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1
They found Xai Vessalius’s body mere moments after the time of death, the newest addition to the Nightray household standing over it, panting slightly, tears prickling at his eyes and gun clenched in his hand.
“You killed my master!” he was screaming at the body as he shot it again and again. “You killed my master—you killed my master—you killed my master!” He did not stop screaming this as he was dragged away, though as his now-empty gun was pried from his fingers, the screaming changed from you to he, as though this was expected to make any difference to the dead noble’s bodyguards. He was thrown into a cell, and the Nightray family was notified, and the Vessalius family was told of the death.
Neither Oscar Vessalius nor Ada Vessalius visited Gilbert Nightray, as he huddled by himself in the cell and sobbed, but Xerxes Break found his way down there in the early hours of morning.
“Xai Vessalius is dead,” he said, and the young boy looked up, eyes wide with hope.
“So the young master is avenged?” he whispered.
Break crouched down in front of the cell, looking at the boy covered in now mostly dried blood. “No,” he said, “because you’ve accomplished nothing. ”
“I killed my master’s enemy!” Gilbert shouted.
Break scoffed. “No, you just killed any chance you may have had of saving your master,” he said. “Do you really think they’ll let you contract with Raven now? Face it, you pathetic little thing. Your master is now as dead as if it was his brains you shot out instead of his father’s.” Break leaned closer to the bars, a sickening grin on his face. “Gilbert Nightray,” he hissed, “you have killed your precious master. Tell me, how does that make you feel?”
Gilbert flinched back. “I…I didn’t,” he whispered. “It was him! His father! He’s the one who killed the young master, not me!”
“But you could have saved him,” said Break, and he stood up and walked away.
Gilbert’s trial was held a month later, delayed after the writings found in Xai Vessalius’s office. They were more than likely the crazed ramblings of a man who had long lost his mind, but they still caused quite the uproar in Pandora. After all, they said that it had been Jack Vessalius who had caused the Tragedy of Sablier a century prior, that he’d used the B-Rabbit chain to do it, that said B-Rabbit had been sealed, powerless, inside his body, that he aged backwards and forwards again and again and again, that he had killed Xai Vessalius’s son and replaced him with the B-Rabbit controlling his body, that the only way to destroy the B-Rabbit and Jack for good was to plunge them into the Abyss. That Jack and the B-Rabbit had killed his wife and his brother’s wife and his son and his brother’s son.
None of this was brought up in the trial, but Oscar Vessalius did take it into account when asking for Gilbert Nightray’s punishment. The law, of course, would sentence him to death; Oscar offered the Nightrays a way out, that they could attempt to let Gilbert contract with the Raven chain and, in that case, merely keep him under house arrest unless Pandora had need of the chain.
He did not look at Gilbert when he suggested this, and Gilbert kept his eyes on his knees, afraid to see what sort of expression the man who had raised him was making. He still didn’t regret killing Xai; he still wished he’d been able to actually see when the light left the man’s eyes, rather than just screaming and shooting, blinded by his tears. But…he hadn’t wanted to hurt Oscar.
He had, though, and as much as the loss of Oz burned at him, he could still feel a hollow ache at the final loss of any warm feelings Oscar and Ada Vessalius may have still had for him. Because…nobody had contracted Raven, and Gilbert hadn’t had time to prepare, and…
And Break had said he’d lost his chance to save Oz.
And if he lost that, there was nothing worth living for anyway.
2
“Oh, my God,” Elliot Nightray said, locking the door to his brother’s room and collapsing next to him on the bed for his first visit once he'd gotten out of school and Pandora custody for the whole Headhunting incident, “I met the most annoying person in existence last month, and also this week, and also today.”
His older brother, Gilbert, who had no clue about the Headhunting incident due to both being one of the main suspects and the fact that nobody ever told him anything, shifted his head to look over at him, though he didn’t sit up from where he lay on the bed. “Isn’t that what you said when you met Leo?” he asked.
