Gunfire could not have spooked me so completely as Bridger’s silence when I called to check on him after my hours in the Censor’s office. Night’s westward march had advanced from Tōgenkyō as far as Europe, and I had been ordered to get some hours’ sleep, but it did not occur to me that I was sacrificing something as I lied my way into a car. Bridger did not answer. The Major did not answer. No one answered for that agonizing hour’s flight across the unyielding Atlantic. Fears drowned me so completely I did not even mark when midnight touched Western Europe and set the Seven-Ten lists free into the world. I did not call Thisbe. I almost did, but what if it was something with her bash’? The thief again? Or the opposite, police? Those were my justifications. Really, I think, I was angry at Thisbe forcing out what I had hidden so long, my Tocqueville. It was the kind of anger we create to mask our guilt.
The cave was dark, but I found Bridger in Thisbe’s bedroom, huddling as a caged rat huddles in a sterile corner, praying in its tiny mind for some rag or scrap of newspaper to hide beneath. My arms were Bridger’s rag, and he hurled himself into their sanctuary hard enough to wind me.
“They were inside! Mycroft, they were inside!”
“Who? Who was inside? Inside what?”
I leaned against Thisbe’s bed so the boy’s weight would not topple me. He smelled of the sea, salt, and sun, good things to come between these shadows.
“In my cave! They went through and threw everything everywhere, and broke the dollhouse, and knocked Mommadoll’s kitchen over, and turned Boo’s bed upside down!”
Boo too jumped on me, frantic as dogs get when they sense panic but have nothing to growl at.
“Is anyone hurt? Was anyone seen?” I asked.
“Mommadoll got hurt. Mommadoll got a heavy box thrown on them and was stuck there pretending to be just a doll, for an hour, Mycroft! An hour!”
He opened his arms just enough for me to see her cradled there, her blond curls mussed by crook of his elbow. “I’m fine, honey,” she reassured, her smile never dimming. “It just twisted my shoulder a little bit. I’m fine. The important thing is that you weren’t there.”
“You weren’t there?” I repeated as I stroked his hair.
“I went swimming on the beach. Mommadoll was all alone with just a couple soldiers on watch!”
I hugged him as tightly as I could without smothering the doll in his arms. “It’s all right now.”
“But!”
“I’m here. I’ll take care of it. Whatever happens, so long as you’re not hurt, I can take care of it, I promise.” I wiped his tears with my fingers, and he granted me a smile. “What happened to your tracker?”
“I left it while I went to swim.” He saw the silent scolding on my face. “I know. But the Major says I shouldn’t turn it on again. The bad guy did something to it, the men on watch saw!”
“The Major’s right.” I held the child gently, feeling his trembling subside. But I did have to ask. “Was it Dominic Seneschal?”
The Major answered, seated with his men on a set of dice on the bedside table, just the right size to serve as stools. “Blacklaw, late twenties, sensayer’s scarf, antique French men’s costume, light skin, brown hair tied back, moves like a monster.”
“Dominic must have found something in this room when they searched before.” I gave Bridger’s shoulder a squeeze. “Was anything sitting out in the cave that was obviously miracled? Did Dominic take anything? Anything you’d made?”
“I was packing!” Sobs resurged. “I was packing like you said, just the important things, and they took my backpack! It was full! It had my drawings, and my red shirt, and my Robin Hood book, and the ammunition, all the army men’s ammunition, and Mommadoll’s best little frying pan, you remember the one you got her that’s just the right size?”
“We can get another one, sweetheart,” she reassured.
My mind inventoried what else the backpack must contain: hair, fingerprints. “The ammunition, was it already miracled?”
Bridger sniffed. “It wasn’t miracled yet, just lots of little paper guns and boxes, and some paper Healing Potion tubes, I made some ahead of time so I’ll be ready. I even have some in my pocket, see?” His trembling hand produced the now-crushed paper tube, already labeled.
“What about the resurrection potion you made for Private Pointer?”
“I have that safe in my shoe. But the No-No Box! They took the No-No Box!”
Thisbe’s voice rose behind me, as soft and sweet and threatening as I had ever heard it. “What’s the No-No Box?”
I turned to find her on the threshold, the click of her boots cold as the clatter of old bones.
Instinct made me clutch the boy more tightly. “That doesn’t matter right now.”
“More secrets?” She slipped off her fine jacket, and set down the parcel of leftovers I did not yet realize was from Chagatai. “We were hunting Dominic Seneschal ourselves when we got the bleep that Bridger had come in here. I didn’t know you were here, though. Slipped our tracker again, have we?”
