"Dear diary. They're going to be announcing the invites for the Silver Pentagram winter award ceremonies today, and I know I'm on at least one longlist. This is so exciting! I should get shortlisted, if anything's fair! Surely the Profaneglade libertines will accept that my work's all over the journals! Dad says not to get my hopes up, because I'm up against both the way my mother was Heroic and mortal, and his own reduced status, but I really, really want this! Even if I don't win, I should at least get an invite, right?"

J'eszika Moraudat D'aemonstrelle Obfuscata Xystene Elee'ze Imoegene Malevola Ebony Invidia Pyrene va S'kareryeon , Princess of the Blood-in-Exile of the Abyss, Vicomtesse of the Descending Spheres (contested claim), Heir Apparent to the Rising Tower (contested claim)



Deep below the earth, in wretched, stinking places, the forces of Evil gather. In their wicked, sinful ways, they prepare for their foul plans and gather what resources they need to eternally overthrow the weakened world of all that is good and proper. The men and women of Righteousness have often wished that they knew all the horrific deeds their opponents plotted in their secret fortresses, but alas! Such knowledge is not for mortal men to know.

"I'm sure the room is changing in size!" wailed Cattleya de la Vallière, falling to her knees in abject despair. "Why can't I get the carpet to fit properly?"

Her maid stared back at her in incomprehension. "You said it was twenty metres across both times, my lady?" she said slowly.

"No, not exactly! It… it was twenty metres and nineteen centimetres the first time, and twenty metres and twenty one centimetres the second time! And… and if I'm wrong, I'll have to see how there's a bit of exposed carpet around the edges of the room, or it's all bunched up, and it'll drive me just crazy." Cattleya shuddered, but elegantly. "It'd be as bad as if the paintings were squint!"

With a great, chest-heaving sigh she threw herself face-down onto her new bed, and bounced. For all that the wretched carpet was working against her, it was nevertheless a good room. Much, much larger than her one at home; her sister had told her to take free pick of them, as it wasn't like she had a shortage. She had so much space she had put her things in a smaller area, and installed paper walls like the ones in books about the Mystic East to keep the space more manageable. Her bed was lovely, and they'd packed the area under it with soil from the de la Vallière estate so she was sleeping wonderfully in the day. And she had jolly nice statues of roses that she'd found in an old abandoned room in the tower and glued back together, and she had helped usher a bunch of bats into living in the rafters and enthralled them so they only pooed outside her room, and generally did all those jolly useful things which made a place feel homey.

There had been so much space, she had even got Anne a nice room about the size of Cattleya's own place at home. The poor girl seemed to be moping slightly from lack of sunlight, but she was allowed to go out whenever she wanted and seemed to be getting on very well with the adorable little minions. It was lovely to see everything turning out so well!

Rolling back over, Cattleya noticed that Anne had her hand raised. She was just placidly waiting there, waiting for Cattleya to give her permission to sleep. She pursed her lips. The girl was getting weaker, duller and less… independent, which suggested that she had to give her a break from feeding. Or possibly that she should just accept that she would be that way, and go ahead and enthral her so at least that way she'd get some extra powers from it and… no! Cattleya deliberately bit her own tongue in punishment. She wasn't meant to think like that. It was wrong and it was naughty and while it was acceptable to enthral animals – as, after all, normal mages turned animals into familiars – to do that to a human would be wrong.

She clearly needed to get away from Anne and her tempting, tempting blood for a while, and take a break while going back to bland bland bland animal. Just because she was away from home and might be allowing herself more human once in a while was not an excuse for sloppiness and getting into bad habits. Bad habits would get her in so much trouble with Mother when her and Louise went back home.

"What is it, Anne?" she asked, because the girl had been standing there patiently with her hand raised while the internal debate occurred.

"I can finish the carpet things," the other girl said slowly. "I… I will get the big size, and I will cut it down if it is too large. And measure it again before, to be sure."