Elliot flushed and scowled. “That’s different,” he said. “Leo was a bastard. This guy…not only is he a Vessalius, but he’s also suicidal as fuck and thinks the sun shines out of my ass and is literally fucking possessed by the guy who did the Tragedy of Sablier!”
Something flickered in Gilbert’s dull eyes at the mention of the name ‘Vessalius’, and Elliot suddenly remembered why Gilbert was forbidden any news of the Vessalius family. He had been locked here since Elliot was eight, after killing Lord Xai Vessalius and then contracting Raven so that he could be used as Pandora's weapon, a stroke of goodwill from Oscar Vessalius that only smarted at Elliot when he didn’t remember that the duke was the only reason his beloved older brother was still alive instead of executed for murder.
“You mean Glen Baskerville?” Gilbert said.
Elliot huffed. “No…I mean, you wouldn’t know, because it all came out after you were shut in here, but apparently it wasn’t the Baskervilles who did the tragedy, it was Jack fucking—this fucking dick named Jack, and he just framed the Baskervilles and now he's back and he’s got a hostage maybe, or maybe an ally! Who the fuck even knows! But that fucking idiot tried to kill himself just now to stop Jack from coming out—we all got captured by the Baskervilles because fuck our lives and he went along willingly to stop them from killing his little sister—and then—fuck him, seriously! He's bad a being a hostage! He's fucking insane! Even his taste in book characters is shit!”
“I see you’ve made a new friend,” Gilbert said.
“I have not!” Elliot argued. “I would never befriend a suicidal idiot like that. Doesn’t he realize that him dying would hurt the people he loves more than him living would?! Because that’s why! By the way! He thinks that he’s too much of a burden on those he loves to live! Fucking idiot! I hate his guts!”
“What does Leo think of him?” asked Gilbert. Gilbert was the only one of Elliot’s siblings to actually approve of Leo, even though he’d never met him. Only Nightrays, after all, were able to visit their disgraced family member; his chain, Raven, was too valuable to the family to allow them to break him out, while anyone else might attempt to in order to weaken the family’s position. It was only really Elliot and Vincent who ever went to visit him, though, unless Pandora had need for his chain and his murderous talents.
“Leo likes him,” he said. “Thinks he’s a cute kid, that I ought to be nicer to him. He doesn’t have much longer to live, anyway…his seal is almost up, and the girl he contracted with, Alice, has already plunged back into the Abyss that she came from. The powers of his chain will devour him soon enough, and that's assuming he doesn't lose his mind completely before that happens.”
“And how do you feel about that?” asked Gilbert.
Elliot groaned. He did, after all, have a lot of experience with losing your mind because of his chain, and it had only been because of Oz's slipping control over his own murderous impulses that Elliot had made it out of Isla Yura's house alive. “I don’t want him to die,” he admitted. “Alice…the girl, the former chain…her last words were that if O—if the boy died, or if he lost his mind and destroyed the world like how the person who created the Tragedy of Sablier wants, everything she’d done would be for nothing. And besides that…I want him to want to live. I…”
Elliot could tell Gilbert anything, because Gilbert never left his room and never breathed a word of what Elliot said to anyone, not even Vincent, not even their father. He could tell Gilbert anything, other than the fact that he was his favorite brother. He technically wasn’t allowed to share anything about the Vessalius family, but the main reason he didn’t was that he didn’t want his brother hurt, not that he didn’t want him to know. Gilbert wasn’t a threat to anybody. Most days, Vincent and Elliot literally had to force him to eat, so that he wouldn’t waste away.
“I want to talk about Holy Knight with him,” Elliot admitted. “I want him to finish reading the series so we can debate it. He’s wrong about Edgar, obviously, but…someone like him…I guess I can see why he likes him.”
“...Edgar was my master’s favorite character, too,” Gilbert said softly.
