Overlady: Attack of the Minions (Thread II)

"In my experience, leaving two heirs to evil together in the same place is much like leaving two cats together. They'll either maul each other to death, start breeding up a litter, or warily tolerate each other while trying to steal as much of the other's food as possible. Of course, overlords and overladies aren't exactly like cats. For one, you can't wear them as a hat."

– Gnarl






"... and so what I want is revenge. Revenge. It is such a small word. Such a simple word. Such an inadequate word. When my stomach churns with hateful acid, longing for something terrible - can my wants be called mere revenge? When I wake in the night from murderous dreams of blood and feel only sorrow that I have woken, is that mere revenge? When my idle mind conjures up fantasies of death and destruction and I see the faces of the ones who put me in this place whenever I am left alone, the term 'revenge' is so inadequate to be laughable.

"And yet the word 'revenge' is all I have. The word, and the hope - nay, the desire! - that someday it will cease to be a word and will become action. Become vengeance. Become the blood of the ones who have done this to me and the one I love with all my heart!"

Henrietta brought her hands down on the table with a resounding clash to emphasise her final point.

Silence held for just a moment. Then the applause started. Tiffania rose to her feet, hands clasped together. The dark elves cheered and clapped. The children raised their voices in approval. The crowd of minions lurking around the exit, where no one had to sit close to them, hollered their applause at a speech that promised violence even if they didn't understand many of the longer words.

Louise forced herself to smile and clap. She had heard many different iterations of this speech in the run up to the trip to Albion, because she had been the audience for draft after draft from Henrietta. Her friend might have been pretending it was an off-the-cuff improvisation, but she was lying.

And every time she'd listened to a new version, her heart had broken a little more. She loved Henrietta. Henrietta didn't love her - or at least, only loved her as a friend. All her heart was saved for her dead prince. Louise's eyes watered, and she clumsily fumbled for a handkerchief.

Also, she couldn't help but feel she was forgetting something.

Tiffania rose, embracing Henrietta, and turning to face the crowd in the auditorium. Well, classroom for the children, but it had originally been an auditorium. The childish pictures pinned up on the walls which involved a lot of red and black barely detracted from that. "That was wonderful, Anne! I mean, I actually asked you what your plans were, and that didn't answer my question, but I wholeheartedly agree! They deserve to die." Her smile didn't waver. "They all deserve to die."

"Excuse me? I think it did answer the question. My plan is to turn revenge into vengeance," Henrietta said, crossing her arms.

Louise groaned. That had been one of the sticking points during the many drafts. Louise had made the well-established case that the two words actually meant the same thing and so that was a useless slogan. Henrietta had countered that actually it didn't matter, and it sounded good. Louise had disagreed - at length - but Henrietta had refused to budge. "It's a mission statement," she said, trying not to sound like she was contradicting her princess while also very much wanting to.

"Yes, but I was really wondering more about short term plans," Tiffania said.

Ah. That was more familiar territory to Louise. "As far as I'm concerned, the Albionese Republic is an ally of the Regency Council and an enemy to my plans. We're here to lend our aid to your plans, because we want to ensure that the Regency Council can't find any support here when I take over Tristain. I want to look towards crippling the Albionese fleet or otherwise making it impossible for them to move assets to the mainland, but our intelligence reports from Albion are… limited."

"Also," Henrietta interrupted, "we want the body of the Prince of Wales."

"We do?" Louise said, trying not to show a disunited front in front of the rival overlady but also really not feeling okay with that bit of the plan.

"We discussed this earlier, remember?"

They had done no such thing, and Louise would certainly have had something to say about Henrietta getting her hands on the body of her beloved.

"Ah, yes," Tiffania said, with a happy smile. "The children do love the stories of revenants returning from the grave to devour those who betrayed them. And I'm fully behind the Republican leadership being devoured by the murderous animated corpse of a prince. I mean, you might need to find him a new head, but…" one of the children raised their hand, "what is it, Chloe?"

"If he lost his head, we can find him a pumpkin. Anna axe," said a snuggly sweet, snotty-nosed six-year old. "Anna horsie for him to ride around cutting off people's heads."

"A wonderful idea, Chloe! I'll have to give you a star afterwards!"

The presence of small children at the planning meeting was also something Louise did not support. They kept on making suggestions. Awful, dreadful, horrible suggestions. There was something very wrong with these children.

Henrietta tilted her head. Her helmet made her expression hard to read, but Louise had a horrible feeling that she was taking the suggestion seriously. "I think it'd be important to recover the head," she said eventually. "I need it."

