“When I was a lord—when I was ‘Versailles’—I never understood why the Higher Power seemed to sleep through our most trying times,” Sylvie began. “Why allow Dervish to wreak havoc so long? Why not put a stop to it sooner? Was it because the Higher Power was disgusted by us, and had given us up for lost?” She paused. “I had twenty years to think about those questions when my son was taken from me, and Dervish chained me up in the Cave of Swords.”
Sylvie stopped again, and X feared that she wouldn’t be able to go on, that the memories of losing him would be too much. He felt a flash of panic, not just because she was his mother, but because she alone now stood between Dervish and freedom.
“Do you want to hear what I realized after twenty years?” said Sylvie at last.
X exhaled in relief. Zoe looped her arm around his waist.
“I realized that when I was alive we asked the same kind of things about god,” Sylvie continued. “Maybe the people in your time did, too. Why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering? We know that there’s a method to god’s ways, even if we can’t always divine it. So maybe there’s a method to the Higher Power’s ways, too. Maybe, like those poor fools up in the world, we’re supposed to find the path forward ourselves—to define for ourselves what’s right and what’s wrong. And we have an advantage down here, don’t we? We were all damned for being murderous, for being selfish and inhumane. Surely that’s a sign that we should try something else?”
Zoe leaned into X, and whispered: “I had to give a eulogy for the Wallaces. It wasn’t this good.”
“Dervish will never try anything else,” Sylvie went on. “He’ll continue to carve his self-loathing into a weapon, and he’ll continue to savage the prisoners of the Lowlands with it until the last clock in the universe stops. When it’s his turn to speak, I’m sure he will tell you the same thing. Dervish must be stopped for good—in both senses of the word. The lords and the guards aren’t supposed to beat the prisoners, or engage in any of the treacheries that Dervish is so fond of. Why? Because the true punishment here is psychic, not physical. It’s making a soul who’s been damned sit in the dark and contemplate his sins until his insides boil with regret. There’s no pain worse than that. You all know it because you’ve all felt it. Probably you feel it still.”
Sylvie pointed to the stone statue screaming in terror.
“That’s the face of a soul being ripped apart by guilt,” she said. “It’s not the face of a soul being beaten just because some crazed lord finds it amusing. If you have any doubts about what to do with Dervish—or with Zoe and my son, for that matter—think about the fact that the Higher Power allowed Zoe to come here and challenge Dervish. Think about the fact that the Higher Power allowed my son to tear the gold band from Dervish’s neck. You shouldn’t need any more evidence to do what’s right. Remember that the power that rules us is awake—and watching.”
Sylvie nodded to indicate that she was done. There was a silence, during which X could hear the rivers whisper.
Then the applause began.
It started with Regent, Ripper, and Banger, but spread quickly. Soon, Tree and the guards were clapping, too—every one of them but the Cockney.
X looked to the lords. One or two still appeared unmoved, unsure about what to do with Dervish. How could they be? What would it take?
When the applause died away, Regent told Dervish he could speak if he liked, but that no one would be disappointed if he chose not to.
“I shall speak,” said Dervish. “Of course I shall speak.”
He stood, spreading his feet wide in an attempt to appear commanding.
“The whore we called Versailles is correct in precisely one regard: I shall not repent, nor beg for mercy,” said Dervish. “Instead, I shall expound upon your idiocy a final time. You think in dispensing with me, you will save the Lowlands? The Lowlands MADE me.”
He prowled toward the other lords.
“You thought you had tamed the Countess, yet, according to my spies, she has already unsheathed her knife and begun peeling the skin of a certain Plum.” Dervish turned to X, and waited for the pain to show in his eyes. “And that is AS IT SHOULD BE, you worms. We are here to punish sinners, not grow goddamn DAISIES! Do what you will with me. You have become soft because of these two”—he gestured disgustedly at X and then Zoe—“and I do not fear you.”
X surveyed the ranks of the lords. Surely they saw Dervish for the cancer that he was? Even the Cockney was frowning now, and fussing with his lamp, as if he’d never been devoted to him. Zoe pulled X closer. He was so tense that he’d dug his fingernails into his hand.
The lords didn’t gather to debate this time. Regent only had to look them in the eyes to know their thoughts. He lingered a long time, it seemed to X, on the ones who had previously dissented.
At last Regent turned back to Dervish.
“It saddens me that you think us soft,” he said. “Perhaps we can persuade you otherwise.”
He nodded to one of the lords.
“Take him,” he said.
The lord lifted Dervish into the air by his neck, like an osprey clutching a fish.
He flew at the statue of the screaming man, and threw Dervish into its gaping mouth. Dervish tried to scramble out, but before he could the lord made a quick motion, like the tossing of a match.
The mouth exploded in blue flame. Dervish’s scream was like a twisting screw.
The lord sealed the statue’s mouth with another gesture.
Dervish was swallowed whole.
Once he was gone, the Lowlands themselves seemed to breathe again. X felt as if a siren they’d all gotten used to had suddenly gone quiet. He watched as his friends rushed to one another, as the lords broke into a flurry of talk, as the guards settled the bets they had made by handing over weapons and rings.
X’s relief at Dervish’s fall was undercut only by the fear that everyone had forgotten about him and Zoe. The lords hadn’t even ruled on what would become of his mother.
He found Regent in the crowd, and interrupted him a second time. Regent didn’t wait to hear X’s questions. Instead, he gave him a gentle look, and said, “You will have all your answers soon. For now, rejoice. The victory over Dervish is yours more than anyone else’s.”
“Mine?” said X. “I did nothing.”
“Why can you never see the good that you do?” said Regent. “Dervish couldn’t bear how much you loved Zoe and your mother when no one had ever loved him. He tried to punish you for it. It became a mania. At last, the other lords—and the Higher Power, even—saw him for the horror that he was and had always been.”
X thanked Regent, then turned and gazed at his friends wistfully, as if he were on a train and they were disappearing into the distance. He looked at Sylvie, Ripper, Banger, the Ukrainian, Maud. And Zoe, of course. How had he come to care about so many people? Had it all been Zoe’s doing? Had she opened him up in some way—broken down a wall that had been blocking him? No, it wasn’t quite that. She hadn’t broken down the wall—she had coaxed him out from behind it. She had convinced him that there was nothing in his heart to be ashamed of, that it was okay to be seen.
X watched as Banger greeted the Ukrainian.
“Dude!” said Banger. Seeing Maud, he added, “Dude and random chick! Whoa—and a cat!”
Banger was punchy from being in the cell.
“I’m allergic, actually,” he said. “Wait, are allergies still a thing when you’re dead? They can’t be, right? How could they? Can I pet the little guy?”
Even this exchange warmed X somehow. He turned again, and saw something that triggered an avalanche of feeling in his chest: Ripper was shyly approaching his mother.
He hurried forward to introduce them.
“Ripper, this is—”
She raised a hand to silence him.
“I know very well who she is,” she said. “Madam, it is an honor. Truly. I almost feel I should kneel before you.”
“And I feel like I should kneel before you,” said Sylvie. “You raised my son as if he were your own. I can’t think of a nobler act.”
“I suppose we could take turns kneeling before each other?” said Ripper.
Instead, they embraced.
“That’s an exquisite dress, by the way,” said Sylvie.
“Thank you so much,” said Ripper. “I stole it.”