“Yeah?” said Elliot.
Gilbert hummed in agreement, turning over again to continue staring at the ceiling.
“Tell me about your master,” Elliot said. Gilbert was less likely to eat after talking about the kid he’d served before his adoption, but Vincent had told Elliot earlier that he’d already gotten breakfast into him, and anyway, talking about his dead master was the only time Gilbert ever smiled.
Sure enough, the haunted look in Gilbert’s eyes began to recede somewhat as he started speaking. “My master was…he was lonely,” he said. “Brilliant, but lonely...and incredibly fragile. I imagine much like your new friend is. He desperately wanted to be loved, but I was the only person who could truly understand him, because we carried the same sorts of things within ourselves: his darkness, my weakness…I knew that we’d always be together. I was the only person who could truly understand him, the only person he could rely on.” A faint smile began to play around Gilbert’s lips. “We met when he was ten, and I was nine. All I knew was my name and my fear, and the first thing he did when I was made his servant was save me. Me! His worthless valet…he put himself in harm’s way and protected me, and he told me ‘because that’s a master’s duty’—”
“That’s a Holy Knight quote,” said Elliot.
“He loved Holy Knight,” Gilbert said, as though he hadn’t told Elliot this dozens of times already. “He was reading the first book to his younger sister when I was brought to him.”
“Maybe we could find him and start a Holy Knight book club,” Elliot mused. “Me and my moron and your master.”
“He’d love that,” Gilbert said. “I’d love to hear how the meetings would go.”
“Well, how confrontational is he?” Elliot asked, as though Gilbert’s master wasn’t long dead at Xai Vessalius’s hand.
“He could be downright tyrannical at times,” Gilbert said. He was really smiling now, soft and forlorn and loving. “When I told him I wasn’t something worth protecting, right after we met, he punched me. Half his games ended up in cruel tricks on me. I think…now that I’m grown up…”
And your master never got to…
“I think he was testing me. Seeing how much it would take to get me to stop caring. He didn’t…trust anything, or anyone. I think that every day he would wake up assuming that his family and everything he loved would leave him, but I never did, so he tried to make me leave, because he didn’t want to lose me unexpectedly, I think. Being ripped away from each other…it was the worst thing that could have happened to either of us.” He paused. “He almost certainly would have fought you about Edgar, though.”
Elliot groaned. “God, he and that Vessalius brat would probably get on like a house on fucking fire, then,” he muttered. Fucking Oz.
Gilbert stilled. “Vessalius brat?” he asked carefully, voice taut. Gilbert knew as well as Elliot did that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about the Vessalius family, but Gilbert also desperately wanted any crumb of information possible about them.
And Oz Vessalius’s continued existence was a far more volatile piece of information than the fact that Ada Vessalius brought her cats to school even though pets weren’t allowed, and Elliot was well aware of the fact that it had been Oz’s father who had killed Gilbert’s master, that Oz had been in a foul mood after Elliot had told him who killed his father and how and why, that if Oz and Gilbert were ever in the same room it would probably end in blood (Gilbert’s) and tears (also Gilbert’s). He thought about how Oz had snarled how dare they take him from me and for that?! when told of his father’s demise, and how Oz had lost control and nearly killed half of Pandora after Alice had plunged back into the Abyss, leaving Oz the sole B-Rabbit.
“...Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Elliot said, deciding that no matter how annoying Oz was, he wasn’t going to let him and Gilbert fight to the death. “The Lady Ada…she’s been checking out Holy Knight books recently.” True. “I think it has something to do with the tenth anniversary of her brother’s death.” Also true, sort of, though it had more to do with the fact that Oz lacked a Lutwidge library card than any sort of grief reading. “That’s all. It isn’t important.”
Gilbert nodded, his eyes going dull and defeated again. “Who does she mourn more?” he asked softly. “Her brother or her father?”
…Fuck.
