"A righteous soul such as myself is surrounded by idiots as frequently as any dark lord. It is simply that I am not allowed to execute them at a moment's notice. Lord! Lord that I could dispose of these simpletons! I would do it at the drop of a hat, or a glove, or any piece of clothing you care to mention!"

— Cardinal Richelieu

Rope creaked as the salvaged windship flew back to Tristain, suspended beneath two overweight red dragons.

Leaning over the side, Char lit one of his nasty roll-ups off his thumb, and inhaled. The smoke was still better smelling than the minion. "Well, I are thinkin' that was a success for the cause," he said.

"What is you talking about, Char?" Scyl asked, snacking on a roast rat on a stick.

"Well, think about it. We has caused a revolution! Some day there is gonna be a revolution in all the countries in the world. Where we the downtrodden minions no are gonna have lords or masters."

"A revolution?"

"Yeah, the overlady sent the other overlady what are Tifa back to her country. Now she are gonna start a revolution. It are one of the tactics of the overladies what are gonna backfire in the long run, but I is a big fan of it."

Scyl considered this, chewing on his rat. Then; "But ain't it a counter-revolution?"

"What?"

"Well, think about it." Scyl spat out a bone over the side. "The Albionese government are the ones what rebelled against the crown. Then the overlady sent the overlady what are Tifa back to rebel against the revolution. That means she are doin' a counter-revolution."

There was a pause full of minionly contemplation.

"Shit."

"Yeah, you no get nice things Char, that are how it goes." Scyl scratched his head. "But that no are important."

"It are pretty important!"

"Only to you. Me, I is more worried 'bout why we're not hearing anything from the tower. The overlady no can talk to the tower and the oversister."

"Oh." Char blew out a smoke ring. "You think Gnarl gone and launched a coup again?"

"That are a thing he do, but no. It no feel like the kinda time he launches coups, y'know?"

"Yeah. I guess I do."

The pair of minions stared out over the land as they approached the tower.

"Oi, Char?"

"Yeah?"
"I is thinking about what I said. I is thinking maybe there has been a coup. But not from Gnarl. I is thinking it was the oversister."

"What, the one who are Eleanore came back and did it again?"

"No, the vampy oversister." Scyl pointed down at the black-and-white dressed figures waiting close to the entrance to the tower, armed with the latest in infernal weaponry. Said weapons were pointed at the ship. "Oh boy. The overlady and the forgemistress no are gonna be happy around this."

"They touched my forge! I'm gonna kill them!" Jessica growled, heat wafting from her. "Oh! And if they touched my meds, I'll kill them even harder, and then I'll get Henri to bring then back so I can kill them again!"

"I'm not bringing anyone else back until I have my love back," Henrietta said firmly, lying flat on top of the coffin, her arms wrapped around it.

"Urgh! I was being hyperbolic! Obviously they don't get to come back to life if they touched my meds! I'll just eat their souls!"

Louise was not so much unhappy as deeply confused. This was the usual state of affairs when confronted by vampire-serving ghoul-maids armed with demonic weapons, but it was more than that. There were also the crashed ships scattered around her tower, and melted golem mechanisms near the entrance. And the tower was fully disconnected, with the lights off inside. The few minions that remained had fished the old braziers out of storage and were burning plant matter in them, which didn't provide much light and made the air quality notably worse.

As a result, when she found her sister in the dimly lit throne room, sitting on Louise's throne, she was a little tense.

"Cattleya. What the heck did you do? What on earth happened here?"

"Oh, greetings, little sister," Cattleya said. "It's lovely to see you. You shouldn't have been away for so long. I missed you terribly. How are you doing?"

Louise met her sister's eyes (red and faintly glowing, as usual, but also tight around the corners), took in the squared jaw and barely-not-bared fangs, and screwed her eyes shut. No, she couldn't muck this up — and she knew her sister. She wouldn't launch a coup. She wouldn't want the responsibility. She took off her helmet, letting it fall to the ground, and massaged her temples. "Catt, I am sorry, truly I am. I am not in a good mood at the moment," because of Henrietta and the fact she had talked all the way home about getting her prince back and also the fact that she was being weird about his coffin, "because of reasons that are not your fault. I was just sharp with you, and I am sorry. For that reason, I would like to apologise."

