfaction, to witness the destruction of that terrible bond. The fantasy of how Cain would launch himself into hysterics at the sight of Riff's corpse kept me alive through many of the lonely nights in the laboratory. I could never decide if he would break down weeping or just stare, broken, into the distance. Maybe he would throw himself from the window in despair, or shoot himself, melodramatically whispering Riff's name as he pulled the trigger.

Reality is never as satisfying as fantasy, however. Father proved that truth to me a lifetime ago. I had thought the fantasy of my death more appealing than the blood-strewn mess it left me in, over and over again. The first time, it showed me the distance between love and almost-love—how life and death are symbiotic. Then, how both Father and I were wrong—that love proves stubborn and foolhardy in its many guises. That I was damned to repeat the past: the same pattern, different variables. My life has always required blood.

When I saw the way Cain scrabbled at the heaps of dust, guilt—not satisfaction, not schadenfreude, not superiority at being immune to the fantasy of unconditional love—came over me. I realized what I had known for a while, but had never acknowledged to myself: their glass bond had been an anomaly, an outlier, in a world of blood and terror. Maybe that, in itself, made it worth preserving the fantasy.

Even if it was a foolish one.

I lied to myself when I gave Riff control over his body—that I was merely awaiting the perfect moment to expose their bond for all its folly. Timing, after all, is critical for the denouncement to the Hargreaves tragedy. The next time, I put up a false front, a ludicrous demand that Riff could never be expected to honor. When Father caught me, I found it surprising that, rather than the malicious joy that governed my fantasies, I felt a quiet regret that Cain would find out what the world was truly made of; a feeling dogged by the ever-present envy that he—darling, precious, indispensable Cain—had been sheltered from such a truth. It seems I could never make up my mind as to how I perceived their bond, preserving it even as I longed to break it.

Now, in Riff's absence, there is an accounting, not unlike in the book of life, occurring in this house; I see it in the worried looks of the maid who takes away the untouched tray. I see it in the lines of the old man (Neil?), who studies me as if I am a puzzle. One word here, a connection there, and the secret unfolds. It reminds me of the word games I played with Father.

(Turn rat into cog, letter by letter; no cheating, Jezabel.

Turn bird into game, four letters this time; come now, it is not that difficult.

Turn dead into alive, piece by piece; good boy, clean the knife now.)

Therefore, no surprise registers with me when a man comes to ask me more word games. Funny ones too. Ones like "Do you know who I am? Do you know who you are? Do you know what day it is?" and so forth. This is clearly routine for him, and my answers will not affect the outcome, which has been decided long before he stepped into the room. I would hazard a guess that it has been determined ever since that doctor came by. This is merely a formality. I would not be surprised if Neil had obtained the two signatures necessary for my imprisonment not long after my arrival.

Neil waits patiently in his chair as they discuss me, as if I cannot hear them, as if I am an object, a curiosity. They toss around multi-syllabic words as if that can capture what has been done: neurasthenia, monomania, melancholia, and so on. Neil quickly rejects neurasthenia; apparently he believes that I have only worsened since I came here, and he does not believe this to be a temporary madness.

The alienist seems very invested in the diagnosis of organic insanity, as he continues to question Neil about my visible head wound. While it has begun to heal, the angry red of new skin stands out. He tries to get a better look at it, and I flinch when he advances too close. He weighs my reaction carefully, before drawing back, questioning Neil on Augusta's condition—lypemania. After Cain's birth, she alternated between ceaseless distress at anything related to Father and listlessness. They had to restrain her to take her to the sanitarium. For some reason, Neil seems uncomfortable at this; I suppose he is ashamed at the madness he believes to run through the bloodline.

The alienist tries again to rule out delirium, but I refuse to speak to him. Straightening his coat, he announces his conclusion of organic insanity, with hereditary disposition and secondary melancholia. A poor prognosis. Neil does not look relieved at the diagnosis, but he hardens himself.

I, on the other hand, find it deeply amusing that Father was right, as always. He always threatened that if I ever left, I would either disappear or be committed for madness. But at my present situation, I cannot bring myself to feel anything: not fear, nor anger, nor sadness. I will fold all my terrible secrets within my body, and no one will ever be the wiser. And so I do not react when I hear the words that Father has always threatened me with—it was merely a matter of time, it seems. I cannot live in a world bereft of Father; that is not how I was molded.

