NEWS OF THE siege engine’s completion spread quickly. It had been taken from the Drosselmeyer’s cell while he slept, and moved into the chamber that housed the diabolical cat. The Queen even rose from her bed to see it for herself. Decked in their finest, the entire royal court turned out for the unveiling.

Ernst wore a particularly fetching coat of midnight blue. It set off the gray of his fur quite nicely, bringing out the silver highlights. As ludicrous as the circumstances were, he was still a fan of pomp.

Having lingered in front of his mirror, he was among the last of the subjects to crowd into the great chamber, where the Breathless stood poised in awful memoriam. If the Queen had given a speech, he had missed it. Instead, he was greeted by the jubilant roar of the crowd. Alongside the mechanical cat towered a scaffold built around the thing the Drosselmeyer had created. Ernst’s back prickled at the sight. It was easily five feet tall.

A toy soldier. Of the sort he used to see in the shop windows of Vienna in wintertime. Glossy black cap, blue coat, white breeches, a sword sheathed at its side. The flat black eyes stared blindly into space, far above the heads of the mice congregating below. Even so, the face was incredibly human.

“Magnificent!” a noblemouse standing next to Ernst said. He used a monocle—clearly an affectation—to peer up at the towering manikin, and patted his own plump belly in self-congratulation. “We’ll surely rout those devils from over our heads now!”

Ernst doubted that. “Undoubtedly,” he lied.

He waited for a demonstration, a sign of movement, or evidence of martial skill. The toy soldier merely stood, not even at attention. Ernst wondered if the scaffolding was the only thing keeping it from tipping over.

On a grandstand built knee-high to the soldier, the Queen observed her engine of war. What she saw in it, Ernst couldn’t imagine. How a toy—even a very large one—could hope to defeat a living man was beyond him. But the Queen seemed pleased.

Indeed, the sight seemed to invigorate her. She rose from the chair she had been carried in on and bestowed seven kisses on the foreheads of her monstrous sons.

Even from here, Ernst could see Arthur’s nose twitch in delight. The boy deserved to be fêted for his work in persuading the Drosselmeyer to complete the task. Ernst had accepted his share of the accolades (in the form of his new coat, a gift from the Queen) for teaching the boys diplomacy and the art of persuasion. But, in truth, the rat knew he had nothing to do with it. Arthur had a fascination with the captive toymaker that Ernst did not understand.

They were all mad, these Boldavian mice. From the Queen on down. Still, the toy soldier was very large. And that was impressive. Ernst had built a career with that talent alone. Perhaps an impression was all the royal mouse army needed to make.