A moment, and then room-temperature arms wrapped around her. "Apology accepted."

It was necessary to remember to breathe, both because Cattleya was a very tight hugger but also because she had crossed the room in the blink of an eye and Louise's entire body was shocked awake by a flight-or-fight response. "Missed you," she managed. And she wasn't lying. She had missed Cattleya, for all that her sister could sometimes be deeply frustrating.

"I missed you too! I know we fought and I was fuming about being left behind but I think it was a good thing to have some time away from each other!"

"I suppose so. Yes. I definitely wished I had you with me several times."

"Oh, dear sister, look at you! You've lost weight and you look like you've been doing nothing but worrying. And before you say anything, yes, I know we've kept the tower heart disconnected and that you've probably been worrying sick about that and why you couldn't contact us. And also why Gnarl is locked up in a cage so he couldn't let down the defences. But we had a really good reason! And that relates to all the," Cattleya paused, "mess. All the mess."

Louise was not quite sure what to say. That was a lot to handle. "Gnarl tried to betray me?"

"Well, he is a vizier."

"Is this why your maids are bearing Jessica's cursed infernal weapons?"

"Yes, actually! My darling maids have helped take out some metal waste! Which was made when someone took over the tower heart and sent in some awfully mean golems to take over. And also attacked us with golems from ships when that didn't work. But we drove them back so everything's fine!"

"Was it King Joseph of Gallia?" Louise considered this. "I mean, I hope it was. There better not be two rival overlords with armies of golems and a strange complex about showing me up. That would be just awful."

"I don't know!" Cattleya said brightly. "But the golems did speak Gallian."

"It was probably him, then. Good."

"Good?"

"He's dead."

"Oh, that's wonderful! My little sister, a regicide!"

Louise patted her on the back. "It was Jessica, actually."

"Well, good for her! She deserves something nice! And… uh. Is she perhaps a little nettled about the fact I had to arm my maids with her weapons?"

"A little. But I'll talk to her! I promise!" Louise untangled herself from Cattleya. "We need to get everyone together, make sure we're on the same page," get Henrietta away from that corpse, "and just catch up. A lot has happened."

"I'll say!" Cattleya grinned in a way which could have been described as sheepish if it wasn't for the fangs. "So, uh, don't be angry at me, but I might have sort of found you a trained military commander and she's living in the tower and she might have pre-emptively sworn allegiance to you as long as you safeguard the life of Princess Henrietta."

"Mmm hmm," Louise nodded, before her mind caught up and processed all that. "Excuse me? Cattleya? What did you do?"

"Um. Surprise?" Oh, and uh." Cattleya cringed slightly. "Rutik escaped."

Louise stared at her sister. "Who and what is a Rutik?"

"You remember Rutik!"

"Catt, I am sorry to say that I do not."

"He was our prisoner." Louise's blank look didn't change. "He was a prince or something?"

"I think I'd remember if I'd taken a prince captive!"

"No, no, you did! He was the one you took prisoner in the East? When you were doing that thing for Emperor Lee."

"That ungrateful—" Louise deliberately closed her mouth rather than go on about her not-her-boyfriend. "No. No, I… oh! Oh! The one who," she snapped her fingers. "Yes, I did take him captive. How did I forget that?"

"Don't worry, little sister. It's very de la Valliere to forget about a man you have chained up in your basement."

"I… you… he wasn't chained up! He was just… in a cell," Louise mumbled, turning pink out of humiliated embarrassment.

"In retrospect, that would have been a good move. Then he wouldn't have escaped when the golems broke down the walls of his cell," Cattleya said practically.

"I think we definitely need to catch up and make sure everyone is on the same page," Louise decided. "Especially given you apparently took it on yourself to hire me a general."

