The Last Days of Yesteryear: Chapter 1

Edmund was an orphan from birth, as was fashionable at the time.

For centuries, the upper classes had been enamored with Blood. Lineages were tracked from the present day back thousands of years, through kings, queens, and prostitutes, creating macabre nets of sex and death. Marriages, affairs, and old midwives running through darkened forests with illegitimate heirs in their arms were marked like game sightings in books passed down from generation to generation with more reverence than any holy text. It was as good a way as any of keeping score.

To be an adopted orphan was to circumvent this web entirely.

Now, with Edmund at a ripe old age of eighteen, the pendulum had swung the other way. After years of obsession over heraldry, ancestry, and exactly what shade of blue your blood was, the mystery of not knowing one’s parentage was intriguing; and while money and power held their own fascinations, what was far more important to the perpetually ennuied upper-classes at the time was intrigue.

Bit by bit, the gentry were becoming more accepting of variety. After all, some of their most amusing peers had some embarrassment or other in their family tree. The Landed Classes could handle being common, they couldn’t handle being boring.

The traditional diversion had been war, but the Great War had spoiled all that — it wasn’t as much fun to send young men and women into battle when they came home again, broken in body and spirit — so, the landed gentry began searching for other amusements. Impropriety, once feared and criminalized in the lower classes, became lauded as fascinating eccentricity. Madhouses changed from prisons to safaris. The brutal and cruel were applauded for their creativity. Shock begat awe, and the malaise of the upper-class eroded away once more.

It was an interesting time to be alive, so of course Matron had died.

---

It ended as it began; with a letter.

For the upper classes, everything always began with a letter. The lower classes had the leisure of mysterious strangers knocking on their doors, sudden tavern brawls, changing job prospects, moving to new cities, or even vandalism, theft, and murder as openings to new chapters of their lives.

There was no such luxury for the gentry. Letters started everything, and were also usually the final punctuation on events of notable nature. Letters were manageable and predicable. Lies were easier to tell through letters, and therefore reputations were maintained, appearances kept, and the network of high-society was held aloft on a lace pillow of envelopes and wax seals.

This went double for the Nine Founding Families of Brackenburg. The Founding Families never gave parties for each other, never held functions to keep in touch, never “dropped by.” They wrote letters, and — if it was strategically advantageous to do so — read them too. For those skilled in the art, as Edmund undoubtedly was, the hidden communication of letters, the subtle subtexts and words unsaid, told them everything.

Three letters brought three Heads of the Founding Families to Moulde Hall, where Edmund put his first plan into motion, and three letters of gratitude provided proof that he had succeeded. It was a letter that told Edmund he was expected at Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted. It was a letter that told Edmund that war had come to England. A letter informed him of his admittance into the army. It was a letter that informed him of Matron’s death.

Letters. Words. Ink on paper that made the world turn. Read a letter, and suddenly the world was different. A black-smog filled sky portended doom instead of prosperity. A train whistle reported a lovers arrival instead of merely accenting the evening air.

This letter changed the world. More specifically, it changed Edmund’s world.

There was nothing special about the letter itself.¹ The contents of the letter were no more nor less than was written in hundreds of letters just like it around the world; formal and sterile condolences at the passing of a loved one, or at least a familiar one.

Indeed, at the time the most notable thing about the letter was that it was gripped in the hand of the catalyst of our current age himself, the then-still-Master Edmund Moulde.

He could feel the roughness of the paper, he could read each carefully written word with ease, he could even smell the faint aroma of cleansing alcohol and cheap antiseptic that lingered on the paper from the doctor’s hand. He remembered the sound the letter made when he opened it the first time. He would remember well into his later years.

What he couldn’t remember — he noted with a detached curiosity that he had honed through eighteen years of practice — was Ung packing up his things from Filing Room B, the office where Edmund had worked, ate, and slept for half the Great War. He didn’t remember having his discharge papers signed or disassembling his prototype Typograph. He didn’t remember climbing into the Moulde Family Carriage, with the silver raven crest on the side and black plumes on the front. He didn’t remember the journey through Brackenburg back into the Squatling district and through the wrought-iron gates that surrounded Haggard Hill.