It is to my surprise then, when the variable Father has always failed to account for, comes striding in, eternally self-possessed and foolhardy. The blotchy patches in his normally ivory face announce that he had been crying earlier, but he seems determined in spite of it.

"Why, may I ask, are you intruding on my brother, while he is in mourning," Cain demands of the alienist, in the most carefully, dangerously polite tone he can manage.

Neil quickly conceals his expression of surprise. "Ah, Cain. This is Doctor Emmett. He has come at my request to examine your brother."

(When did my status become elevated from half-brother to brother? I suppose half brother has so many unpleasant implications, and I wonder just how much this new doctor believes this story, considering I do not resemble Father in the least.)

"Has he?" Cain asks, in that curious tone that announces his refusal to accept such a thing.

Neil chooses his next words deliberately and firmly. "It is the professional opinion of Doctor Emmett that your brother is insane, with an unfavorable prognosis."

Cain stiffens. "Well, I must disagree. I believe that, if anything, it is an obvious case of grief, and not insanity."

I think Father just turned in his grave. Suffice it to say, I will be sorely disappointed if this turns out to be a fever dream.

The alienist proceeds to pick precisely the wrong time to join the conversation. "It is a very pleasant sanitarium. I believe that we cared for your Aunt Augusta there."

"My aunt?" Cain asks, in a delicate tone.

"Yes, your Aunt Augusta." Something akin to disapproval enters Neil's tone.

"I think, Uncle, that since this is a family affair, that we ought to discuss it with the family before taking such drastic measures."

A brief exchange of stares between Cain and Neil ensues for a heated minute. An vexed exhalation from Neil announces that Cain, as always, will get his way—for now, at least; clearly he does not want the scene that Cain was threatening. Sometimes, the upper class is terribly predictable in their desire to keep family matters private.

"I think we will have to cut this visitation short, doctor," Neil begins smoothly. "Do forgive me. As this does not appear to be a pressing case, I believe that this can wait a day or two. I can have one of the footmen see you out." As he leaves with the alienist, however, Neil gives Cain a look indicating that this matter is quite far from settled.

Uncomfortable silence surrounds us, as I am too puzzled to make out his intentions now. The amusement of watching Cain vouch for me is quite gone now that I have to decipher its meaning. In fact, I almost wish it had not happened, precisely because I cannot fathom it. Nothing happens without a motive.

When Neil has left, Cain visibly slackens, all the fight drained from him. He moves to take a seat near me.

"Are you," he manages finally, "alright?"

I take note of the hesitation in his question. At least he does not labor under any delusions that I am not still angry with him.

"I thought that was what you wanted," I remark stiffly. Particularly since I no longer have a use.

Cain stares out the window. "Is it really so difficult to believe? You're my brother."

"Half brother," I correct.

"Brother, nonetheless."

I sigh at his foolishness. It bothers me, for some reason, that he had kept me from my fate; truthfully, I suspect this to be a trap, the moment before the axe falls. But what can he take from me that has not already been taken?

"Father," he begins slowly, "would take joy in knowing that his last act was to fracture the family even further."

"Are we a family now?" I ask, bitterly. "I had no idea."

Loneliness serves as his motivation. I am a poor substitute for Riff, as he no doubt knows.

He exhales, exasperated. "You're terribly difficult, you know. "

I have an overwhelming desire to continue in this nasty vein, to push him and his implicit offer aside, before he realizes, like Father, that I am weak and ugly and replaceable—and then he'll see fit to abandon me. Little does he know that I'll destroy this—whatever one calls this fledgling of a relationship—before he can.

Unconditional love is merely a falsehood.

"Don't you understand?" He pauses, as his expression becomes pained. "We're alive. And as long as we are alive, we can experience everything Father never wanted us to have. For better or worse." His voice quivers with sorrow, but he continues. "What Father has done cannot be undone. Riff is gone forever, and part of me is gone with him. But I, I choose life, because that's what Riff would have wanted. It's what he died—" He furiously wipes his face with his fingers, as his voice cracks. "And who am I to cast aside his final gift to me."