"I think," Louise said loudly, "I think what really matters here is the intelligence reports. Not the… the plan to recover the body of a dead prince." She leaned forwards, crossing her gauntleted hands. "We need to locate positions of strategic importance to the Albionese and destroy them. Without the necessary supply lines, they won't be able to carry out any overseas invasions. They're also buying things from the Cathayans and I really want to know what they're doing with them."

The crowd did not cheer. Louise mentally sighed. "And," she added, shamelessly playing to the small children and minions in the audience, "if we can locate their windstone and blackpowder arsenals, we can blow them up."

That got her the cheers. She wasn't sure what it said about the state of the world that she could assume young children thought more or less like her minions and be right nine times out of ten, but it probably wasn't anything good.

Or maybe that was a depressing statement about the Evil magic that gave life to minions. Hard to tell.

"I'll see what I can do," Tiffania said. "It's quite a bother, though. Now, I think we need to pause for lunch. The children do get tetchy if they don't get fed."

"Oh, no, no, I also have my own people to call," Louise said.

"Well, if you're sure…"






"... what do you mean you can't do it?" Louise demanded, gauntlet held up against her ear.

"Exactly what I said," Cattleya retorted.

It was bright outside, and Louise had walked a good distance away from the main building to avoid sharp elven ears and very curious small children. She leaned against the ruined wall with a sigh. "Is it the sunlight?" she asked, looking up at the sky.

"It's not just the sunlight," Cattleya said infuriatingly. She yawned. "It's also the fact that Albion floats over the sea. Which is running water. And even if I could, I don't want to."

"Catt…"

"Don't you 'Catt' me! You only ask for things when you need things done!"

"... Catt, that's why I ask for things. Because they need doing. I don't ask for things that don't need doing."

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

Louise pinched her nose and resisted the urge to scream in frustration.

"You're being all silent and disappointed at me!" Cattleya said. "Well, you're not father! You can't get away with doing it!"

"I'm not being silent and disappointed at you," lied Louise.

"Yes you are! Don't tell fibs!"

"Catt. Put Gnarl on," she said, giving up.

"Oh, don't you want to talk to me? Is that it? I bet that's it!"

"I needed to talk to both you and Gnarl." Louise could feel a stress headache coming on. "And since you can't help due to sunlight and water. So now I have questions for Gnarl. I am sorry for waking you during the middle of the day. Now you can go back to bed." And sleep until you're less of a grump, she didn't say out loud.

"Fine. Gnarl! Gnarl!"

There was a crackling, and the sound of someone storming off in a huff. "Ah, your malevolence, how are you enjoying your holiday?" Gnarl asked. "You should make sure to bring back plenty of plunder and I expect to see every adorable little minion with some souvenirs."

At least Louise could trust her malicious goblinoid vizier to be professional. And untrustworthy, but she couldn't have everything. "You didn't tell me that Tiffania was an overlady. A proper one, I mean."

"You speak with such certainty, your supreme darkness. I wonder why that is?"

"Because," Louise growled, "she banished Jessica and her cousin to some other dimension with an evil spell she learned from a music box. That's just like how the Gauntlet whispers to me. It is, isn't it?"

Gnarl chuckled. "Well, well, well. She's learned to make dark rifts, has she?"

"I wouldn't really call it a rift," Louise said dubiously. "That would be more swirly, I think. And have a dark portal or something of that nature. It was like the world was accelerating away. It hurt my teeth."

"Ho hum. Sounds more like banishment outside existence, then."

Louise blinked. "You can't banish something outside existence."

"Of course you can, your wickedness. Well, you could learn to. I can't, being just a humble minion and advisor of Overpersonages." He clicked his tongue. "Have they gone and changed your sacred Brimiric texts since the last time I checked? 'In the beginning there was-'"

"... the void, and all was nothingness," Louise completed, words drummed in since childhood springing to the forefront of her mind. She hadn't talked to Gnarl about the things she'd seen in the past and the things that Eleanore had said to her. She didn't… how to put it?

Oh yes. She didn't trust him. And he hadn't told her that she was an heir to the Void. In fact, he'd been suspiciously absent in mentioning the topic, now that she thought about it. If the Void hadn't been corrupted, she would have expected him to have been saying things like 'Oh, your wickedness, you need to hunt down the heirs to the Void and steal their power' or something like that. It was the sort of thing he said on a daily basis.

"That's the nothingness I speak of. The one that existed before anything existed."