I cursed, spotting wide-eyed Carlyle behind her. The shadow of my hat would have been enough to conceal the absence of the tracker at my ear, but not now.
“Bridger isn’t up to dealing with you in one of your moods right now, Thisbe,” I warned. “Take a minute to relax, and take your boots off.”
“Why was Bridger packing?” She stepped toward me, enjoying the unease each step instilled. “You weren’t going to spirit Bridger off to J.E.D.D. Mason without telling us, were you?”
I helped Bridger sit beside me on the bed, so I could shield him from her glare. “Not to J.E.D.D. Mason, but this area isn’t safe anymore, not with this investigation. I have a safe house ready.”
“So you run and leave me in the hot seat?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mycroft. You were trying to take Bridger off somewhere and hide them from me.”
I found myself wondering why I was so frightened as the witch loomed close. Was it pathological? She seemed a witch to me in all senses then, a good witch, bad witch, weaver of curses, stalker of children, solver of problems, healer, black widow, conjurer, the devil’s whore who chews through mortal mates, an old maid too, young but on course to bloom into that unmarried, ungrounded, uncontrolled old crone which drove past societies to purge with fire or bind in nunneries those thorny women wedlock could not hold. I had come to her with Bridger years ago, just as a village girl might have, desperate to conceal a child born out of wedlock, turning to the midwife who is something more than midwife after dark. Now this same protector-friend loomed before me, like the boogeymen kids fear before they learn real dangers. Was it all in my mind? Her threat? Her craft?
Yes, Mycroft, it was. Remember, thou art mad.
Am I?
Indeed, thou art. Thou provest it often, and if thou doubtest now, read over thy descriptions of this woman, from the incipit to here. Hexes and witchcraft, would Reason use these words? Would I?
You are right, reader. Apologies. You corrected me about this once before, but sometimes, in this hazy present, I forget.
Is that apology sincere?
Sincere? Of course, dear master. All these labors are for you. If you are not satisf—
Then act on it.
How?
Stop calling her a witch. Thy common biases are distraction enough without these fever dreams. Say ‘she’ if thou must, but no more superstitions. Even thy barely enlightened Patriarch was civilized enough to fear no witches. Follow his good example.
I hesitate, reader. I find Thisbe’s masks and layers difficult to describe already. It will be much harder without the frame through which I myself understand her, or try to. But I will attempt, reader, I promise you, my fragile, failing best.
“I’ll bring Bridger back later,” I pledged. “In a week, a month, when this is over. If you don’t know where the safe house is then Dominic can’t force it out of you.”
Thisbe laughed aloud. “Mycroft, you just confessed you place J.E.D.D. Mason above even the Major. They’ll have a far easier time forcing it out of you.”
“Quit being stupid, Thisbe!” Bridger piped up, glaring at her, bold as day, over my shoulder. “Mommadoll’s hurt and the scary person might know about me. This isn’t the time to be mad at Mycroft!”
Thisbe was all smiles in an instant, and the room filled with the scent of warmth and mothering. “Bridger, honey, Mycroft and I both want what’s best for you, but it’s hard when Mycroft won’t be honest with the rest of us. They’re sincere, but they don’t always know what’s best.”
The Major rose from his die-stool. “Bridger’s right this time, Thisbe. There’s a shadow over your house. We can’t let that fall over Bridger, whatever the cost.”
Thisbe flinched, a real flinch as his reprimand reminded her how precariously things were teetering.
“Major,” I asked, “you had men on watch when Dominic came, yes? What did Dominic do?”
We all looked to Lieutenant Aimer, who is usually in charge in the Major’s absence. “The intruder ransacked the place pretty thoroughly,” he answered, his tiny voice a few horrors lighter than the Major’s, but still rich with experience. “I’m sure it was clear a child has lived there a long time, and likes dolls. They took a lot: old drawings, books, a hairbrush, and they scanned things, took photographs, samples of dirt, swatches off the sofa, so they must have skin, and Boo’s fur.”
“My hairs too, I imagine,” I added. “I’ll be questioned next.” I was almost ready to laugh. “You may be right, Thisbe, I have become the weakest link.”
“No!” Bridger dug his fingers into my uniform. “Mycroft, you can’t go away!”
“I wo—” I stopped myself mid-promise. “I’ll always come back, you know that, even when I go away for little patches.”
He had no words for me, just wide, desperate eyes.