"I didn't hire her! We're not paying her anything!"

"Catt, this is not helping your case!"

Louise gathered her dark lieutenants in her conference room, including Gnarl who had been let out of the cage and had been eager to re-swear his loyalty since King Joseph was dead, and listened to Cattleya's full explanation. Midway through the lights came back on when the tower heart was reconnected, which only marginally improved Louise's mood in the face of Cattleya's tale.

It almost made sense, as long as you weren't expecting your sense to actually make sense. But there was an odd logic to it. Of course the chevalier Agnes would come looking for Princess Henrietta. Louise knew the woman of old, and had always found her interesting and strong and kind of—

Hmm. Louise was promptly distracted by the sudden realisation that the hot feelings she had felt towards the tall, well-muscled, heroic, skilled woman with that short blonde hair and those dashing scars were similar feelings as she had experienced towards Viscount Wardes at the time. Which weren't quite the same as what she now felt towards Henrietta, but that would… make… sense. So it wasn't just Henrietta who could have her feeling this way. Hmm indeed.

"You haven't said anything in a bit. You're sitting there, staring at the table," Cattleya said. She was trying to keep Louise between her and the irked-looking Jessica who had done an accounting of her hellish weapons and come up considerably short.

"I'm just thinking!" Louise said a little too loudly. She tried to remember where things had gotten up to. "Most of what you've said are things that, well, I can see happening. But the bit where she decides to start using infernal devices," that drew a growl from Jessica, "and work with a vampire and pledge to serve an overlady. That's the bit that doesn't make sense."

Cattleya smiled. "I'm very persuasive."

"Did you use your vampire mind control on her?" Louise accused.

"Of course not! That wouldn't work half as well as this. And trust me. Agnes is very good at rationalising what she does within the lines of her faith and interpreting holy texts in ways that the mother Church wouldn't approve of."

"Because… she's a Protestant?"

"Mmm hmm," said the vampire. "That too."

Louise glared at her sister suspiciously, but decided there was nothing to gain by pushing Cattleya harder when the two of them had only just made up.

"It's not uncommon for heroes who feel that their efforts at being disgusting do-gooders are being overlooked to start to feel the temptations of Evil," Gnarl contributed. "Especially in the face of incompetence from their self-proclaimed leaders." He glanced over at Henrietta. "And she seemed to be very loyal to your hostage, my overlady."

"Well, I say send her in," Henrietta said, rocking back and forth in her seat. Her hand was resting on the coffin she had brought to the conference table despite Louise's strong hints that a conference room was not a place for a corpse who was not already undead. At least the skeleton was in the coffin this time. And just as importantly, Henrietta wasn't in the coffin. "There's no point in wasting time. I have a lot of things to do before things are ready this evening. I don't want to miss the toll of the midnight bell. My ritual needs it!"

"You mean there's some astronomical convergence?" Louise asked. If Henrietta missed it, she might—

"Oh, no, but I'd have to wait a whole day for the next midnight and I'm so close to getting him back."

Darn. "Very well. Show her in."

The order was given and the minions scampered off to show her in. However, it seemed that Agnes' patience had reached its limit, because the door burst open and flattened one of them against the wall. Agnes' riding boots clicked against the stonework, drowning out the minion's groans.

"We need to talk!"

Something about that tone reached down to the back of Louise's spine and pressed certain buttons. "Yes, miss!" Wait, no, not only had she not not done her homework, but Agnes wasn't even her teacher! "That is, yes."

"I am here to secure the safe release of Princess Henrietta of Tristain. Nothing is more important to me than that! If you have harmed her, nothing will save you from my vengeance! Where is she? Tell me where she is, or I will—"

"Agnes! I'm fine! I'm fine," blurted out Henrietta. Louise resisted the urge to bash her head into the table, and she wasn't even sure which 'her' she meant. There were so many choices.

"Your highness! What are you doing wearing… that?"