Rolling over, Cattleya pushed off her bed, and gave her maid a – literally – flying hug. "You're so right!" she said, delighted. "I'll leave this in your hands. I just can't stand not getting this right! So I won't look! It's the best solution!" Landing again, her dress flapping around her in an unseen wind, she stepped outside of her room, and looked up and down – flinching slightly away from the burning torch at one end of the corridor.

Steeling her nerves, Cattleya took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and ran past it.

Yes. She really needed a breath of fresh air. And a drink of fresh blood, because her pyrophobia was getting worse. She could feel herself getting all dry, from the inside-out. Like a sponge slowly dripping down into a basin. And if she had to go out hunting… she might as well ask her sister if she had anything useful for her to do.

Oooh! Oooh! And she could get her a surprise present for the Silver Pentecost while she was out! Which made it much better that she was going out to drain most of the life from some poor innocent animal!



In the cavernous depths of the treasury, illuminated by burning torches, the minions were working.

"Remember, you slackers, gold and gems go in that corner, silver in that corner, and other metals in that one! All stuff what does not look like shinies is to go in middle, to be sorted later! Silver what have vampy blood on it and other metal what is dirty go to Igni and other reds in middle, who will do their cleaniness on it!" yelled Maggat, pacing up and down in his armour made of skeletons like the world's smelliest and most morbid assayer. "If any of you reds go burny on paintings, I beat your skulls in! If you go burny again after you get brought back, I give you to Fettid! We is sorting the money of the overlady and stuff what lose her money make her angry and her voice go loud and high-pitched and use long words and so it make me angry!"

"Uh! Hello?!" called a voice from the door, keeping well back. The overlady's sister poked her head in. "Uh… where is Louise? Do you know?"

Maggat narrowed his eyes at the vampire. He had not entirely forgiven her for tearing his head off, but the overlady would be unhappy at him if he took revenge and an unhappy overlord often took days to let you die. "The mistress is with the hive," he said. "She doing stuff with it."

"Oh. Okay!" There was a pause. "Oh, you're all so cute!" the vampire called out, before vanishing.

"I more like handsome," Maxy said.

"I certainly cute," Fettid volunteered, fingering her cleavers.

"No, Fettid, you cut-e," Maxy said.

"That too!" the green agreed cheerfully. She produced a knife from somewhere and twirled it expertly, giving it a thoughtful look as she did. "You know, I thinking, maybe I need to see if I can stealsies some cursed magic knives or something. Overlady not a knifey kind of overlady, so she not want to use them. I not see why, because knivesies are the stabbitiest kinda thing ever, but she is overlady so her way not for us to know."

"Like long wordsies!"

"And what peoples what are not Maxy and so crazy see in poetry!"

Igni looked up sadly. "Overlady now have sister around, and sister is vampy, so we going to have a lot of…" he focussed, "melon-drama and with melon-dramas come poetry," he said. "I tell you…" and that was as far as he got before his inattention led to one of the other reds inadvertently tossing a fireball into the noxious chemicals before him.

The explosion sent horned bodies flying everywhere, often in several parts. The younger Minions outside the blast radius ogled and 'aw'ed in glee, while their more experienced kin merely ducked to avoid the occasional leg, being accustomed to far more impressive carnage.

A red hand landed limply before Maggat, twitching. Idly, he picked it up for a blue to take. But now he had five hands. Well, he had five hands which were not his. So… he had one human hand's worth of hands.

Wait a moment.

His eyes opened wide, in sudden, horrified realisation of a cosmic truth which forced its way into his minionly brain.

If… if he had a hand of hands, then what if he had a hand of hand of hands? But it would be really hard to carry around that many hands, so what if he instead used the fingers on one hand to count the number of imaginary hands he had? And then a hand of hand of hand of hands? Beyond that… why, he'd have to get more hands to count the hands which he was counting on.

Maggat twitched slightly.