He sounds as if he is desperately trying to convince himself, and that saddens me, against my better nature. Father's last words return to me. I cannot figure them out now: whether they signified forgiveness or gratitude or—I cannot name the last possibility. The idea that even Father could have his regrets seems ludicrous. I know truly that he never cared for me—no, not I, his bastard. We remain in silence for some time, until I decide to break it, curious about his decision in spite of myself.

"Do you truly believe that?"

"I hope it's true," he replies. "People are such strange creatures. I hardly know what to think of them. There is blood and death and cruelty in this world, but there is also Mary and Riff and kindness and sacrifice." Another long silence ensues. "I sometimes wonder what I would have been like, if Riff had never been kind to me. Would I, in turn, never have adopted Mary? Would she have died in the streets? Sometimes, sometimes I get so frightened at how closely our lives are interconnected with those of others. Perhaps we are the sum of our interactions even more than our personalities."

I wonder at this. Would I have fractured further without Cassian, with only my birds to sustain me? He kept me alive, against my intentions, for reasons I can only guess at now. And it pains me to continue to live without him. It is not that he was the foundation of my world, but that he seemed to believe that I was worth saving, after all that I have done. Somehow, he infiltrated my lonely world with his disarming words and revelations. That, in itself, is a frightening notion, for to be affected by words is to become vulnerable, and I know far too well the price that such a state entails.

"Aren't you frightened of me?" I ask, broaching the topic neither one of us wants to discuss.

"Yes," he admits, picking at the stitches at his sleeve. "For what's worth, it's been a week. You could have easily killed me at any time during that period, and you chose not to. That must signify something."

"Maybe it signifies nothing."

"I choose to see meaning in it, even if you don't." He catches my gaze. "And maybe, I was foolish to hold onto the past, but I don't regret it. There may never be a record of his life, or even anything to show for it, but he is alive in my actions, because of what he has done. Maybe that is all we are allowed."

"That seems unfair, somehow. To live and die, and see no recompense for the thousand slings and arrows of life."

Cain senses that I am not talking about Riff. "He loved you," he says carefully.

"To hell with it. To hell with his love!" I cannot keep the anger out of my voice. "What good has his love done? What good has any of this love done?"

He watches me, as if he does not know what to say. Good.

"And when I am dead," I continue, unable to stop myself, "when I am dead, it will be as if he is truly dead, because he had no family. Or none that cared." For some reason, that thought bothers me so. How strange that I should care for a human being, after I was so careful to shut them out.

"Do you despise me, because of it?"

"It is not as if I could bring him back now. You heard Father, he deliberately destroyed his brain so that I couldn't—" I choke on my own words out of anger and guilt. "His body lies rotting, rotting in a coffin of rubble and delusions."

I cannot contain the memories of cleaning that bloodstained face, forever terrified. The warmth of his blood threatens to soak into my cuff, even now. My hands tighten. The unbearable chaos whispers to me again, and I want to puncture those eyes that watch me with such worry and fear. I am so weary of living in such a stained world, where I am reminded of all that I have lost—and all that I will never be. At my irregular breathing, alarm replaces the caution on Cain's face, but I hardly care. I have a half a mind to take him up on his offer and ruin those hateful eyes that mark him as special and dangerous, if he will not let me be. I'll destroy the both of us. But he has always known that, hasn't he? So as Cain killed Abel, so has he killed me, by displacing me as Father's son. I have lost everything to him. It's only fair that I—

My inner ramblings are interrupted by a curious sensation. A glance reveals that he has, to my surprise, carefully placed his hand on mine. I half draw back from shock. He swallows nervously, watching me closely and clearly unsure if he has just made a fatal mistake. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I am so disarmed by his show that I can hardly think—all that registers is the warmth of his porcelain hand. I marvel at the softness of his skin, the surprising thinness of his fingers, the slight, involuntary twitching of his tendons. The way his veins glide in his flesh. It is not through polite flattery that he has gained a reputation as beautiful. Once the novelty has worn off, I become uncertain as to what to make of his display: it is not a show of domination, as with Cassandra, nor a clumsy attempt to replicate romance, as with Meridiana. For a moment, I wonder just whose hand is shaking, before I realize that it must be his.