Yet, these things must have happened. How else could he now be in the carriage, already half-way up Haggard Hill, drawing ever closer to Moulde Hall?

Edmund was not unfamiliar with diseases of the brain, and so his first reaction to this strange lack of memory was to test it.

He must have been testing his memory. Why else would he be suddenly thinking of ten years ago, when he had taken this very same road up the side of Haggard Hill? He had sat with his nose pressed against the soot-encrusted windows. Matron had sat where he was sitting now, and he had asked her what her name was. She spat the words at him; Matron Mander Moulde. It was the first time he had heard his new surname.

Where was Ung? Had he taken a different carriage? Why was Edmund alone? Had he ever not been alone?

When the carriage drew to a halt at last, Edmund climbed out to see Enga, Moulde Hall’s new butler, patiently waiting at the base of the mansion’s steps. “Welcome home, Master Edmund,” she said as he approached.

Home. Was Moulde Hall his home? He had spent so much of his time away; eight years at the Orphanage, five years at Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted, a year at the War…he had only spent the four years from age eight to twelve within the dark walls of Moulde Hall.

The wind blew gently, caressing the dry grass with a gentle hand. Edmund could hear the sounds of Brackenburg float across the hill; distant sounds of merchants and factories and children playing in the street.

Edmund’s foot touched the first step.

Over the main door squatted the terrifying visage of Kahmlichimus, the Gran Gargoyle. Carved years ago as a grotesque watch-dog for the Hall, it had been takendown by an ancient Matron. Edmund had asked Ung to replace it above the door when he was eight. He had thought, in his youth, that everyone needed to be afraid when they entered Moulde Hall.

The beast stared down at Edmund, its eyes hungry, gripping a stone sign in its claws bearing the Moulde family motto in elegant script: Memento Mori.

Edmund couldn’t forget; death had followed him his whole life. When he first came to Moulde Hall, he had thought it was the first day of a new life. Instead, death had followed him like an eager dog. His own family had tried to kill him several times over four years. He had been trapped underground for hours with the crumbling bones of a thousand Mouldes. At Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted, the dead had become a commodity. He had reconnected with his childhood friend, Leeta, in the Mothburn Graveyard. There had been Lord Dashington and his victims, the Wickes and theirs, the trenches at Harmingsdown…and now, Matron.

He stared at the front door.

As often happened when his mind was otherwise occupied, his scientific brain supplied information it thought was applicable. Elements of all kinds conform to three natural states, the quote sprang from one of hundreds of scientific books he had read throughout his life. These three are as follows: solid, liquid, and gas.² These distinct states can be distinguished from each other by Transitioning, to whit: evaporating, condensing, melting, or freezing.

Edmund looked down at his foot where it rested on the first step.

Edmund wasn’t home. Not yet. He was still going home. If he climbed the steps, he would condense, or maybe evaporate, into being home.

Going home was easy. It was expected. Edmund’s life had been a series of disparate events punctuated by going home. It was how his time as an orphan had ended, how his education had ended…

He had always known that Matron would die someday, and when that day came, he would go home. Wherever he was, he would go home. He knew how to go home.

He didn’t know how to be home.

But he had to be home; it was why Matron had adopted him in the first place. Ever since Matron had sat in Mrs. Mapleberry’s Home for Wayward Lads and Ladies and signed the adoption papers, everything he had had done was to prepare him for this moment. The moment when he climbed the steps and entered Moulde Hall. When he transitioned, like ice melting to water.

Edmund swallowed, forcing the odd sensation in his chest down into his stomach. After eighteen years, he had become more familiar with emotions than he had been in his youth, but every now and then a new sensation gripped him in its mysterious grip. What was this feeling? It is not regret, nor fear. It is not bitterness, nor jealousy…

He pondered for almost ten full minutes with Enga patiently waiting at his side. He didn’t know the word for it. Perhaps he was simply ill.