"Oy!" yelled out Igni. "Maggat! That my hand you got! What is you, stoopid? I not give it to you because I like you! I not give it to you at all!"

The hand fell out of Maggat's grasp with a wet thud, and the brown-skinned minion stared at the coins scattered on the floor before him with new eyes. "There are… three hands and four coins in front of me," he breathed in the voice of one announcing a revolutionary discovery.

"What was that?"

"I dunno."

"I think… it sound like Gnarl when he do the counting?"

"Nah, can't be."

Maggat raised his voice. "There are… one hand and one hand… there are two hand burning torches in this room."

"It is! It are advanced mathematics!"

"No! Maggat! You go too far! There is some things that minionkind is not meant to know!"

"Yeah!" interjected a red, nervously playing with his – or possibly her, given it was wearing something which was either a skirt or a kilt – horns. "You no know con-see-kwince-es of actions! Think of what Goodness could be released if you keep on doing this kind of dangerous stuff! Blues, they can bring you back from deadness, but your thinkyness! It could go mad and blues not be able to fix stuff in head."

"Unless stuff in head like… arrow, or axe or stuff like that," a brown contributed helpfully. "Blueys get lotsa loot from stuff left in heads of dead minions."

"That true, yeah. But thinkyness in thinky head is not something blue can pull out before doing blue magic-yness. It like… like pary-site, only one you can't pull out and roast and eat!"

"Shut it! You just jealous of my knowingness!" Maggat snapped "I show you right now! There is…" he paused, and began to focus on the skeletal hands, flicking their fingers as his darting eyes flickered over the room, tongue sticking out in the agony of hypercognition, "… there is one hand-hand. And three hand. And four minions in this room! No! Because I is a minion, so that make one hand-hand and four hand total!"

"I not listen to filth like this! You is playing with stuff you is not under-standing!"

"But do you know that he no know, no? How can that be? If you know that he no know then you know the knowingness he no know and that mean you know it – and then you is no proper bad because that mean you are a hippo-crit – but if you no know what he might know then you no know what he no know or know and so your knowingness do not let you know if he no know the knowingness because you no know if he know to know the knowing that no should be known," contributed Maxy. "Ow ow ow," he added, as rocks were thrown at him. "Argh!" he concluded as Fettid stabbed him through the hand. "That was dis-prop-or-shunate!"

"But I no prop up anything," Fettid said, her eyes gleaming with innocence, or more likely stupidity. "I can has my knifey back? It is stuck in your handie."

"You know what is Maggat's rules! I is only allowed to be stabbed when I is actually playing music and doing poetry at the same time!"

"Yeah, that was silly thing to do," Maggat said half-heartedly, his mind still struggling to come to terms with the world-changing discovery he had just made. "Fettid, take the knifey back and throw rocks at Maxy like the rest of us do."

"Ow!"



The minion hive was a cantankerous blossom of dark malevolence. From within the incident horror of its protean vicissitudes, the ultimate evil lurked, waiting to…

"Kill me!"

Louise stared at the horrifically malformed minion with a disgusted look on her face. Minions were usually no lookers, generally looking like they had been pushed off the ugly mountain and hit every ugly tree on the way down before landing in the ugly swamp – which explained the smell – but this… thing which had just crawled out of the minion hive made the minions look like society beauties.

One of its eyeballs was hanging out on a cord. The left arm had apparently stolen all the muscles from the shrivelled right arm. And its skin was a tie-die mix of the other minions, which made it look like something had been sick on it.

"Kill me!"

"Well, that's another unsuccessful attempt, my lady," Gnarl said, casually. "At least you're helping us repopulate the menagerie." Another two minions grabbed the malformed monstrosity and dragged it off with a pleading "Kill me!"

Louise slumped down on her workdesk, grumpy resignation starting to set in. "Maybe that was just too much fire essence this time," she said, pouting. "It had horns, at least. At least I'll get better."