“Will Dominic tell J.E.D.D. Mason about this?” Thisbe asked.
“Dominic? Not right away, not after seeing the No-No Box.”
Another glint of accusation in her eyes. “No more secrets, Mycroft. What is the No-No Box?”
Bridger shrank against me. “It’s bad.”
“It’s a box Bridger kept, with things in it from the trash that should never, ever be miracled. A crucifix, a globe, a Buddha statue, a doomsday device from an old comic book, a devil mask, a toy bomb, some pictures of old paintings that show God or Satan, a black rubber ball.”
“Why a ball?” Thisbe asked it, looking from me to Carlyle, who was already lost in terrifying thoughts. Be happy, reader, you have the luxury of not believing in Bridger’s power: to you these possibilities are still abstract.
I heard a little squeak from Bridger’s throat, and renewed my hug. “Bridger thinks of it as a toy black hole. Bye-bye planet. There’s also one of Cato’s old Science Museum toys in there that’s supposed to be a model of the Big Bang. The No-No Box wasn’t my idea and I didn’t encourage it, but I do think it’s good for Bridger to think about how serious their powers are.”
“If you thought it was a fine thing, why did you hide it from me?” Thisbe snapped.
“I didn’t want to talk about it!” the child answered, sparing me the necessity. “It’s scary and I don’t like it.”
Carlyle’s fingers dug into the battered knit of his sensayer’s scarf. “And Dominic has this box now? Complete with icons and crucifix?”
Possible disasters schooled through my mind. “It’s not … it’s not proof of anything, but it will excite Dominic. A lot.” I took a deep breath. “But Dominic won’t go to J.E.D.D. Mason with something touching on theology, not until Dominic’s one hundred percent sure what’s going on. That’s probably why Dominic’s gone missing, actually, to figure it out before facing son Maître again. You won’t appreciate the gravity of it, but this is the first time since J.E.D.D. Mason was born that Dominic’s gone missing like this. He won’t show his face to Them again until he’s sure of what he’s found.”
“He?” Thisbe repeated. “Mycroft, isn’t Dominic…”
I had not noticed my slip. “What?”
“Never mind. How long have you been involved with these people? Years?”
“This isn’t about me, Thisbe,” I dodged. “We need to get Bridger out of here.”
“Not with you until you answer.”
“Are you part of the cult?” In his way, Carlyle tried to ask it gently.
“What?”
Carlyle brushed back his straying hair to bare a gentle, coaxing smile. “There’s a secret religious group going on here, yes? Are you part of it?”
“No!” I answered. “Well … no.”
Thisbe took a grim pace closer. “That’s not an answer.”
“I can’t.”
“The truth.”
“I can’t.”
“The truth!”
“By law I can’t!” I nodded toward the sensayer. “My sensayer is aware of everything, and keeping a careful watch on me. I—”
“Shhh!” The Major’s hiss silenced us all, and his fast gesture sent his men under the cover of a chocolate wrapper. “Someone’s at the inner door.”
“Is someone there?” Thisbe called, her voice musically loud to cover the footsteps as I helped Bridger to the closet.
“It’s me, Thiz.” It was Ockham’s voice, neither hostile nor friendly. He must have been just beyond the door, at the foot of the stairwell to the Mukta hall above. “I know you have someone in there with you.”
Thisbe was only half-relieved to find it was her brother. “Sorry, should have logged it.”
“I haven’t been listening in, I just came down. Look, Thiz, I give you every reasonable liberty, but we talked about this, when you bring danger on this bash’ it has to stop.”
Thisbe shooed Boo toward me, the dog’s fast breaths harsh in the hush. “I know, Ockham. This isn’t anything dangerous. I’m being careful.”
Ockham took a deep breath. “¿True or false? ¿Whatever you’re doing is making the investigators of the Seven-Ten list break-in more suspicious of this house?”
Thisbe hid behind the oil-rich cascade of her black hair. “A little true. But I’m taking care of it. I’m—we’re discussing changes to keep this from affecting the bash’ anymore. In a little while it’ll be totally cleared away. Trust me.”
“¿True or false?” Ockham asked again. “You’ve brought our new sensayer here five times in three days, and you’ve been lying about why.”
We within traded guilty glances. I don’t think any of us realized we had been quite so clumsy.
“The Conclave checks, Thisbe,” he pressed. “A sensayer is not a safe mark for you.”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“I didn’t specify a ‘that.’ Whatever you’re doing, I don’t care what it is, move it, postpone it, end it. I do not want to see that sensayer back until someone who isn’t you has a session scheduled, and I do not want more trackless people in this room.”