Moments pass between us in silence. I think about Cassian, how his little hand left his warmth, and his mark, on my skin. The feeling of loss as it slipped from me, its owner unable to summon the strength to continue. I contemplate how his look of grim determination brought me shock at our fateful meeting in the train station. Regret returns to me, in the absence that anger has left. Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if I had departed with him, to anywhere but London. For the first time, I wonder if my life does not just belong to me alone.

"I have no need of a rescuer," I say quietly.

Relief shows on Cain's face, as he exhales the breath he has unconsciously been keeping in. It is pleasant, but also sad somehow to see just how afraid he is of me—not without reasonable cause, I might add.

"I'm not a rescuer. I'm your brother."

This repeated insistence on family ties that he has never considered before irritates me. I wrench my hand from under his, and unconsciously clasp my other over it, protectively.

"You want to save me. Save me and add me to your little menagerie," I accuse, anger steadily building in me as I recall the last few rescuers of mine. "The last man who tried to save me was Cassian, who, as you very well know, died with his brain mutilated. The one before that was Lord Gladstone." I pause, savoring the look of horror and disgust that shows on his face at the mere mention of his name. "He thought I was his." I can't seem to stop myself. The words have a terrible life of their own. "His little Jezabel, his lover, his little caged bird to be cooed over and patronized. Just a marvelous addition to his collection."

My hand unconsciously searches my throat for what no longer rests there. Sometimes, I think that this is how a phantom limb must feel.

Cain pales and looks as though he has seen far too much now. Good.

"He wanted everything of mine, and so I took everything of his." I lower my voice, knowing that Cain hangs on my every malicious syllable, and I pluck one of the roses from the vase. The flowers are so accusing in their untarnished wholeness; I cannot bear it. "He didn't seem to realize that I, for all his opulent fantasies, am no Ophelia. I laid his head bare." I make certain to catch Cain's eye, as I rip the head off the rose. "And I severed his brain stem, and out everything that contained him came. And that was the end of him." With a terrible, false smile, I set the headless rose back into the vase.

(And it wasn't enough to wash off the marks he left.)

I wonder if Cain will vomit.

"But you—you want to seize the only option for revenge that still remains. I am just the means to your end. I suppose you think I'll just abandon Father and mend my ways, and all will be right." I decapitate another flower. "Everyone will still be dead. There's no cure for death, Cain. Not for you, not for me, not for Father." The petals yield easily in my hands as I sever them from their base. I don't want any more reminders of all I have lost.

"I don't want to be saved," I continue angrily. "I won't ever leave Father. He was the only one who—" The only one who was ever happy I existed.

(Even from beyond the grave, he still exerts his inescapable pull on me.)

I pause, as a terrible realization dawns on me. "Or perhaps, you are just the same as Father. Is that it? I'm the only close blood relative of yours left now. Does the family curse run in your blood as well?"

Cain's eyes widen, and his hand tightens on the chair, when he understands the implications—not because I have guessed correctly, but I have said far too much. His mouth gapes slightly open in horror, as if words have failed him. As if he just realized he was not the sole recipient of Father's affections. (What did he think happened all those years Father was away? That Father suddenly reformed and mended his ways? On whom, exactly, did he think Father refined his skills?) His expression of horror and pity repulses me. I do not want it. I do not want any of this.

"Stop it!" My voice, in its high pitch of terror, seems alien to me, as if I am merely a spectator.

Ivy and rabbits prove to be no match for the wall; the saucer shatters beside him, but his expression does not falter.

"Stop looking at me like that!"

The teapot goes next. It ruins the wallpaper, its cold, ugly insides streaming down.

The teacup, however, is spared only because I am shaking so badly that I cannot grip anything properly. There are not enough porcelain dishes to unmake his stare of horror—this terrible kinship rooted in the unspeakable. This is worse than when I told him about Snark; then, at least, I could seek refuge in dissociation, so that it happened to some unfortunate soul, but never me. I had wanted him to know the price that his existence had exacted from me. This, this is a bleeding wound.

"...stop it."

I cannot escape the terrible knowledge of what can never be undone. I curl on myself, shaking and sobbing. This vast emptiness at being left behind is too much to bear; my bones curve under the weight of a sea of sins. For everything Father has done to me, I cannot abandon the sensation of love and purpose he bestowed upon me—the slight smile of approval every time I studied the mysteries of the body, the innocent, familial embraces far from the furtive ones in his bedchambers.

