A/N: This was supposed to be a flashback in the next chapter, but it would have made the chapter too long compared to the others, and it didn't quite fit in anyway. Here it is as an interlude - will post the next chapter on Friday as usual!

When I saw my poor brother led away to imprisonment, I attempted to leap down into the Council Chamber, desiring to intercede on his behalf, or at least bid him farewell. But I found that I had no motion of my own. I absolutely depended on the volition of my Guide, who said in gloomy tones, "Heed not thy brother; haply thou shalt have ample time hereafter to condole with him. Follow me."

"Bill! You cheated again!"

"Did not!"

"I saw you! Spit out my King!"

"Can't. I swallowed."

"For Circles' sake, Bill! What's wrong with you?"

Bill just laughs, so hard that he ends up flat on his back, feet kicking over the chessboard. He hears vaguely, over his own laughter, that Liam is sighing and starting to pick up the chess pieces. "I'll need to replace that. Thanks a lot, Bill. Dad won't be happy."

"Dad's never happy anyway."

"Well, I would be if you just stopped being such a pain in the angle. You asked me to teach you how to play chess. You're never going to learn at this rate."

"But I did!" Bill protests, sitting back up. "I won. Ate your King. Checkmate!"

For all his frustration, Liam can't hold back a chuckle. He never stays mad at him for long. "The King can't be eaten, and even then it wouldn't be by sticking it in your mouth, Billy. You need a strategy, and to calculate-"

"My way's quicker," Bill quips.

"Your way is cheating."

"Still won!"

"If you cheat, it doesn't count."

"Says who?" Bill challenges, and Liam just sighs.

"Alright. Let's pretend for a moment you're playing against someone who's less of a saint than I am and will bash your angle in if you try to literally eat their chess pieces or cheat in any way. Don't you want to know how to beat them anyway?"

"I'd do it while they're not looking," is the predictable reply, but truth be told Bill does want to learn how to play chess, and eventually settles down to listen. He listens, tries to remember the rules and moves, and tries to play again.

He loses. He loses a lot - and, at first, very quickly. Then, little by little, he learns to avoid his beginner's mistakes. He learns how to best respond to Liam's moves, how to put up a fight, make it harder for Liam to get to his King - which is, of course, a circle on the chessboard - and make the games last longer. He still finds ways to cheat, but he makes them less obvious, and in the end Liam almost never realizes it.

It never wins him a game, not against his brother: when Liam is taken, not long after that day, he is still unbeaten.

Bill would get to brag over countless wins in the eons to follow, over the greatest of minds and with no need to cheat - but that one win, the one he wouldn't get to brag about, would remain in the back of his mind each and every time he'd set his eye on a chessboard for a long, long time to come.

Until the day the all-seeing being would simply forget what losing even feels like.

I felt a shooting pain in my inside, and a demoniacal laugh seemed to issue from within me. A moment afterwards the sharp agony had ceased, leaving nothing but a dull ache behind.