"Princess Henrietta is my prisoner," Louise said, "and I can dress her as I want. The fact I have her wearing the accoutrements of a necromancer is just…" sugar, she didn't have an excuse prepared, "a disguise. So I can keep her close to hand. So, my dear chevalier de Milan, you can see that she is quite safe — but also secure in my custody and I have no intention of releasing her right now." Yes. Yes. The conversation was back on track. "Now, my powerful vampiric servant has told me that you aided her in combating the many attempts by a rival to attack my tower with golems and—"

"I know she is your sister, Louise. You do not need to dance around that point."

"I-I-I don't know what you mean!"

"No, no, she's seen me undr- unmasked," Cattleya admitted. "She recognised me. Uh. Because she knew you. And then she realised you were you. Sorry! I really should have said that earlier."

Louise rested her hands on her knees. She let out all her breath. "Right. Very well."

"And that is why I will not attempt to kill you and will serve your interests on behalf of her royal highness the crown princess Henrietta Anne de Tristain," Agnes said. "I know that she was framed by the Regency Council, and my princess would never put her purity at risk. She is a chaste maiden."

"Quite right," Henrietta agreed. "I would never go against Brimiric Law."

"By serving you, I can ensure that she is kept safe, and that those traitors who framed her are cast down and suffer the righteous punishment they deserve. Why, you have slain two of them already with your own two hands!"

"Um," said Louise, who had done no such thing. The Comte de Motte had lost his head and also his upper torso to a minion-fired cannon, and the whole mess with the Madame de Montespan was exceedingly complicated, but again she hadn't been the one to defeat her. "I am… reluctant to take you into my service when you will try to overthrow me as soon as our goals diverge."

"I don't know," Gnarl said cheerfully. "Untrustworthy lieutenants bound in a tenuous alliance which will only last until one of you have achieved your goals is practically standard in the overlording business. It's actually surprising you don't have one of them already!"

"Hush, Gnarl. Do not push your luck."

"Fear not my betrayal," Agnes said firmly. "As per the holy words of the saint Thiazzi, 'It is by faith alone that we shall be saved; our deeds mean nothing in the eyes of the Lord'. Therefore, if you truly seek redemption, all will be forgiven. And I am sure that the girl I knew when she was younger — the daughter of Karina de la Valliere no less! — would not truly fall to evil! Nay, it is surely a pretence of yours!"

Louise was not sure whether she should be happy that this woman had seen her real plan, or insulted that she had followed such a fallacious chain of logic to get there. If Louise was truly a dark overlady, that is exactly what she'd want people to think. But she couldn't say that in front of Gnarl. "Destroying my enemies and the Regency Council is all that matters to me," she tried, attempting to plot a path through the conversational shoals.

"And I, too! It is a good day that we are in agreement! And frankly, it is clear that you require my assistance! You have no trained military officers in your service, and while your followers have clear and pertinent skills of their own, there is not one who can lead an army or crush a nation beneath your heel. That is quite a shocking lack of skill retention! How can you conquer the land without a dark general? And from what I gather you lead all of your quite inadequately-sized armies in person! That might be acceptable when one is starting out, but a dark overlady is not some… petty warlord! If you died in a battle, then Princess Henrietta would be in danger! I cannot allow that!"

"I mean, she's kinda not wrong," Jessica said, wincing. "Like, you know, you got your own style and that's a whole thing, but the Cabal Awards are less than six months away and you're not going to be able to get out of the little leagues without a bit of scaling up. You won't be judged as a newcomer forever. Like, you're kind of a small fry compared to Emperor Lee, just putting it out there." She paused. "Maybe he'd be impressed if you got a proper army of darkness together. As a hint."

Louise would have elbowed her, but Jessica's chair was out of reach. She was surrounded by traitors! It was tempting, though. Not least because it would let her not put her own life in danger. But on the other hand, Agnes would not be loyal to her. She would be loyal to Henrietta. And that loyalty might be broken. She would need to test it. And it would be a good idea to do that test now, when Agnes was unarmed.

"You are loyal to the princess."

"Of course!"

"How loyal?"