"So, you're saying," Louise said slowly instead, "that she's better at this than me?"

"Oh, no, no! Your darkness! Has she shown any talent for destroying things like you? You're a far more destructive influence on the world! Though I would recommend betraying her at the opportune moment, killing her, and stealing that music box. You don't want her to be better than you, do you? After all, you had a head start over her, and she's no doubt planning to betray you and steal your gauntlet. Always get your betrayals in first, that's what I always say."

Bile rose in Louise's throat; bitter, envious nausea at the idea of anyone being better than her at her thing. At the thought of another person taking her precious Gauntlet from her and leaving her feeling helpless like Eleanore had. "I won't let her do that," she whispered.

"Yes, yes, your wickedness. Remember, in the end there can only be one true overlord. Always be the last woman standing. Do you understand?"

"Yes. That will be all, Gnarl," Louise said, shaking slightly.

"Excellent. I will be off, then. Cockroaches don't eat themselves. Well, unless they're really hungry."

His presence departed her, and Louise slumped back, shoulders hunched. Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it.

She knew he was playing her. She knew it. The drive in her, the hateful wrath at the thought of someone else being more powerful than her… it was her. But the tainted Void was… it was amplifying it. It was the kind of feeling she'd lived with her whole life, save for those brief few hours of freedom.

"This is such bull-sugar," she muttered. Her sister was mad at her, her vizier was trying to betray her - admittedly Mother had always said to expect that - and Henrietta was both obsessed with getting her hands on the years-dead corpse of her beloved and stupidly attractive in a skull-themed corset. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. The nagging feeling that she was forgetting something was only salt on the wound.

Her melancholy ruminations and general sulking was interrupted by childish voices. "Heave… ho! Heave ho! Just a bit further to go!"

Louise poked her head around the corner, and caught sight of four children dragging a sizable sack behind them. They were struggling with the weight. The decent thing to do would be to help them. Louise, of course, didn't do it because the annoyingly tall red-haired girl Hannah was one of them, and drat the idea of helping her. Also, it looked really heavy. Instead, she trailed behind them at a distance. They dragged the rough sack all the way to the door to the dungeon, hammering on it.

"Aunt Tifa, Aunty Tifa, we got you something!"

Tiffania opened the door, smiling at the four children. "Oh? And what is it? I hope it's something nice!"

"Oh, it is!"

"It's the best, aunty!"

"You're all so thoughtful!" Tiffania undid the sack, and the unmistakable scent of blood wafted out. "Oh, children, thank you!" she said warmly, displaying the savagely mutilated body still dressed in a uniform. "It's a corpse!"

"We had to go to theveral places until we found thomeone with the right thign thingies on his arm," said a lisping freckled boy. "We couldn't find Magda so there weren't any demons to help us."

"Oh dearie me, where has she got to? Hannah, can you please chase her down. I hope she's not gone off to the old sacrificial altar again," Tiffania said, distracted. "Anne, is this what you needed?"

"That's perfect," Henrietta said, joining Tiffania at the door and clasping the other woman's shoulders. "I'll have him talking in no time. He'll tell us everything we need to know!" She noticed Louise lurking in the background. "Dark tidings, my overlady! We've found someone who can tell us what we need to know."

Louise blanched. "He is dead," she muttered, creeping horror already telling her what the next sentence was going to be.

Henrietta smiled thinly. "That's no problem," she said, cuddling her necromancer's staff.

"Um." Louise swallowed. "I… I'll leave you to that. While I go for my walk. Stretch my legs, you know." She all but fled the scene, pursued by her guilt.






"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-"

"Is that normal?" asked Tiffania, raising her voice over the screaming head.

"I'm afraid so." Henrietta brushed off her hands. "The books says that a lot of spirits of the dead take having their heads cut off very badly. I'm not entirely sure how they can scream when they don't have lungs, but it's probably magic."

"Oh." Tiffania perked up, adjusting her long blonde hair. "I have a needle and thread! Do you think it'd help if I sewed his head back on?"

"Hmm." Henrietta considered the question. "It can't hurt. At the very least, we can sew his mouth shut if he doesn't stop screaming."






"Kill me! My every moment is agony!" The corpse rattled his chains, now with his head sewn back on and tied to a chair. "The grey lands of the dead were nothing compared to the agony of being chained in dark magic and trapped in this rotting corpse!"

Henrietta tutted. "Men! Such crybabies! I have some questions for you."

"Tristainian sow! How dare you desecrate my slumber! I will see you-"

She punched him in the face, then threw the sack back over his head. "He is being very offensive," she said to Tiffania, with a sniff.