"Oh, usually most overlords get it down straight away," her vizier said heartlessly.

"Sh-shut up! Stupid Gnarl! I… I'm just not used to it yet! And I bet the vampire broke it with… he tainted it with death magic or something so it has to work it out of its system! It's not my fault!" Louise frowned. "Maybe next time, we reduce the gestation time, but use half as much earth-aspected life force," she suggested.

"I am sure it will be instructional," Gnarl said neutrally.

The Louiseian explosion which would have shortly followed from her growing temper, however, was averted by Cattleya poking her head in. "Louise?"

"What is it, Catt?" Louise asked gratefully, glad to have something to distract her from her continual failures to get the minion hive working properly. It was so aggravating! It was like she was back to her old frustrations of not-properly-working magic, after almost a year of successes! Evil magic had just been so… so easy for her! She had picked up entire tomes in days, mastering all sorts of fun things to do with fire – her main limit had been her source of new material. And now this!

She was very much inclined to go find the Jester and kick him a few times. If she went near him, he'd probably insult her, so it wasn't even as if it was premeditated.

"Oh! Louise! You're looking nice today," Cattleya said admiringly. "It's nice to see you not wearing plate, and that brings out your better side wonderfully."

Flattered, the girl smoothed down the front of her black dress. It was a very nice dress, she had to admit; high in the neck and collar – with just a hint of padding in the chest – which used its traceries of silver demonic runes to subtly suggest that she went in a little more in certain places and out rather more in others. And it was much lighter than the plate. "I felt I just wanted to get away from the clanking," she said girlishly. It wasn't like she was jealous of her sister or how now there was another woman around the place – minions didn't count – she was feeling graceless in her armour. Of course not. "Is something the matter?"

"Nope! I'm just going out to see if I can find some food, and I was wondering if you want me to pick something up while I'm out?"

Louise blinked. "Actually, yes," she said quickly, eyes darting around the room for something before she found what she was looking for. She handed it to her sister.

"… Louise, that's… uh, a sack."

"Yes. Go kidnap some goblins for me. I…" she waved a hand, "… uh, still don't have the hive down pat, and we're a little short… don't you dare make a short joke! Don't you dare!"

"… I wasn't going to."

"Sorry. Force of habit. But we need more minions, and goblins can be converted using the tower heart. There's some tribes still left in the forest to the south, where the land gets less marshy… there should also be some wild animals there for you, okay? Oh, and I was saving this for a present, but I bought an amulet from Scarron which should let you talk to me, as long as I keep wearing the Gauntlet." She handed it over, and suppressed a brief scowl of annoyance at how Cattleya effortlessly made it look elegant.

"Okay!" Cattleya said enthusiastically, bouncing over to give her sister a hug. "I'll be helpful, don't you worry! And we can get more cute little minions around the place… and it's winter, so the goblins are probably starving so really we're saving them from things."

"It is true," Gnarl nodded sagely. "Any goblin that becomes a minion is being saved."

"Exactly!" Cattleya said cheerfully. "And… and I'll see if I can find more wolves and bats out there for your legion of darkness, Louise!"

"… fine," Louise said, who rather wished her sister wouldn't call it that.



In the cold winter night, two goblins ran for their lives.

They were the last ones left. The last ones of their whole tribe, which had once numbered almost forty. But then the harsh winter had winnowed their ranks – made worse by an unsuccessful raid on a human village which had cost them – and now there was something stalking them. A monster. It had picked them off one by one, and now it was just them. The torches kept it away, but…

Something moved behind them.

The goblins swallowed.

From the undergrowth emerged a wolf, midnight-black fur dusted with snow. Or at least, something akin to a wolf. Most wolves were not the size of a small horse, and neither, for that matter, did most wolves have eyes which glowed a dull red, or incisors the size of a man's hand. Of course, most monstrous horse-sized red-eyed long-toothed demon-wolves did not have a coat tucked into the belt tied around their neck, but the goblins were not in a position to appreciate this departure from theme.