"Loyal to death and beyond!"

She had to hope that Henrietta wouldn't take that too literally. "Agnes, let me tell you something. Henrietta is not truly my hostage. She is fully onboard with everything I am doing." She felt her heart rate pick up. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

"Revenge against the Regency Council. Why, that is a righteous cause."

"Some would say that. But," Louise paused portentously, "Princess Henrietta wields magics some would call… suspect in my service."

"Who could suspect one as pure as her?"

"Only wicked people!" Henrietta declared.

That was overplaying it. "She is a necromancer," Louise said.

Agnes considered this revelation. Louise's fingers curled behind her back and she let the fear in her grow and grow until it took form as pink lightning. If this woman made one wrong move, she'd—

"Oh, your Highness! I didn't know you had the holy gift of life and death!"

"I beg your pardon!"

Agnes twisted to face Louise. "My lady, I don't follow. Is it not righteous that the princess is a holy woman who communes with the spirits?"

"Communes with the spirits. Holy woman." Louise let her dark magic fall apart out of sheer confusion. She was certain that nothing about Henrietta's intentions on the ghost of her love counted as holy. Or righteous. Or natural. And yes she was jealous, but that didn't change her other objections. "You do know that she's waking the dead from their slumber, yes?"

"'To the Lord lies both life and death; when it is time all shall know life renewed from the power of faith', Fensalir 32:5," recited Agnes.

"Isn't that about the rewards of—"

"As Princess Henrietta is a woman strong in her faith, resurrection of the dead is within her means."

"Even with necromancy?" Louise blurted out. She couldn't stop herself.

"The Book of Fensalir does not detail the means by which the resurrection will come, only that it will come for and at the hands of the faithful," Agnes chided her. "Believe in the will of the Lord, who granted power over the Holy Void to Brimir."

"You know, Agnes, Louise wields the Holy Void," Henrietta said, like the complete scoundrel she was. "She is an heir to Brimir."

"Henrietta!" Louise blurted out.

"Oh, King Joseph explained a lot. At length. Really at length. He was very fond of the sound of his own voice. Why didn't you tell me you were a living saintess?" Henrietta was throwing her to the wolves.

"You are?" Cattleya asked, eyes wide. "Oh, how wonderful! My little sister, a holy woman! Mother and father would be so proud if you'd let me tell them, which you won't."

"Truly! That settles it beyond a shadow of a doubt," Agnes said, crossing her arms. "I shall take command of your force hencewith, my lady. I am overjoyed to serve both her highness and you, holy one."

And that was pretty much that.

"Henrietta," Louise began, taking her friend aside. Her stomach was churning and she felt sick. She clasped her hands behind her back to stop her hands shaking. "We need to talk."

"What is it, Louise-Francoise?" Henrietta glanced towards the door meaningfully.

"You know my power is that of the Holy Void." The ruined Void.

"Yes! Why were you keeping that a secret?"

"I only put things together recently." Louise licked her lips. "Doesn't it… worry you? That the Void is polluted with primaeval Evil? That wh-what should have been the holiest power in the world is something that touches and corrupts everything? Th-that someone like King Joseph was an heir to Brimir?"

"He's dead. And no one else should have the power but you."

"But… all things come from the Void. If it's been corrupted…"

Henrietta reached over, and squeezed Louise's hand. "I trust you with it. No one else would do what you have. You have saved me time and time again. And now I will have him back." She smiled broadly, radiating happiness. "I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you."

The happiness hurt. The smile hurt. Because she was going to bring back a dead man she loved and ruin everything and-and-and Louise couldn't stop her. "I'm gl-glad I could help."

"Well, I have to be off. Ritual work to do, you know! And I'm sure Agnes will be just wonderful as your dark general."

Louise mumbled something that sounded like agreement, and watched Henrietta go. Something vile and dark churned inside her, and shadows coalesced around her hand. The moving darkness drew her attention, and she shook it off.

She… she was just annoyed about the whole Agnes matter. Yes. That was it.