“Ask me again in two weeks,” Elliot said, because that was how long Vincent had estimated the boy had left to live. “But my money’s on her brother.”
Gilbert smiled.
3
Xerxes Break smiled at Oz. “Is that really what you want?” he said. “Tea party and all?”
“Tea party and all,” Oz confirmed. The teenager’s eyes were sunken in his face, with shadows the color of burnished coins around them, and the seal of his contract was visible at all times even through his shirt, the hand nearly finished with its turn. “Uncle Oscar suggested it for my next birthday, but since I won’t survive that long, I was thinking we could do it for my death.”
“How morbid,” Break said. “You really are the least cute kid I’ve ever met, and I’ve met Gilbert and his sewer rat of a brother.”
Oz’s eyes flashed with anger, like they did whenever he was reminded of the fate of Gilbert Nightray. “Gilbert is invited,” he said shortly.
Break scoffed. “Good luck with that.”
“Gilbert is invited,” Oz replied calmly, “because Raven is needed to stop B-Rabbit from going on a rampage and destroying the world like Jack desires. He is the only one I’ll allow to kill me.”
Any of the Black-Winged chains would do for that; Oz knew it, Break knew it, presumably everyone else involved in the plan to end Oz’s miserable and deeply fucked up existence knew it. But if Oz refused to cooperate, the odds of the amount of Black-Winged chains in the world remaining the same were incredibly low, because Oz could do an insane amount of damage. If Oz refused to cooperate, Gilbert Nightray would probably be called in anyway, since he was Pandora’s most efficient killing machine by far and the only people who cared if he lived or died were Vincent Nightray, Elliot Nightray, and Oz himself, who Break witnessed having a breakdown at his father’s grave in which he had repeatedly promised to personally visit him in hell and kill him again and again for what his death had done to Gilbert, and for whose sake Oz had nearly entirely cut contact with his uncle and sister, no matter how much it was obvious that Oz missed them both.
“I’ll put in the request,” Break said, and some of the exhaustion seemed to vanish, ever so slightly, from Oz’s shoulders.
“Thank you,” Oz said. “Be sure to tell them that I could snap at any point during the party, so Gilbert must attend from the moment it starts until the moment I die, which should be after the party, so that everyone’s experience isn’t ruined.”
“Or your death could be a spectacle at the highlight of the party,” Break offered.
Oz shook his head. “They’d take Gil away immediately after,” he said. “I intend on making sure he gets the day to enjoy himself.”
“How sweet of you,” said Break. “All this for the man who killed your father?”
Oz looked away, lips thin. “Why bother hating Gil,” he said softly, “when I have Jack inside of me at all times?”
“I thought you had a handle on Jack,” said Break.
“I do.” Oz swallowed. “I have nothing to live for and he has nothing to hold over me. It still hurts, though.”
Oz didn’t elaborate on what hurt—the struggle for control that kept him from sleeping, the still-healing wounds from the last time Jack had gotten control, or the loss of everyone and everything he’d ever loved, because no matter how many Holy Knight books Ada had checked out for Oz, he still refused to forgive her for holding their father’s death against Gilbert, and despite his uncle’s unconditional love, he still couldn’t bear to speak with him for longer than a few minutes. Maybe it all hurt, or maybe only part of it did, but Break didn’t ask and Oz didn’t share.
Instead, Break stood. “I’ll get Gilbert for your party,” he said. “Enjoy your last night.”
Oz managed a thin, wan smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Sleep well.”
4
Gilbert awoke to the contractor’s restraints being removed. Another mission, then; another kill. He wondered if this one would be the one to finally end him and allow him to see Oz again.
If he died, he hoped Vincent and Elliot would get the letters he’d written them. He hoped Elliot would read his and learn that Gilbert’s master had been Oz Vessalius, that he never was as big a threat to the rival duchy as his brother had feared; he hoped that Vincent would read his and realize how much he was loved.
