What was necessary was a thread, a thread to follow out of the labyrinth, when he was done. He looked up at the building which was Massacre's altar and held close to the ones who guided him. And like a large cat, purring, the dark car was. He turned, and stepped forward without thinking, stepped into the space of Helen's regard. You're the one who gave me this story, he thought. The labyrinth, and the thread to pull me back.

She stepped out, frightened of something she could only sense in passing, by the stillness that was left behind it.

"Helen," he said.

"Alex," Helen said.

Apart from them, her demon watched.

/

He was at the table of an outdoor café and the table was rickety and the demon whom Helen had named Jack was across from him.

"I don't know what you're playing, but she is mine."

"I know," he said. "I don't want her."

"You'll stay away from her," Jack said.

"Or what?" Alex said. He tilted his head and smiled. It was a sweet, impish smile, and terrible.

Jack bared his teeth. "You aren't fit to lick her boots."

"Yes," Alex said. "You can't stop me. From anything I want to do. She won't be hurt, you know. She's a strong soul."

"Stolen magic," Jack said. "I can smell it in you. Sickening."

"It's all sickening," Alex said. "But there's a certain monster I want to snuff out—" he paused. Then looked down, trailed his nails across the plastic-plated menu, cracked and worn. The dark stone of the city cast its shadow across it and the sun, which ought to have been bright, was pallid, though the warmth of the air was warm, like the wet mouth of a beast is warm.

"Ciel Phantomhive," Jack said. "I've heard of you—what demon hasn't? Half-made by your betters, still clutching the one you hold."

"Well," Alex shrugged, unaffected. "Regardless, I'm more powerful than you. Or you would have attacked me already."

"You're mad," Jack said. "Why destroy a dead god, anyway?"

"Why not?" Alex said.

Jack stared at him, open-mouthed. Then shut it. For a moment he looked faint, and then resentful. He stood up, and placed his own menu back on the table, and looked aside. "You corrupt everything you touch," he said vehemently. "You've made a puppet of a demon and keep it for your own amusement: a bauble, a children's toy. It was great, once—"

"I know."

Jack snarled. "I've warned you as a courtesy, because of the memory of something that you've taken into yourself. Do not expect the same kindness again." And he stalked away, into the heat-haze, and the reflected brilliance the windows cast from the sun.

/

"Good and evil? It's fear and reward, under another name. You understand, now? God is the one putting us through the maze. So if I don't want to play," Philip shrugged. "So if I don't want to play a rigged game. One where I've already lost."

"You haven't, though. Not by desiring what you desire."

For the first time Philip looked shaken.

"Not damned by that then?"

"By nothing but the suffering you bring others and your renunciation of God."

There was a great silence between them; and they did not face each other.

"...You thought you were already lost."

"It doesn't matter," Philip said. With emptiness in his heavy words. "It may have mattered once, but it certainly doesn't now."

.

.

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