Cain crouches beside me, watching me with those sad eyes of his. There's a helplessness to them, and that is not an emotion that I had ever ascribed to him before. He settles with his back against the wall.

"I am not Father," he stresses. "Even if I did want to know you carnally, I would never act on it."

I shake my head in disbelief. "You'll use me, and then you'll leave."

"No," he says simply. "No. I won't. You can break everything in this room, and I won't leave you. As long as you keep Mary and Uncle Neil our of your plans, I won't leave you." He exhales, clearly trying to mask his unnerved state. "Sooner or later, you'll stop crying, and then we can figure out what is to be done. And if I have to ask a medium to channel Cassian's spirit for guidance, then I'll do that."

"What on earth makes you think he'll answer," I demand, through my tears. I am beyond the mortification of knowing that Cain has seen me weep.

"Because he loved you." Cain stares beyond the wall, deep in thought. "You may not believe it, but he did. And so, you have to live for him, because destroying yourself will only bring Father joy and mirth, wherever he may be now." His lips tremble with a sadness he barely contains. "That's what I choose."

(Just call me.)

"Whenever you're ready, we'll face this future together. Because that's all that remains to be done. We cannot unmake the past, and so we must make do with the future."

The quiet certainty in his voice unnerves me. I had never anticipated living beyond Father's ritual of regeneration. The notion proves to far, far too much to bear, and I cry for the boundless emptiness of a future I never anticipated. I cry for the futures I will never have. I cry for the love from Cassian that I will never know, because I shunned it out of fear and ignorance. I cry for Snark and my sisters and Mother and even Father. I cry from the guilt of the sins I have committed. Most of all, I cry for myself, for all the lost, splintered parts that haunt me, for the person I will never be. I cry and cry and cry until, finally, I am reduced to little gasps and the tell-tale aching of a heart faced with unbearable change.

More than anything, I am exhausted, exhausted enough to sleep for forty years.

Cain takes note of my state.

"I'd offer you some tea," he begins wryly, "but I think I'll have to ring for a new set."

He quietly searches for my hand, lightly tugging it towards him.

"No one can be helped against their wishes, but maybe I can make the journey a little more bearable. I think that's all that's in my power to do, but it's something only I can do."

It occurs to me just how alike Cain and Cassian are, beyond their surface appearance. Both are foolishly, hopelessly difficult to understand in their stubbornness, in their insistence on redemption, no matter how unlikely the possibility. Why can they not see, as I do, that unconditional love is merely a lie? That we are merely selfish, ugly creatures?

At the sight of the clock, he pauses. "Is that the time? Well, I suppose I'll just have tea here, with you. If that is alright with you?"

I take note of the way he tries not to fidget, as he gauges my reaction to his proposal; beneath his light, carefully crafted tone is uncertainty. I wonder if this is how it begins, this act of leaving Father. I am not foolish enough to believe that my memories will ever cease, but perhaps that is not all I am allowed. I think back on Cain's gesture of comfort and his trembling hand; I hardly understand why he remains here, if I am no longer of use. Instinct tells me to bolt, that the axe is advancing, that cycle cannot be broken, that he has something truly cruel planned.

"Why not?" I reply, hoarsely.

He thinks he takes care in concealing it, but I catch his small smile as he goes to pull the bell cord. What a strange person my brother is turning out to be.

I think Cassian would be proud.

Notes:

The word game Jezabel alludes to is based on a real Victorian game, where you would change a word, letter by letter, into a new one. For example, rat into cog would look something like this: rat, cat, cot, cog. The last set he gives, however, is impossible to solve, because the words are of different lengths.

Cain's declaration of all he can do intentionally mirrors Mary's speech in canon about the limits and duties of love. Because I love that speech so, so much.

Because I try to keep this as historically accurate as I can, the diagnoses are from Mental Maladies; a Treatise on Insanity (1845), a very real Victorian textbook on insanity, which I read part of for this chapter.

Thank you for continuing to read. I'm humbled, as always. Let me know what you think of it, if you'd like! I love to hear from readers, and I value your feedback.