Edmund took a deep breath. What else could he do? Where else could he go? If Moulde Hall was not home, where else was?

With nothing but the future ahead of him, Edmund climbed the steps.

---

Yellowed curtains hung limply over soot-grayed windows. Simple furniture sat in uncomplicated arrangements, unmoved and undusted for months, maybe years. The one mirror in the seating area was covered with black cloth, a detail easily mistaken as respect for the dead by anyone not aware of Matron’s loathing for reflections of every kind.

In later days, Edmund regretted his involuntary noting of every facet of the room. Well into his old age, he could mark down to the finest detail exactly how the room looked when he walked through Matron’s door. Even today, student scholars of history who lament the lack of pictographs surrounding this event are directed to the famous painting The Autumn Afternoon by Matron Bellamy Moulde, which was, in the words of Sir Edmund Moulde, “more accurate than any Chromaplate.”³

“Master…/ahem/…Master Edmund?”

Edmund turned to face Doctor Hamfish.

Suddenly confronted with the attention of the last surviving Moulde, Doctor Hamfish choked on his own breath and fell to coughing while running his stumpy fingers over his bald head.

“I simply…” he began, when he could breathe again, “that is, I wanted to give my…condolences, as…not my apologies, you understand, as I did everything that I…that any doctor would —”

“Please leave,” Edmund asked.

The doctor, with admirable wisdom, wasted no time in bidding a retreat into the hallway, shutting the door with a hasty but respectful click.

There is no telling how long it took before Edmund moved towards Matron’s bed. Reports cannot detail the speed at which he crossed the room, or when he could bring himself to look up from the floor. We can never know how long it took before he steadied his gaze, cleared his eyes, and focused on the cadaver that once was his only parent and guardian.

She didn’t look dead.

Or rather, Edmund corrected himself, she didn’t look very different than when she was alive. Her skin was as pale as it ever was, and the same sharp frown was carved into her mouth. Her wrinkles, if anything, were less pronounced than he remembered. Edmund might not have believed she was dead, had Doctor Hamfish not — in the well-meaning manner of all hapless physicians — crossed her hands over her sunken chest, giving her the pose of a dried spider.

Edmund had never realized how death-like life actually was.

Memento Mori.

Her chest wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t moving. She would never move again. Edmund would never hear her voice again. They would never share lunch again. He would never pick through her artfully crafted conversations to extract the hidden meanings like blackberries from a bush. Matron, as present as her body was, was gone.

Edmund didn’t like that idea. He needed to stop her. Keep her. He needed to trap her forever in words so she never left. So he could take her out and visit whenever he needed to. He needed a poem.

He had the words. Countless words. Pale. Leaf. Bone. Sorrow. Dry. Skull. Hope. Eight. Pain. Yellow. Gratitude. Gentle. Paper. They filled his mind, like…like…

Desperately, Edmund grasped at phrases, allusions, scansion, and alliteration; to no avail. No matter how he smashed the words together in desperation, struggling to click them into place like cogs in a machine, they simply sat in his mind like stones.

The clock of Moulde Hall, famed for its enthusiasm, began to toll the hour. It started low and distant, little more than an errant cough buried deep in the bowels of Moulde Hall. Then the sound grew, spreading outward through the walls and hallways, building like a rushing storm, each toll of the bell sending the Mansion into a fresh convulsion. The building swayed back and forth as the tolling of the hour filled every nook and cranny, rattling the glasses and bottles on Matron’s bedside table.

If Edmund had still possessed the poetic spirit he once had, he would have thought the building was, in its own way, saying farewell. As it was, he did not feel the quaking of his home. Instead, he was feeling something else.

What was this feeling?

It wasn’t sadness, or fear, or loneliness…perhaps he wasn’t feeling anything at all. If anything, the feeling was reminiscent of a sensation he felt many years ago when an old woman had appeared out of nowhere, scrawled her name across a piece of paper, and told Edmund that his name was Moulde.