“Who am I killing today?” Gilbert asked, as he pulled on the clothes they supplied—far nicer than the ones he normally was given for assassinations, as though he were going to some sort of party rather than somewhere where Pandora’s pet murderer would be given another chance to show off his skills.
“Oz Vessalius, the B-Rabbit,” said the Pandora agent in charge of handling him for the day. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one, since you killed his father.”
“...Oz is dead, ” Gilbert said, trying not to think about how this was the first time his master’s name had passed his lips since he’d killed Xai Vessalius eight years prior. “He died ten years ago, at his father’s hand.”
Or at Gilbert’s hand, depending on how you looked at it; personally, Gilbert split the blame. He was generous like that.
“Unfortunately,” said the handler, “he did not, and it’s your job to shadow him at his death day tea party to make sure he doesn’t slaughter the guests, and to kill him once the party is over.”
Gilbert felt like his chest had been frozen. His master…alive? Though not for long, not at all for long…his master, he would be seeing his master again, he would have to kill his master with his own hands.
Did Oz still carry the scar from ten years ago? Gilbert certainly carried his own; it was the only one of his wounds ever to scar, and it was his most prized possession, the single part of his worthless body he loved the most, because his master had given it to him when trying to keep him safe and it would never fade.
Gilbert barely noticed as the manacles were clamped over his wrists and he was dragged out, stumbling along. He barely heard the handler’s and the guards’ conversation as they went, lost in the swirling soup of his thoughts. His master, his master, he would see his master again…
(Elliot had complained of a Vessalius brat with a poor taste in books; had that been his master? Were Oz and Gilbert’s little brother friends? He hoped so; God, but he hoped so.)
He thought, suddenly, that Oz probably hated him, like Ada did, like Oscar did. He didn’t think he could withstand his master’s anger—but he hadn’t thought he could withstand his master’s death, either, and anyway as long as Oz kept Gilbert by his side he could hate him as much as he pleased, because at least he was alive and safe and somewhere Gilbert could protect him.
Protect, not kill.
Gilbert refused to kill his master, refused to harm him ever again. He’d kill all of Pandora if they tried to stop him.
They arrived at the tea party, light and happy voices floating over to them as they walked over, and, sure enough, there Oz was on the fringes of the party, as young as he was when Gilbert last saw him, chatting with Elliot and a boy with shaggy dark hair and thick glasses—probably Elliot’s own servant, Leo. Elliot’s eyes widened in shock when he saw Gilbert, and Oz whipped around so fast that Gilbert’s own back hurt.
Oz looked a wreck. He clearly hadn’t been sleeping, and he was far too thin, and his face looked as though it had entirely forgotten how to smile even as it split into a bright grin as he bolted over towards Gilbert.
“Gil! You made it!” he cheered, skidding to a stop before casting a displeased look at the handler and guards. “Who are they ?”
“Lord Oz,” greeted the handler, “I am—”
Oz pierced him with a dark, disinterested look. “I don’t care,” he said. “I wasn’t speaking to you. Gilbert, who are they and why are they here? I didn’t invite them.”
“...They’re my handler and the guards, young master,” Gilbert said softly, ignoring Elliot’s surprised look at Oz’s title. “They’re here to kill me should I step out of line.”
“Oh,” said Oz. “Human garbage, then. I should have guessed, I’ve met a lot of that lately. You’d think there’d be more of a stench.”
There was a flash of metal—chains, and a scythe, and then a spray of blood—and then Gilbert and Oz were surrounded by corpses, and Gilbert’s manacles had been sliced off of his wrists so neatly he wasn’t injured at all. Oz, now splattered with blood, beamed at Gilbert again, the smile somehow accentuating his sunken eyes and too-thin, too-small shoulders, as Gilbert dropped to his knees and bowed before his master.
“There,” Oz said easily, “you can get up now, Gil. They won’t bother us anymore.”