"Is this a problem?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's an annoyance. If he'd been cooperating, I could have banished him after he answered the questions and we wouldn't have had all this whining. I'm going to need salt, silver, and a hot iron."

Crossing her arms, Tiffania considered this. "The larders will have salt, there's silver in the vault, and there's an iron in the laundry."

"Capital!"






Louise's wanderings took her outside the walls, to a dark and foetid glade where the minions had found their entertainment. Of a sort.

"... what on earth is going on here?" she demanded of Maggat, raising her voice to try to drown out the sounds of battle.

Maggat shrugged. "Hey, boss. We went and found some old graves that Magda pointed out to us. So we go and dig them up and now these skellies is fighting us."

Louise pinched the bridge of her nose. "I suppose it's my fault that I didn't ban you from going out and desecrating graves and awakening the undead," she said wearily. "It's really my fault for not expecting that from you. And wait, which one is Magda?"

"Hello!" said a mud-covered little girl carrying a rag doll. Louise hadn't noticed her among the minions because she was their height. Her thick coating of mud made her blend in remarkably well. Also, she was wearing a stolen too-large helmet on her head.

"A girl?!"

Maxy bounced up and down on his toes. "We rode sheepies and we stole from the dead and she summoned demons and then she stabbed me because I read some poetry!"

"It are a real bonding experience, stabbing Maxy," Maggat agreed.

"We have girl bonding time," Fettid added, thrusting her toy up at Louise. "I got my own dollie now!"

Louise sighed. "Fettid, that's a dead rat with a handkerchief tied around it."

"Ain't she pretty?"

"And Maggat, I notice that you're standing back and not fighting the skeletons."

"Ah, well, that are simple." Maggat leaned back, pulling out a hand-rolled cigarette and kicking Char until he lit it for him. "Boss, these skellies ain't no challenge for old minions like us. They is halflings for one, so they weren't real hard when they was alive. So we let the younglings fight 'em, since they ain't got no good loot and they keep on coming back. I ain't breaking my good cudgel over their head."

"Fluffles is fighting them!" Magda contributed brightly. "He's getting to eat faces!"

"Lovely," Louise said with a wince, glancing at the toy goat that was latched onto the face of a small fat ghost. She leaned back against a tree with a sigh, looking up at the sky. This was her life, wasn't it? Where the sanest, most reliable person she interacted with was a stupid, stinking goblin who wore skulls on his shoulders.

"I ain't gonna lie, boss," Maggat said, ignoring her inner turmoil, "it are wicked to be working with the ol' Heart of Evil again."

"I just wish Henrietta was a bit more… wait, what?" Something about that was… "The Heart of Evil?"

Maggat nodded. "Yeah. Maxy, do the long word explainy thing."

Clearing his throat, Maxy adjusted his floppy beret. "Wrong-o, your wickedness. So you might notice that we have the marks on the left hands and they make us better at fighty stuff? We had them, then they vanished when the oversister stole the power, then they came back when you got it back and touched the tower heart again."

"Um. I didn't notice they were gone," Louise admitted.

"Well, they was. Now they're back. But you got the power of the left hand of evil. It means that your soldiers are better and stuff. We ain't blowing ourselves up with muskets and cannons 'cause of that."

"Except for fun," Char pointed out.

"Except for fun. But this Maleffania…"

"Tifa!" Magda interrupted. "The elves are dumb-dumbs! Her name is Tifa! Or somethings Tiffania!"

"Yeah, that! She ain't got that power. She got the power of the Heart of Darkness! That ain't something that work on minions. It works on…" he frowned, "like, the under bosses what you gather around you. Like the oversister and the henchess and the incubus gal. Only not on yours, obviously, 'cause they loyal to you, not her."

Louise felt her blood run cold. The hair rose on the end of her neck. "So… this little girl and these other children are all… all… all the immature versions of powerful figures of darkness who the blackest figures of history gathered around themselves."

"I'm a demonologist!" Magda said happily, flashing gappy teeth. "I summon demons! And I bind them and make them do what I say! And Aunty Tifa gives me much much more power to make naughty demons behave!" She tugged down the neck of her mud-covered smock, showing off the green-glowing brand-scar on her chest. "None of them ever escape me!" Her expression shifted to a scowl. "Well, 'cept for Izzie. Izzie's mean and tricksy and cunning and can walk out of binding circles! It's not fair!"

"Um," said Louise. "So. You're her… familiar?"