Carlyle and Thisbe traded frowns, but there was no good answer. “All right.”
“Is that Mycroft in there with you?” He switched to English to remind me that I was an outsider.
“Ye-es, it’s just me, Member Ockham,” I answered, happy at this chance to screen the others. “I’m sorry. I should have—”
“Until this is over, Mycroft, you can’t visit anymore, not even for the investigation. Work elsewhere.”
“You need me!” I cried. “I know these people. I know what you’re facing. I’m your best chance at stability.”
“Your advice is welcome, but while so many eyes are on us you’re the biggest danger here. We tried our best, but dozens of people from today’s drill know enough to leak that something happened here. Normally I let you visit on condition that you’re no threat to our work, but if the media catches Mycroft Canner here you’ll be a bigger story than Sniper.”
“Canner?” Carlyle repeated it, half-voiced. “Mycroft … Canner?”
I turned. I turned white. We had tried so hard, reader. ‘Mycroft,’ ‘Mycroft,’ never the dreaded surname, not in front of this good innocent. Three days of purloined trust.
“You’re … Mycroft Canner?” Carlyle burst out. “The Mycroft Canner?” He searched the shadow of my hat for the telltale chunk missing from my right ear. I let him find it. I know, reader, when the avalanche can no longer be stopped. “They made Mycroft Canner a Servicer!”
“Shit, is the sensayer in there?” Ockham called through the door.
“Yes.” Thisbe groaned. “Stay calm, Carlyle. Mycroft’s not dangerous anymore.”
He was already shaking. “Not dangerous? Mycroft Canner!”
I gave Bridger my kindest smile through the crack of the closet door, then backed to the far side of the room, keeping my empty hands where Carlyle could see them, and my eyes on the floor.
“A Servicer!” Carlyle repeated. “Servicers are supposed to be … not … not…” He turned on me, more comfortable when he could point a finger. “You! You tortured seventeen people to death! You videoed yourself vivisecting Mercer Mardi! You crucified your foster ba’pa! You dismembered a thirteen-year-old child and left them a limbless torso to freeze to death in the Arctic! Ibis Mardi was in love with you, and you beat them until they begged for death, then raped them, and cooked and ate their arms and legs while they were still alive! Are you smiling?”
“Sorry.” I try my best to remain expressionless during such outbursts. “Everyone has one among the seventeen they think was worst. I’d guessed that Ibis would be yours.”
“You ripped out their still-beating heart and ate it!”
“It stopped beating,” I corrected softly. “I tried it seven times, but I could never get the heart out fast enough. I think that art is lost now, in our peaceful age.”
Carlyle’s breath sped as the passions of those days surged back. Carlyle would have been, what … fifteen back then? Preparing to move from his foster bash’ to a Campus, finding his vocation, that impressionable age when we first solidify our morals. I was formative for him, then, the primordial evil of his personal creation myth, my grim two weeks. My rampage. “Mycroft Canner!” He could not repeat the name without a shriek. “You’re the worst … the most…” Words failed but he did not need them; all Earth knows what I am. “You were supposed to be … gone! Locked away somewhere safe forever or … or…”
“Executed?” I finished for him. There was a Mycroft Canner once who would have swelled with pride knowing he made a Cousin call for blood. “When the Hive leaders agreed to let MASON keep my sentence secret so the public could stop obsessing over the matter, you assumed I had been executed. Everybody did. It never occurred to you they would conceal mercy.”
Carlyle had no more words, just horror and its siblings: panic, anger, fear.
“Look, Carlyle.” Thisbe donned her gentlest smile. “I know it’s a shock, but there’s no danger. The Servicer Program handles criminals that aren’t dangerous anymore, to let them serve the public good. Sometimes that means serious criminals too.”
“You knew!” Carlyle turned on her almost as fiercely as he had turned on me. “You knew and you didn’t warn me! You let Mycroft Canner into your … into … And near…”
She gave a tired glare. “You were content enough to sit with a Servicer not knowing what they did. You knew they might have been a murderer.”
“Mycroft Canner is not just a murderer!”
Ockham opened the door now, but with Boo and Bridger safely in the closet there was no further danger. “Thiz, do you have the gag order file on hand?”
“Oh, yes, I’ll pull it up.” Her lenses flickered.