“Master…”
“Hey, Oz!” Elliot shouted. “What the hell’s all this?! I thought you were stopping the murder rampages!”
“It’s not a murder rampage if I’m protecting Gil!” Oz shot back. “You ought to agree with me, he’s your brother!”
“You just killed six people!”
“I’d hardly count them as people,” Oz scoffed. “Anyone who hurts Gil doesn’t deserve to live. Don’t you feel that way about Leo?”
Leo looked like he was about to protest, but Elliot beat him to the punch.
“Yes, you know that, but Leo’s my servant, Gilbert’s literally the guy who killed your father! Shouldn’t you hate him?”
Oz hummed. “I am upset that Father’s dead,” he admitted. “He tried to kill me multiple times, and he hated me so much, and told me that I never should have been born and didn’t deserve to exist, but he was actually right about both of those things. But Gilbert is far more important to me than Father ever was, and I just wish that Gil had done it before I was thrown into the Abyss or after I’d come back, because he absolutely wouldn’t have been caught then.” Gilbert’s master grinned then, feral and angry. “But that won’t matter soon. I’m not going to die until I’ve killed everyone who kept Gil locked up.”
“You’re Gilbert’s master,” said Leo.
“What the shit?!” Elliot said. “Oz is a Vessalius, stupid!”
“Gilbert literally just called him ‘master’ and Oz compared his feelings on Gilbert to yours on me, dumbass!”
“I…used to be,” said Oz. "I used to be his master."
“You still are,” Gilbert said firmly. That was the one thing he’d always be sure of: Oz was his master, and Gilbert was his servant, and he would protect him this time.
Oz gave Gilbert a thin and sad smile, and pressed himself against him, just slightly, as though leaning on him for strength, and—he was warm. He was moving. He was even breathing.
Gilbert’s master was alive.
Gilbert felt himself shatter fully, pulling Oz down into his arms like a drowning man clutching a floating piece of wood and sobbing, half into Oz’s bony shoulder and half into the open air, and he could feel Oz’s fingers digging through his shirt and coat and nearly into his back. His master was trembling, though not crying, as they knelt in the bloody ground and Gilbert tried to pull Oz closer and closer against him, as though he’d vanish again if Gilbert loosened his grip, even for a second.
By the time Gilbert managed to stop crying, Elliot and Leo were long gone and Oz was simply lying still against Gilbert’s shoulder, as though he was a child’s toy being held for comfort rather than a living, breathing person.
“They didn’t let me see you,” Oz said, voice quiet as death. “I kept asking, and they kept saying no. Even when I started killing Pandora members…”
“Master…” Gilbert whispered.
“I hate Pandora,” Oz confessed, his voice cracking. “I hate them. They were founded by Jack, and they wanted to study Alice, and they took you away. I hate them. I want to destroy them. I want to destroy it all, Gil, the whole entire world.”
“Alright,” Gilbert said. “Let’s destroy it.” He barely knew who Alice was as a person, but from Elliot’s and his master’s words, she had been important to Oz. And if Oz wanted the world burnt down, no matter what the reason, Gilbert would happily hold the match.
“We can’t,” Oz said. “You’re only allowed to be here because I promised that if you got an invitation I wouldn’t destroy it all, and anyway, that’s what Jack wants. He doesn’t think there’s anything at all worth saving here.”
Gilbert held Oz a little bit tighter. “And you?” he said. “Do you think there’s anything worth saving here?”
“Of course I do,” said Oz, and he sounded a little more alive, a little more like the boy Gilbert had known ten years ago. “This world has you in it. And Elliot and Leo, and Break and Sharon, and Ada and Uncle Oscar, even if I’m really mad at them right now.”
Gilbert ran his fingers through Oz’s hair. “Don’t be.”
“They testified against you, Gil! Ada called you a murderer!”
“I am a murderer!”
“Well so am I!”