"No! Humans aren't familiars! Demons are familiars!" Magda said, scowling. "One day all the demons are going to do what I say! Even Izzie! I'm not a familiar!"

Behind her, Maggat shook his head. "Who can say, boss?" he said, mugging heavily. "But we fought with the Heart of Darkness a bunch of times. Sometimes they is the ones who find the minions, and we work for them too. I don't think Gnarl likes 'em so much, even if he likes the power he gets from it. They ain't the sort to rely on us so much. Not like you."

"I… see," Louise said. This all sounded horribly familiar. "And… let me guess. There's also a Mind of Evil and a Right Hand of Evil."

"Got it in one, boss," Maxy said. "That are real cunning of you."

"I'd heard of a story like that before," she said grimly. "Have you see the other two, then?"

Maggat took a long drag of his roll-up. "Yeah," he said. "The Right Hand, their power are what makes the monsters and stuff what work for overlords way tougher. You ain't really got any, 'cept for the oversister's vampire wolves, but they like their minotaurs an' their dragons an' their hydras and stuff like that. We like ridin' them, but quite a lot of those bosses like feeding us minions to monsters. 'Cause we is cheaper."

"It are a shitty job bringing back someone who are eaten," Scyl said, jolting awake from his nap.

Louise looked at him suspiciously, unsure whether the pun was deliberate. "I see. And the Mind?"

"Magic. Magic an' weird magical tools an' old dwarven golems an' stuff like that," Maggat said. "I dunno what that kinda stuff is doing. It ain't easy for anyone apart from Gnarl to understand magic. You know where you are with a dragon."

"Running away 'cause dragons are the landed air-stock-racy and want to eat you," said Char.

"Well, yeah."

"The Mind one is pretty bad for us," Maxy added. "I mean, we is getting to use things like giant cannons what fire lightning and stuff. That's fun."

Louise sucked in a breath through her teeth. Yes, this was something she recognised from the old stories. The four familiars of Brimir had similar powers. And no one mentioned it! "And you didn't think to tell me any of this before?" she demanded.

"It's new to me!" Magda said.

"Not you, the minions!"

The veteran minions exchanged a confused look. "You ain't never asked," Maxy said.

It was at that point that they scattered, because Louise started conjuring fireballs and made her opinion of 'You never asked' clear.






The glade was on fire. The minions and Magda were gone, and Louise was alone. There were small carbonised halfling skeletons here who had given up the metaphorical and literal ghost, but they didn't count.

So. This was Gnarl's game. She had thought he was going to betray her, but no, it wasn't so simple. He wanted her to betray Tiffania. Not just because he was generally in favour of betrayal, but because he wanted the heir to the corrupted Void to be someone who relied on the minions.

And she was willing to bet that if she did what Gnarl wished and killed Tiffania then the tainted power would go to her. Twice as strong. Twice as terrible and powerful and mighty. Twice as hard to hold off those dark desires.

She thumped a carbonised tree, black flakes cascading down from the impact. She mustn't kill Tiffania. Even if… argh, the thought of some half-elf bint being better at magic than her nearly physically burned. And even if her heart pounded at the thought of the smiles she'd get from Henrietta if she could grant her even more power.

… and there was a dark and hidden bit of her that drooled at the thought of Henrietta being her familiar. At having to do what she said. Which was an even better reason to deny that deep dark side. That wasn't a healthy thought. She wanted her friend to feel the same way back! Not to… not to force it.

No. She wasn't that woman.

The fire crackled and roared, painting her armour red in its light. Louise sighed, turning to walk away from the burning glade. She had to stay focussed on her objectives. She was here to remove the Albionese Republicans as a threat to Tristain and a source of allies to the Regency Council. If Henrietta pushed her too far, she'd put her metal-clad foot down.

As Mother had always told her, feelings didn't matter. Doing the right thing mattered. She had to cling to the memory of being free of the Void.

And when she returned to the others, she didn't let go of her resolve. By the end of the meeting, she'd hammered things into a plan to attack the Republican army supply depot identified by Henrietta's necromancy. She had to stay focussed, that was the thing. Even if she felt like she was forgetting something.

"Cooperation, that's the key, Tiffania. By working together, we can achieve more than we could alone. Neither of us have to betray each other."

"Why would I betray you?" Tiffania asked.

"Exactly! Our goals are aligned! And there is nothing at all to gain by some kind of betrayal!" Yes, she had headed that off nicely. "Also," she added as they were leaving, "you had a problem with the undead. I noticed on my walk that the dead were rising."