The demon-wolf howled, and a pack of lesser glowing-eyed wolves emerged after it, to surround the hapless goblins. For its part, the monster disappeared back into the woods, to re-emerge as a bare-footed Cattleya de la Valliere wearing a hastily thrown on coat. She showed no sign of discomfort or redness in her pale feet as they sunk into the snow.

"You are naughty, naughty little goblins," she scolded the greenish-skinned creatures trapped in the circle of her wolves. "Very naughty indeed! Why were you running away like that?"

From the night sky, bats dropped down straight at the goblins. One of them dropped their torch, which went out immediately. The wolves closed in, and the two creatures desperately pulled in closer and closer.

The last torch was extinguished by a snowball which would better be described with adjectives intended to describe gunshots. And then it was all over bar the concussing and the stuffing into sacks.

"Good puppies!" Cattleya said delightedly. "You're so well behaved! You trapped them and their nasty, nasty torches perfectly! I will have to get you a treat before we get home. Because you deserve it because you're so, so good!" Kneeling, she wrapped her arms around the head of the largest black-furred sharp-fanged red-eyed monster, and rubbed her cheek against its coarse fur. "Hunting is so much fun! And…"

The wolf, which was tolerating her exuberance, shrunk back and whined. The others in the pack retreated too, pulling back into the woods. Cattleya slowly rose, nostrils flaring as she sniffed at the air – old blood, wet animal, something sweet she couldn't identify – and her hands twisted into talons.

And then untwisted themselves as she saw what had entered the glade.

The unicorn seemed almost spectral, barely real. In the snowy light, the hide of the beautiful beast looked almost purple-tinted. Its hooves barely left prints on the snow, and it somehow managed to gallop through the frozen plantlife without disturbing it.

"Oh!" Cattleya said, weakly, breaking into a fanged smile of wonder. "Oh my! You're gorgeous! You really are. If I had any apples with me, I'd give you one!" She had always loved horses and riding before she had become one of the living dead, and the way she hadn't been able to do it in years had been a real blow. It'd been ten years since she'd been near a horse, and this was a unicorn and it was beautiful.

It seemed to hear her, because it paused, and cocked its head, looking at her with one eye and then the other. One forehoof pawed at the ground, and it lowered its head innocently.

"Do you want to be stroked? Oh? Are you cold?



"Where the lights? Why we all standing around in the dark?"

Louise glared at her newest construct. It did not glare back, because it had no eyes. It seemed to be part of a theme, because her last one had had no eyes. It had done something that she could only assume was screaming, in the short period before it asphyxiated. She'd settle for one with no ears next, thank you very much.

"Kill me!"

"Who say that?"

"Minions!" she hollered. "Take the failures away!"

What was going wrong? What proportions was she mucking up? Yes, it was – as Gnarl told her – not a 'true' minion hive, but it shouldn't be going this wrong! Which meant it had to be all the fault of her doubly deceased ancestor and the fact that, by all accounts, he had been linked up to it for generations. Stomping over where she was keeping her notes, she scribbled 'No eyes' next to 'Try #19'.

She was in such a mood that she even managed to get somewhat annoyed at how she wasn't wearing her armoured boots. They were better shoes for stomping in.

So. Try #20. She flicked through one of the black tomes that Gnarl had found for her. A lack of eyes in one's minions was often a sign of too much earth-aligned lifeforce, because it made them have something of the nature of rock about them, blind and unfeeling and tough. So if she reduced the earth, and slightly increased all three of the others… hmm. Maybe she should just increase the wind-aligned lifeforce.

Her musings were interrupted by her gauntlet chiming. "What is it, Catt?" Louise sighed.