Gilbert was about to protest this when he remembered the corpses scattered around them and how disappointed Elliot had been when he mentioned murder rampages, plural. Oz probably had killed people, plenty of them. Gil just couldn’t find it in himself to care, so instead he brushed the bloody hair on Oz’s forehead aside and pressed a kiss to it. “That’s alright,” Gilbert said. “As long as you’re here…”
“I’m dying today,” Oz said.
Gilbert’s arms tightened around him. “You’re not.”
“I am, Gil,” Oz said. “The seal’s nearly completed, and then I’ll be plunged into the depths of the Abyss. I just need this body dead before that happens, for insurance against Jack.”
“I can’t lose you, Master,” Gilbert whispered. “Not again.”
“If you don’t you’ll die, Gil,” Oz said quietly. “I really only have one request. You…you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, you don’t need to be the one to kill me, I have other options, I’d just rather it be you. But…couldn’t you please call me by my name before I go? Just call me Oz. Please. Just once.”
“Master…” Gilbert swallowed. “Oz. When…when do you want it to happen?”
“After the party,” Oz said firmly. “I want you to enjoy yourself for the day, because I won’t be able to protect you once I’m gone. Once it’s over and everyone else has gone home, I want you to do it.”
Gilbert held his master a little tighter. “Alright,” he managed. He would fulfill his master’s wish—any wish he entrusted to Gilbert. No matter what.
5
Ada noticed when Oz returned to the party, coated in blood and tucked into Gilbert’s side like a child. For the first time, her brother’s former servant had no manacles, no guards there to kill him should he step out of line; he had only Oz, and he held him close as if attempting to protect him from the world, as though he were a bigger version of the Gilbert she’d known as a child and not the man who had killed her father. She understood why Oz still loved Gilbert Nightray after everything—she did too, and she had lived through the whole debacle with her father’s death—but that didn’t mean that Gilbert was forgiven. It didn’t mean that everything could just be okay again, especially since Oz was dying today and Gilbert had been hired to kill him and Ada was the backup in case that wasn’t possible, because she now wielded the chain that had already been used to attack her brother once.
And yet Oz stayed at Gilbert’s side, pressed as close against him as he could manage, even as he greeted his guests and got food and stayed far, far away from Ada and their uncle, probably to keep away from any awkward confrontations with Gilbert. Which…yes, Ada got that. And Oz had technically been avoiding them both ever since he’d learned the aftermath of their father’s death, but…
Ada’s big brother was dying today. She wanted to spend time with him! She didn’t care if Gilbert was there. She probably wouldn’t have cared if Jack Vessalius himself reared his ugly personality, as long as she got to spend quality time with Oz, but he continued avoiding her and remained tucked against Gilbert. She caught the sounds of a rousing argument between him and Elliot Nightray over the virtues of the various Holy Knights books, and though Gilbert didn’t weigh in, he remained staunchly by Oz’s side, glaring at anyone who dared come close and interrupt, until suddenly the guests were gone and it was only Ada, Uncle Oscar, Oz, Gilbert, Xerxes Break, Sharon Rainsworth, Elliot Nightray, and his servant Leo left. Elliot hadn’t seemed to notice, still caught up in ripping into Edgar’s entire character arc, but Gilbert’s grip on Oz had tightened, and Oz was almost trembling against him before he suddenly burst up and out of Gilbert’s grip in a swirl of movement.
“I’m going to say goodbye to Ada and Uncle Oscar,” he said, tugging Gilbert up and pulling him over, though Gilbert hung back and stared at the ground when Oz hugged first Ada and then Uncle Oscar tightly. “Take care of yourselves,” he muttered, “I love you,” and Ada was loathe to let him go, letting herself get swept into a group hug by their uncle until Oz somehow wriggled out and away, ending up at Gilbert’s side once more.
“It’s time, Gil,” Oz said softly, taking Gilbert’s hand as the man’s face crumpled.