The guardian of the house turned to Carlyle. “Cousin Foster,” he began, “we are not responsible for Mycroft Canner’s sentence, and have no more power to affect it than you do. Chair Kosala personally signed off on Mycroft’s admission to the Servicer Program. If you have doubts, Kosala will give you an appointment, just like they gave us when we discovered.”
Carlyle’s eyes only grew wilder. “Kosala knows? That’s right, Kosala oversaw the trial to make sure it was humane.” In Carlyle’s face, one could see the horrors of those days awakening in phases. Some readers will remember my two weeks, the hush upon the streets, the fear, the dread-zeal with which you watched each morning for the news to bring you some fresh horror. Only the mildest pictures appeared at breakfast time: a stain, a shrouded body, but by lunch or dinner there would be leaked images, real gore, real red, real faces contorted by emotions only torture can awaken. For two weeks no one on Earth walked home alone. I know you remember. Even in old age, when names and precious faces start to fade, you will pass again a corner where your classmates huddled whispering of me, and you’ll remember.
“Kosala always knew…,” Carlyle repeated, only half-believing.
“Found it, Ockham,” Thisbe confirmed with a last lens flicker. “Sent.”
Another flicker as it arrived in Carlyle’s lenses. “What … Servicer Protection order?”
Ockham planted himself before the sensayer, his right hip tipped away so Carlyle would not be tempted to rip the gun from his holster and take the long-delayed revenge himself. “Mycroft’s sentence and identity are confidential. You can understand the high risk of retributive violence if the word got out. This file has details about the offices in charge, and under what circumstances Mycroft’s identity can be discussed. We’re under the same order, and it is not in my authority to change it.”
“They don’t let you warn people? A Servicer, they could go anywhere! People need to know!”
Ockham crossed his arms, his bronzed skin striped with Lesley’s fresh doodles. “That’s for the Servicer Program to judge, not us.”
Carlyle backed away, as if the bedpost and nightstand would shield him from my evil. “I won’t believe for a second that that monster isn’t dangerous!”
I heard (and Ockham may have too) the stir of Bridger in the closet, fighting to keep himself from leaping to my defense. Poor child. The Cousin’s rant was nothing new to me, but the thought of Bridger listening, his sweet heart longing to defend me, that stung. I know your thoughts, reader. Bridger is thirteen, he was an infant or unborn when thy victims appeared day after blood-filled day. He does not understand, so, foolish innocent, he trusts thee. Unforgiving reader, do you think you know me better than the child I raised?
Carlyle thought he did. “Mycroft Canner is the worst criminal in a hundred years! Two hundred years!” My lost self might have called this flattery.
Ockham stood so calmly through the outburst, watching hysteria drain the color from Carlyle’s pale face. It made me think of Alexander, of his force, the human thunder of our Mediterranean sweeping through deserts, through empires, but India, calm, mighty India, fears nothing. “I am not authority over the Servicer Program, but I am authority within this house, and—”
“The cars!” Carlyle cried. “This house! The cars! Can’t you see it? Mycroft Canner near the cars, they’re planning it again, mass murder on a grander scale!”
I am not a mass murderer. I faced my victims personally, one by one. But this was not the moment to correct him.
“I am authority within this house,” Ockham repeated, “and you will control yourself.”
“Mycroft Canner is the most dangerous person in the world!”
Thisbe reached for Carlyle’s shoulder. “You’re being hysterical.”
“Don’t touch me!” he jumped back. “You let them into your bash’! It’s just the same! That’s what they do, Thisbe, they charmed their way into the Mardi bash’ and then…”
“It’s not the same.”
“Seventeen people, Thisbe! They hacked pieces off of Luther Mardigras for five days before they burned them alive in a wicker man! Burned what was left of them!”
It is fascinating which details people get wrong. To be fair, with Luther I had left the least behind for forensics.
“I have to go,” I said without raising my eyes. “I have a call I cannot disobey.”
“Not that excuse again!” Carlyle cried, then cried again, “The Censor’s office! Mycroft Canner was in the Censor’s office!”
“Take a deep breath, Carlyle.”
“Mycroft Canner forced the last Deputy Censor to disembowel themself with a piece of bamboo!”
Forced? That isn’t right, is it, Kohaku? You were grateful for that dignity, that exit, the chance to smear your vital numbers on the wall for Vivien to find and someday understand. Was I a good second to you, in your makeshift seppuku?
I kept my eyes on the floor, my voice soft. “I’m sorry, Cousin Foster. I have to go. I will return at my first liberty, if you request, to answer any questions.”
“You shouldn’t be going anywhere except a prison with no key!”
