[b]Ailee![/b]

Lothbruk is not empty. Lothbruk is teeming with pilgrims. Lothbruk’s streets steam with the King’s blood, gushing from rents and sores, hardly missed, for his heart is invincible; Lothbruk’s buildings are strung with rope bridges, a teetering garbage metropolis. It is here that the Rats of the Dragon attempt to refine their natural essence to be allowed to draw near to King Dragon without being obliterated. Only that which is of the King is permitted near the King; one glance on what is Not will consume it utterly.

And so the rats draw up the blood in corroded buckets and pour it into vats, and they drink of it, and many die in agony; but some begin to learn the secret of being as the King. To become a living avatar of his vices is their dearest desire, for it comes with incredible power.

You do not need to deal with [i]them,[/i] Ailee Sundish. Surma has her hand on the tiller of your boat, a groaning thing made from the carcass of a train, split and gutted. It can withstand the blood of a dragon, at least for a time.

No, what you must deal with are the trials of the King. Show your vast disregard for the world, display your Wasteful nature, take it into your throat; peel back shrouds and dig your talons into the world, display your Curious heart, take it into your eyes; pass sentence on the unworthy and enact your declarations, show that you have the power of Judgment, take it into your hands; vent your fury at all that has denied you your rights, let no barrier restrain your Wrath, take it into your gut; and crown yourself in dripping Pride, worthy to speak with your King, and erase doubt and modesty from your heart utterly.

Do this, and Lothbruk will open like a flower to reveal the shining hoard of the King. Do this, and you will look upon those wounds, that torrent of blood, and know them to be yours. Do this, and the King and you will be one.

***

[b]Jackdaw![/b]

You’re here. Ouch.

You’re here with two bodies and a book and Lucien’s not broken but he’s not [i]there[/i] and the Professor is going cold and still like the stone and you’re on the very edge of the story now, Crowhame spilling out behind you like a vast puddle of a mess.

(In the distance, there is a series of honks that suggest a very elaborate pratfall. In the distance, there is the chime of hag stones knocking against each other that is almost laughter. Those things need to stay in the distance. Those things very need to stay in the distance, actually.)

You could... just not close the book, you know. When you close the book, you won’t have a lot of time to convince the two they aren’t dead. And there’ll be just a [i]mess[/i] of clowns all around. You saved them. You could just stay in the moment of having saved them forever, and there’d never be any question of what happened next.

(But you’re going to close the book, because you want to know what Lucien says next. Better to try than to exist in an always might-have-been.)

***

[b]Coleman![/b]

The Long looks at you with eyes the size of moons, Coleman, and for a moment you consider each other. Maybe it is thinking of the two of you as a beautiful symbiosis; maybe it sees you as an upstart and a challenge. The moment is... well, to fall into the joke, Long.

Then it looks down— down, down, down— and the eye is drawn to the struggling figure of Jackdaw, so pathetically tiny, down there at the edge of the white and black and red.

The huge vast blackness of the Long, scales only defined by the half-moons of white at their very edges, eyes as red as dying suns, considers Jackdaw. Then it turns to you; then it turns away.

Not every story ends with glorious battle. The Long is patient and forever.

Besides, even gods of flint and root and blood can acknowledge their inferiors; though the gulf of communication is so vast, almost as vast as the Long itself, that you will never know [i]why.[/i]

Go scatter the clowns around that closing book and show Jackdaw the beauty of the two-in-one.