Cattleya coughed. "Well," she began, promisingly. "Uh. Louise, I just got impaled by a unicorn. And now I'm up a tree. And… and it's using its magic to throw rocks at me. But don't worry! I don't need most of my organs so everything's fine! I'll just need to find some blood to repair my…" there was a pause, "… uh, yes, I think that's mostly intestine! And my skin too, of course! And… ow! Dratted thing! Stop it with the rocks!"

Louise looked up from her journal for a moment, and stared blankly at the wall. Several questions insistently tried to raise themselves to her attention, though the resignation with which they did so was probably a sign that she was getting too accustomed to the strangeness of this Overlady business. After a short pause, her brain restarted. "Well… well kill it then, Catt!" she said. "It's a blasted unicorn, it's trying to kill you, that makes it self-defence! And it's a horse and horses are evil… well, they try to attack me when I've done nothing to hurt them! You… yes, you can call wolves, right? Have them attack it."

"I did! You know, to scare it off. It killed them too! The horn is really sharp!"

"Then turn into a bat and fly away," Louise said. "I don't want you getting hurt or killed, Catt." She paused. "More hurt. Or… uh, more killed."

"But I got you some goblins and they're down on the ground and… that's horrible! It… it's trampling them! Deliberately! That's… that's really mean!"

"Just turn into a bat and fly away," Louise repeated.

"It's not even doing it to kill them! It's… it's breaking their legs, one by one! It… my goodness, I feel sick! What was… yes! Yes, I will go fly away and leave that wicked, sinful horrible mean unicorn alone! And try to find you some more goblins!"

Louise returned to her unproductive work. She was up to Try #22, waiting while it incubated in the hive, when Cattleya called again. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to let her frustration sound in her voice.

"Mmm?" she said.

"Louise. It's following me! I… somehow it followed me when I was a bat! It's much faster than a horse! And I don't have my sword with me because I can't carry it around when I'm a wolf, and I left my coat up in the tree! And now I'm up another tree and it's still throwing rocks at me!"

Louise pursed her lips. "Have you tried… you know, killing it?" she suggested to her sister. The minion hive hissed a venting of steam, as the incubation period finished. From the clouded depths, covered in ichor, came forth a monster, a terror, a…

"Kill me!"

The overlady gagged at the sight of the… the abomination she had just made. Organs were meant to be on the inside. So were brains.

"How interesting," Gnarl said. "I didn't know minions could live through that. I'll have to remember it."

"… no," Cattleya said, unaware of the full depths of her sister's ventures into unethical manufacture of goblinoids. "Louise! How can you say that? It's a unicorn! It's a creature of mythical beauty and purity and… stop throwing rocks at me! It's probably just angry because… you know, I'm a vampire! Well, that and the fact that someone seems to have branded it on the flank, which I bet would make anything furious. And… oh dear, what's it doing with its horn? It's all glowing and…" Cattleya screamed, her voice shrill over the sound of breaking wood.

"What is it, Catt?"

"Kill me! Kill me!"

"Shut up, you! Catt, talk to me!"

"You sugar-headed fat-head!" her sister shrieked. "That is it! I was being nice and you… you attacked me for no dratted reason! That was my hand! And an innocent tree!"

There was a bestial snarl and a high-pitched cackling, a tearing of flesh, and then a sound much like a milkshake being drunk through a straw. It went on for quite some time.

"Your sister seems to be enjoying herself," Gnarl observed.

"Kill me!"

"Uh… little sis? Sorry? It wasn't my fault I… uh, had a little loss of control! But it's still alive! There's much more blood in a unicorn than can fit in my tummy, so I'm going to take it back and help its legs get better… well, I mean, it still has two, right? So can you make a room for me to keep it in while I help it get better, okay?"

"Kill meeeeee!"

Louise snapped. With the constant frustrations of the day, with the way she was making mutilated minions, with the way she was sure Gnarl was snickering at her and for how Cattleya was being so Cattleya. Face scarlet, she levelled the Gauntlet at the mutilated minion. Yes, it wasn't necessarily its fault for being a horrific freak of nature, but… drat it, it was asking for it! Literally! She wasn't even sure what spell she was trying to cast, but what resulted was an explosion.