"Oh?" asked Henrietta. "It's not my fault!"

"I didn't say it was your fault. They were halfling skeletons," Louise said, not mentioning the part the minions had played in that. "I burned them out. Thank me later."






It was a dark and clear night. Wicked deeds were afoot.

Louise was not the one carrying them out. Not directly, at least. She didn't really want to attack a small town and kill people she didn't have a reason for disliking. The minions had no such moral limitations, and so were serving as her contribution to the attack.

So instead she just waited on a hillside overlooking the Albionese town she didn't even know the name of, and watched the carnage. She had directed the minions to wipe out a column of the Albionese army that had moved to reinforce the town, but there was no need for her to be down there in the fray.

Something exploded down below, rising up in a smoky fireball that lit up the night. Louise sighed, and stepped aside as the burning corpse of a red minion sailed up and landed on her hillside with a splat.

"Going to have to get the blues to clean that one up," she said wearily.

"You're a little… callous about the death of your friends," Tiffania said.

Louise snorted. "They're not my friends," she said, mildly offended at that. "They're my minions. And they get better."

"From… being dead?"

"Yes, yes. It's one of their redeeming features." Louise shuddered. "And annoying traits. As they always say, death is just like a sleep. It lasts until someone kicks you in the ribs and tells you to get back to work. I used to care more, but… well, I mean, they don't care about death. Why should I?"

Pulling out a spyglass, she checked to on the progress. The dead were rising from the graveyard, as Henrietta got to work, and she had tracked the initial attack by the way that the annoying Hannah girl had butchered the guards on the walls with her Nipponese sword that seemed to cut through armour as if it was warm butter. The light of the terrifying elven magics had faded, but the walls on the other side of the town had exploded like grapeshot, scything their way through the town with malicious intent.

"Looks like they're about done," she said to Tiffania. "Come, now. I intend to get my hands on those records before the minions burn them all down."

"Or Magda and her demons," Tiffania said. "She's acting up, and is refusing to bathe. What's gotten into her?"

Louise said nothing, and pretended it was a rhetorical question. She picked her way through the streets, which had largely descended into a free-for-all brawl between Henrietta's skeletons, Magda's demons, and the minions. The children were laying bets on the outcome.

"Dark greetings, my overlady!" Henrietta called out from a window. "You were right!"

That was enough for a warm frisson to run up and down Louise's neck. "Of course I was," she said automatically. "Uh. What was I right about?"

"Come in and I'll show you!"

"I see," Louise said half an hour later, laying down the maps. This really was a cache of valuable information. Maps planning troop movements, letters from senior members of the army, and plans galore.

"This is serious," Henrietta said, leaning over Louise's shoulder.

"You're not wrong," Louise said, tapping her finger on one of the maps. "So that's the plan of the Republicans, is it? A short victorious war against Tristain. Something that'll help unite the country behind them. And they're faking alliance with the Regency Council to get them to lower their guard."

"Those fools," Henrietta spat. She turned to Tiffania. "I've already taken a look through things. I think I've identified who's leading the preparations for the invasion."

"Who?"

"Major-General George Fleetwood." Henrietta's lips curled into a snarl. "One of the people who signed the death warrant for the prince."

Tiffania froze up, her expression barely moving. She wrapped her cloak tighter around herself. "He was one of the people who signed the warrant to arrest my father. He will die."

"Yes. Yes, he will," Henrietta said, with obvious relish.

Louise was still poring over the maps and diagrams. "Have you found anything that relates to exotic ores or gemstones? I know they're buying them en masse from Cathay."

"That doesn't matter," Tiffania said. "That can be resolved later. You want to stop the invasion. I want revenge for my parents." Her hands balled into fists. "That man needs to die."

"It seems tactically sound," Henrietta agreed, lips twisted into a vicious smile. She rummaged through the maps. "He's in charge of a crucial garrison near Port's Mouth. We can take him down, and belay any invasion plans - and put fear into the hearts of the leaders of the Commonwealth. They're cowards! Cowards and fools! We can easily send them running!"

For her part, Louise was less certain. Yes, there was certainly a build-up of munitions in Port's Mouth - but where were the men? The ships were there, but they were war ships, for controlling the skies. She remembered from the intelligence reports from Magdalene rough numbers for the Albionese troopships, and they were… missing. Not in Port's Mouth, nor in any of the other harbours she had skimmed over.

