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Perhaps the least shocking revelation of the afternoon was that Lacie had fucked Jack. Oswald, too, would have fucked Jack Vessalius if given half the chance, and good for Lacie—he thought half-hysterically—that she’d managed it, but…why hadn’t she told him that she was pregnant? He would have made sure that—that—that she at least got the chance to give birth to her daughter before being plunged into the Abyss, that she was at least able to name her.
Oswald had called the girl ‘Alice’ when it became clear that, raised in the Abyss as she was, she didn’t have a name—though she did have a sister, still in the Abyss, who hated him (deserved) (not more than Oswald hated himself) (that wasn’t possible)—and he gave her Lacie’s old tower, too, since…well…
Technically, her entire existence was a sin. Technically, Children of Misfortune like Lacie weren’t supposed to have children themselves. Technically, had Levi known about the pregnancy he probably would have had Oswald plunge Lacie into the Abyss anyway. He might have had Oswald make sure Alice couldn’t get out, either.
Oswald would have made that choice himself. He would have had to. What choice, after all, was it—between a sister and a world? Between a sister and a niece, and a world?
Oswald knew his duty: he had to cast Alice into the Abyss with Lacie. But if nobody dared say that to his face, and so he pretended not to know it, and made sure that he and he alone was in charge of caring for her: the last piece of his sister he had left to him. Alice was so, so unimaginably precious to him—even if she was immature, and greedy, and didn’t behave as a little girl ought and instead imitated him in everything he did, and named her favorite toy after him, as though he deserved any of that. Lacie and Jack’s child, and Oswald was raising her, and he couldn’t think of any worse torment, because every day Alice looked at him he saw Lacie, and every day her sister looked at him he saw Lacie, and every day he dredged up all that pain and guilt all over again, and Lacie’s death was for the good of the world, but what good was the world if she wasn’t in it, but she wouldn’t want him to grieve, wouldn’t want him to damn the world for her, the world she’d loved.
Oswald was Glen, not Oswald: when his successor took his place, only then would he be allowed to grieve. Perhaps then he would take the girls, and bring them to where he knew that Jack had made a grave for Lacie, and tell each Alice individually about her mother. About her life—about her death—about their birth—
Perhaps he would even apologize for killing his pregnant sister.
But until then—he was Glen. He had nothing to apologize for, nothing to regret. His word was law here, and he was protecting the sanctity of the Abyss.
And if the highlight of his days was to care for his niece, then by God he would do it.