“Master,” Gilbert begged, “please, please don’t go.”
Oz’s lips trembled. “You don’t have to do it,” he said. “I won’t be upset. But…I do have to go.”
You don’t have to do it, because Ada can. She didn’t have the option to back out, and Ada thought privately that this might be Oz’s revenge for Gilbert’s sentencing: Ada would be forced to execute her own brother, killing him dead as surely as learning Gilbert’s fate had killed the last of the hope in his eyes.
“...You will be upset,” Gilbert said quietly. “I know—I know that you want it to be me.”
Oz nodded. “Take care of yourself, Gil,” he said. “Promise me that you’ll live well. I want you to live a full and happy life!”
Gilbert voice broke open, and Ada felt like she was watching something that she had absolutely no right to see, as he whispered, “Master…”
“Seriously, Gilbert. No excuses! I want you to live a long life. I want you to be happy and free. Promise me you’ll take better care of yourself from here on out?”
“Please, Master, please let me go with you—”
“Uncle Oscar!” Oz said suddenly. “Could you please get Gil’s name cleared? Pretty please? It’s my last request! I am about to die, you know!”
Gilbert flinched bodily at that, and still refused to meet Ada’s or her uncle’s eyes, though Uncle Oscar said, “Of course,” and Oz smiled over at them, brilliant and blinding and like nothing she’d seen from her brother since he’d escaped the Abyss.
“See, Gil?” Oz said confidently. “Everything’s going to be alright. So live a long and full life for me, okay?”
Something in Gilbert’s expression crumbled. He nodded, tears bright in his golden eyes, and the Raven chain appeared in the air above him. For a moment, Ada looked away, eyes darting around the gardens for something, anything else to focus on—Elliot and Leo were standing off to the side, looking upset but unsurprised, Lady Sharon was watching with tears in her eyes, and Xerxes Break looked like this was a fascinating new play being put on before him—before dragging her gaze back to her brother.
Oz was kneeling now, wrapped in black chains, looking up at Gilbert as though he was his entire world as tears poured down Gilbert’s face.
“It’s okay, Gil,” Oz said, smiling sadly. “End it. Please.”
Raven’s wing slashed through Oz’s neck, sending his head flying across the garden path as a path to the Abyss opened up and Oz’s body fell through, vanishing a moment later as though it was never there in the first place.
Gilbert dropped to his knees and screamed, though his voice sounded hollow in the empty morning air, and as Ada pressed her gloved hands to her mouth and tried her best not to vomit, she couldn’t help but feel like—it was all over, somehow.
Everything had ended.
+1
When Oz landed in the Abyss, the first thing he saw was Alice’s face, though he knew it wasn’t her inside.
“Core of the Abyss,” he said softly. “...Mother. I brought you Jack. I’m sorry I broke him, but he broke me first.”
Oz didn’t look at Jack, but he didn’t have to. They had talked, he and Jack. They had agreed that they both wanted the world gone, but Oz chose not to for Gilbert’s sake and Jack just had to realize that Lacie wouldn’t have wanted it either. Even if he didn’t, though, Oz couldn’t find it in himself to care. He wanted to see Jack ripped apart by the Core of the Abyss. He wanted Alice safe. He wanted Gilbert happy.
He was very accustomed to not getting what he wanted.
After a moment or an eternity, Alice’s body lay itself down and a golden light bobbed over to Oz, slipping into Jack’s body and reattaching its head.
“Have you come here to stay with me?” the Core of the Abyss asked.
“I have,” Oz said. “I’m a gift from Lacie too, you know, and unlike the twins you won’t be able to break me.”
“Because Jack already did.”
“Yes.”
The Core of the Abyss was silent for a moment. “When the girls awake,” she said, “I’ll let them choose whether to stay or leave, since I have a body of my very own now.”
“But I don’t get that choice,” Oz said.
“Why would you?” asked his mother. “You’re just a toy, after all.”