Was Henrietta just focussing on that because the man had been one of the men who'd signed her beloved's death warrant? But… she wasn't wrong. They were building up powder and cannon and windstones in that location. It had to be an important supply depot, even if it wasn't the centre point of the invasion.

"I don't think we should come to any rash decisions," she said, trying to sound mature and confident. "Let's focus on making sure we have these papers so we can go over them at our leisure. We can ask Jessica and…" Oh. "Oh, Founder!" Louise's eyes widened. That was what had been nagging at the back of her mind. "Tiffania!"

"Excuse me?"

"Jessica! And the other one! We forgot about them! You need to get her out!" Louise swallowed. "She's going to be… short with us."






The cold wind howled in the early hours of the morning. Things creaked in the ancient ruined fortress. The drafts permeated every corner of the building, even the bedrooms.

The knock at her door was not entirely unexpected. Louise looked up from the notes she was reading in bed. "Who is it?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. She prepared for the upcoming argument with Jessica about how long she'd been trapped outside existence.

'Snot like Jessica should even have a reason to complain about it. Couldn't be worse than the Abyss!

"It's me," said Henrietta.

Correction. She had thought that she had known the answer. "Oh well. Come in," she said. "My room is your room, such as it is." She looked disdainfully at the accommodation that Tiffania had provided. There were no carpets, very little space, and no windows. Admittedly, there were no windows - and a lockable door - because Louise wanted to be able to take her helmet off, but there were still such things as standards!

While she was fuming, Henrietta slunk in. She was still wearing her helmet. It didn't go with her sheer black nightdress.

"Are we under attack?" Louise immediately blurted out, violently sitting upright.

"No no no no," Henrietta said, hopping over the cold stone floor until she could sit heavily upon Louise's bed. "It's freezing in my room, Louise-Francoise. Yours isn't much warmer, but…" she shrugged, as she took off her helmet and put it down beside the bed, "... well, at least this way we can share warmth."

Louise made a noise best approximated as "Gnegh". Henrietta seemed to take that as consent, and climbed under the covers with her, wriggling in close.

"Sorry if my legs are cold," Henrietta said with a giggle, propping herself up with one arm to look at her friend.

They were. They were as cold as a corpse. "Mmmugh," Louise managed, brain not entirely working. "'s fine."

"And… ow! Are you wearing that thing to bed?"

Louise lifted her gauntleted left hand. "Y-yes?"

"Well, shift over then! I'm not risking lying on that! Easy… actually, I'll just climb over… oof, watch where you're putting your knee…" After some awkward maneuvering, Henrietta was now on Louise's right side. "Oh, that's nice. You're lovely and warm, you know that?" She snuggled up closer.

Of course Louise was warm. Her face felt like it was on fire. M-men probably didn't have this problem! They didn't have the girl they liked climbing into bed with them without a care in the world about whether it was proper!

"I should keep you in my bed all the time. You're the cutest little bedwarmer ever!"

"Mmmphaaaaa!"

"... sorry, what was that?"

"Idiot!" Louise fumed, falling back on anger. She had to. It was that or say things she mustn't! "Stop hogging all the bed! And your feet are freezing a-a-and you kneed me in the chest when you were climbing over and I… l… l... "

"Oh, sorry," Henrietta said, stroking Louise's hair. "There, there. I'm sorry."

It was not helping matters. Louise tried to think of other things. "H-Henrietta," she tried. "It's… um. I'm not so sure about the plan."

Her friend's face crumpled up into an expression of shock. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

"I'm just not sure that Port's Mouth is everything about the Albionese plan." Louise rolled over, to stare up at the low ceiling. She rubbed her temples. "The transport ships aren't there."

"Well, maybe they're bringing the metal over from Cathay," Henrietta said reasonably. "Don't fret so much, Louise-Francoise."

It did make sense, but… no! Emperor Lee had said he had already sold it. "I'm just not sure."

"Even if they're planning something else, this will still help. It's an important supply depot and one of the major southern ports." She felt the sheets shift as Henrietta balled her hands into fists. "And I need to kill that bastard."

"Henrietta!" Louise said, shocked. She didn't expect that kind of language.

"No, it's the right word! He was one of the people who signed the death warrant, Louise-Francoise!" She wrapped her hands around Louise's face, making her stare at her. Her eyes were red and tears were already welling up. "It's not just a thing I pull out for speeches. Every day, every day I feel the hollow inside my heart where he should be! When I wake in the morning, I wish he was there beside me! If he were here, I wouldn't need to plunge into the darkest of magics because he would be at my side and we could reclaim both our kingdoms forever! This is not rhetoric, Louise-Francoise! This is love!"