“I have a call I cannot disobey.”
“Overridden,” Ockham ordered. “Mycroft, you’re staying put until we calm this down. Carlyle, sit. If you ask questions calmly we will answer them.”
“I’m not going to sit in a room with Mycroft Canner!”
“I can have them restrained for this briefing, if that would make you more comfortable. Shall I call the team?”
I steeled myself. “I’m sorry, Member Ockham. I have a call I cannot disobey.”
Ockham shook his head. “My house, my orders.”
I had no choice. Slowly, so the motion would not further spook the Cousin, I pulled from my pocket the Imperial Gray armband with the Masonic Square & Compass in death black upon it, the mark of we Familiares who, by lawful contract, submit ourselves to suffer imprisonment, torture, or death at Caesar’s will. “I have a call I cannot disobey.”
Even Ockham hushes at Death’s presence in a room.
“The Emperor…” Carlyle gulped breaths, like a man about to battle for his life. “The Emperor did this!” A target for his blame at last. “You were under MASON’s Law! MASON was supposed to be your judge, jury, and … We trusted them! We trusted them to…”
I waited for him to speak the dreaded word, but he wasn’t brave enough. Not like back then, when Earth cried in one voice for the sentence everybody wanted. They wanted it so much, reader, the wide world in a true blood frenzy, begging the gentle Hives to bring back the long-abandoned greatest punishment, just for me. You cheered when Caesar made it easy, Caesar with his one black sleeve, when he announced that Mycroft Canner was already under the Lex Familiaris, the last capital punishment left on our enlightened Earth. When Caesar faced the cameras, “Factum est (It is done),” nobody wondered what.
“Go.” Ockham nodded his permission, and I bowed my gratitude. There are many masters, reader, many authorities I answer to, but only one can kill me with a word.
Carlyle stared as I paced slowly to the door, and leapt out of my path as if sin were contagious. I hadn’t expected this pain. I had known Carlyle must learn someday who I was, but I had come to respect this proud and giving vocateur, to care. I wanted to say something as I left, to heal his wounded trust, not in me, but in the powers he had trusted to do justice, to put the mad dog down. Questions are commands in their way, “What…? How could you…? Why…?” and Carlyle was a free man and a good one, so I owed him the obedience of an answer. But what can Mycroft Canner say? I took a deep breath. “Death was judged too swift and light a punishment. I owe more.”
Carlyle sobbed, that’s what I think the motion was, one quick, hiccupping twitch as the too-much of it overwhelmed his body.
I left him there, reader, hot with his just hate. But I cannot leave you. You can leave me, if you wish, you who have followed me this far, but see now why you should hate me. I chopped pieces off of Luther Mardigras only for two days, reader, the first three days were teeth, and nails, and flaying him alive. If I repel you, you may set this book aside and turn to other histories of this transformation, there must be some. Or did you know already what I was? Perhaps you chose this history less for J.E.D.D. Mason than to taste the mind of Mycroft Canner? Would you rather I had set this thirteen years ago? Earlier? Do you want to hear my childhood trauma, what tragedy created the misguided creature I became? Would you have me tell you what a human heart tastes like? Or which was the most satisfying stage at which to rape Ibis Mardi, when she was beaten, limbless, half-cooked, or already dead? Reader, there is no autobiography of that Mycroft Canner. Nor should there be. This is a history of Bridger and our transformation, not of my lost self. Yes, you will learn more of me. Yes, I will bare details which not even the police have known until I write these words, but facts about me are servants to your understanding of far greater matters. Why did I do it? Is that what you wonder most, reader? I do not know. At seventeen I was so sure of my philosophy that I gave myself content over to my executioners, yet I now find myself alive at thirty-one, and in a universe I understand only enough to know that I am too small, too finite, too tiny a creation to understand why I was made the thing I was, to do the things I did. I have tasted Bridger’s mud pies. I, Mycroft Canner, so improbably alive, was the first human to stumble on this miracle. I am sure of only one thing, reader: there is Providence. There is a Plan at work behind this world, and a Mind behind that plan, Whose infinite workings I cannot hope to penetrate. I could tell you what my old self thought was the purpose of my crimes. I could tell you what I think now. But only our Creator truly understands the ends to which He turns His instruments: why He had me kill those seventeen people, not sixteen, not eighteen; why He sent Bridger this bloodstained guardian; or why He chose that night of March the twenty-fifth to reveal to His devoted priest Carlyle Foster that, in His strange Mercy, He had spared, of all men, Mycroft Canner.