And what was standing when the smoke had cleared was not the pile of twisted flesh which had gone in. It was a minion, but… statuesque, albeit the kind of statues which were worshipped by cults which were banned in all civilised states. Oily black skin gleamed over a wiry structure, phosphorescent eyes burning above a fanged maw. Its left hand was overly large, and green runes burned brightly like a mad constellation upon the night's sky.

"Your evilness," it hissed, in a rasp. "What is your bidding? What would you have me kill?"

"Oh my," Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. "Oh my."

"… what. Is that?" said Louise slowly. "And why did it show up when I miscast… I mean, tried to blow it up?"

"Well, well, well. I haven't seen one of those in such a very long time that I was a mere scrap of a minion, putting turnips on my head. You must have fed it raw Evil for that to happen. Very impressive… very impressive indeed. Do you wish to laugh maniacally, or rant about how other people thought you were fools and you will show them all?" he enquired.

Louise blinked. "You think I should?" she asked.

"Oh yes. That is a masterful accomplishment." Gnarl shuffled his feet. "And it is traditional to do something of the sort, your evilness," he added.

"I am the pinnacle of minionkind, superior to these inferior primitives," the new minion observed, sneering at the awed lesser minions around it. "Pray, give me orders. I long to fulfil them."

The girl swallowed. She didn't like the way the… the new minion was looking at her. "Ahem. Ah ha," she said. "Ah ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha…"

"Blort," said the new minion. Well, it didn't as much 'say' it as 'make the noise'. And it didn't so much 'make' the noise as 'detonate explosively, spraying black blood, bile and… other substances all over the place, but mostly over Louise'.

Louise stared in blank shock.

"Hmm. Well, that was unexpected," Gnarl said, stepping out from behind his master. Apparently, the aged goblin could move remarkably quickly when it was called for. He hadn't even been splattered.

Louise pawed at her eyes, trying to clear them of ichor. It burned. And at the same time, she tried to throw up, because she had had her mouth open at the moment of blort-ness.

"Probably an instability in the mix of the magic and the lifeforce," Gnarl said casually. "Or possibly you're simply not powerful enough to sustain it. Oh well. That's something to remember for next time."

Louise chose to retch instead.

"But still! Very promising!"

Her Gauntlet chimed again. But it was not Cattleya.

"Louise! Your evilness!" came the unmistakeable voice of Jessica. "I need to talk to you! Like… right now! Right right right right now! It's super important! It's in fact the most important thing in the history of demonity ever! Ever! I'm heading right over! This is vital-life-or-death stuff!"

"I need a bath," Louise managed, her voice quivering, on the edge of tears. "I really need a bath."

"Cool! See you in ten!"

Louise blinked, trying to clear out her watering eyes. She couldn't meet Jessica like this. She just couldn't. But she couldn't put it off if it was as important as the other girl said it was.

There was only one thing she could do.

"Gnarl," she said, trying not to cry. "I… I am going to the baths. Have… have Jessica meet me there. I… I need to get clean."

It wasn't like Jessica would see anything she hadn't before. She was her tailor, after all, and had helped fit her undergarments. And that made it acceptable, as long as she kept everything strictly professional. Maybe… maybe she should even wear her dress in the bath, to try to get it clean too, but she hated to think what Jessica would say to the thought of the fabric being treated like that.

"Excellent, your evilness!" Gnarl said happily. "Entertaining guests while in the bath is something that many previous masters and mistresses have done. Do you wish for various oils and scented unguents to be brought up for later?"

Louise barely resisted the urge to kick the leering goblinoid, and for once wished that her Jester was present to take her anger out on. "No!" she said, trying to sound haughty and instead sounding desperate and nauseous. "Just… the stuff which makes lots of bubbles in the water. Lots and lots of it. And towels. And… and just make it so!"