Louise could barely breathe. This close, Henrietta's presence and regal will were intoxicating - and for all she said it was not rhetoric, she was lying. Louise had heard her practicing speeches. "He's dead," she managed.

"How dare you!"

"He is! Henrietta, he is dead and," her vision blurred, "and if the Albionese are pl-planning something awful for Tristain, that matters more!"

Henrietta sat up violently. "How can you say that?" she gasped. "I… you… you're my friend! Don't tell me you're betraying me too!"

The words burned. "Henrietta! I would never b-betray you!" Louise protested, sitting up herself.

"Everyone else has! My kingdom, my m-mother, everyone who said they were my friend! No one spoke in my favour! They just locked me up! Even my own mother!"

"Henrietta…"

"Don't just repeat my name!" She drew herself up, face red, tears running. "If I had to choose between him and Tristain, of c-course I would choose him! My sweet love made me feel free for once in my life! He never imprisoned me!"

"You c-can't say that!"

"Of course I can!" Henrietta thumped the wall. "Well, they'll s-see! I'll show them!"

"Um". Louise's mother had always said that it saved time if you just stabbed people who were ranting about how they'd show 'them'.

"I'll raise all the dead near the city! Death won't deny me my revenge - and it won't deny me my beloved!"

"Please!" The words dragged them out of Louise's lips. "Please please please don't talk like that! Henrietta, I… he's not the only one who ever loved you." She felt like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff. "There are other people who love you. I love you!"

"I know." Louise felt her heart skip a beat. All the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. "But not like him. I'll never feel loved like that again!"

The words hung in the air. Then Louise slowly, mechanically climbed out of bed. Her limbs were cold and shaking; her world felt numb. "Stay here," she heard someone else say. No, wait, it was her saying that. "Just try to get to sleep. I… I need to talk to Jessica."

She slipped on her slippers, and drifted through the cold halls like one of the living dead. She didn't think she was breathing. She found herself before one of the other guest rooms, and knocked.

"Mrggh. Urgh. Come in," Jessica called out sleepily.

Louise shambled in. Jessica was in bed, wearing an oversized collarless short-sleeved black shirt with burning runes on the front. It looked shapeless from long wear and too many washings. Her room seemed unfairly much warmer.

"What's the matter, Lou? Why aren't you wearing your helmet?"

Louise didn't really answer. She just darted in, collapsing into Jessica's front to sob into her.

"Oh dark gods, um… where do I start? Uh…"

"Me and Henrietta had a fight after she came through to my room because she was cold and she only loves him and I told her I loved her and she didn't even understand and she told me I could never love her like he did and-and-and-" Louise wailed, all in one shuddering breath.

"Oh. Oh crap." Jessica helped her into bed, a warm reassuring presence. "Yeah, Lou. That fucking sucks."

"She doesn't love me!"

"I know. I… I know the feeling. A lot of men won't have anything to do with a female incubus. You're probably feeling like shit right now."

Louise nodded.

"You're… not feeling the urge to chain Henrietta up in your dungeon?"

She shook her head.

"Okay, okay, things haven't quite gotten that nasty yet. You're always welcome here, Lou. I mean, unless… oh, who am I kidding, I don't have a chance of finding a cute guy around here so let's not even talk in hypotheticals. So." She cuddled Louise. She smelled warm, and slightly like Louise's father which only made her cry harder. "What are you going to do?"

"I d-don't want her to hate me," Louise moaned. "She'll hate me if I… I try to get her to come to her senses. And stop her… I don't like her necromancy but I can't stop her and everything… I didn't start this to… to…"

"Mmm. Mmm. Oh, Lou." Jessica pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's moments like this that remind me you're a few years younger than me. You don't have experience with this shit. Um. Okay, so just stay in my bed. Try to get to sleep. I… I'll go to talk to Henrietta for a bit and… see if I can patch things up. Or something."

"You can't tell her wh-what I meant by love!" Louise gasped.

"... didn't you try to tell her?"

"Yes, but she didn't understand and if she felt the same way back she'd have understood and she'll never want to talk to me again and-"

"Shh. Okay. We're going to need to clear the air at some point, Lou. But yeah, you're probably not in the right state for it now." She clambered out of bed, patting Louise's brow. "Just close your eyes, okay? I'll be back in a bit."

She left Louise alone in the cooling room, curled up into a ball. Louise felt her tears soak the pillow, and her heart beat like it was tearing itself apart.