Now he was an orphan again.

As the thought crossed his mind, his stomach heaved in an involuntary spasm. He was no orphan. Adopted, yes; parent-less, yes; but Edmund had a family. He had a surname. He had a heritage and a history and a duty to uphold. That was what Matron had given him; she had made him a Moulde.

It was a gift he couldn’t remember ever thanking her for.

Slowly, Edmund leaned over the fraying bed-cover, and placed his lips gently on Matron’s cold forehead.

---

“I…that is…I regret your loss,” Doctor Hamfish stammered as Edmund closed Matron’s door behind him. The small doctor rubbed his hands as he looked at Edmund with a pleading stare. “I did everything I could, and she seemed…that is…She was doing quite well for a time. Quite well. She was responding quite well to the Felson’s Elixer, and I was planning on —”

Teachers and military officers⁴ are both quite skilled at the use of the eyes to instill fear, silence, or compliance. Edmund had made an exhaustive study of which stares were most effective, and was pleased to note the gaze he flicked to the doctor worked like a charm.

“Did she say anything?”

“I…anything?” Doctor Hamfish looked panicked. “She spoke to me…fairly often. Usually to critique the effectiveness of my treatments, or —”

“Before she died. Did she say anything?”

“Ah,” the doctor nodded morosely. “You want to know her last words. I see, yes…forgive me. Yes, I had just finished providing her an injection of Mysoth’s Rhuminous Vitae, the perfect injection for providing a clean cycle of blood to any ailing organs. It had proven quite effective over the past month at providing her a more…energetic lifestyle, and with the beneficial side-effect of clearing her eye-sight. In fact, I am currently experimenting with the vitae as a possible cure for astigmatism in the left eye, as the current cure, Lady Rinwroth’s Perspectivous Powder, while satisfactory for right eyes, is currently —”

Edmund adjusted his stare.

“Yes…I…forgive me…I had just finished the injection, when she complained, yet again, about my care. Ahem. I believe she said…‘You are a quack of a doctor, I am not getting any better.’ I explained to her, as doctors often must, that even if she doesn’t feel better, or perhaps even if she feels worse, that this is not indicative of her health or well being. In fact, I could point to no less then seven metrics —” the doctor rummaged in his coat pocket, pulling out a notepad and pencil, “— where she was markedly healthier then most women at the age of sixty, let alone one of…well, regardless; my ministrations, I told her, were making her healthier.” There was a pause as the pleading look in the doctor’s eye faded to the familiar ember of obsequiousness.

“And then?”

“And then…” the doctor waved his hands in a clear what-can-you-do manner, “well, she laughed first, and then…bit of a snort, really…then, after snorting she said…‘is that so?’”

Edmund waited. “And?”

“And that was it. She closed her eyes, and…and there was nothing I could do.”

Edmund nodded as the churning emotions in his heart reordered themselves more comfortably. Knowing that she had remained bitter, cynical, and above all contrary up to the end made Edmund feel better.

“Times are changing, what?”

Edmund’s eyes flickered.

“Well,” the doctor stammered in a doomed attempt at camaraderie, “I only mean…the Great War and all that…”

Edmund knew the Hamfishes. They were a fairly well-born family, old money that could trace their lineage back to the earliest Queens of France. A Gentleman Doctor, the man reminded him more of General Ramsbutt than the street-doctors he knew from school. He was more gentry than physician. What did he know of change?

“Well,” the man rubbed his forehead, “I suppose that’s that. I will…of course…I…” Doctor Hamfish coughed again in a doomed attempt to ease the tension, “In the post, that is, I will…the bill will be…yes…”

Edmund cocked an eyebrow. “I believe we had an agreement.”

“Yes, of course. There were…that is…promises were made regarding my…well, while I in no way wish to disparage or discount the generosity the Moulde Family has shown our hospital in the past —”

“Our hospital, surely,” Edmund said.

“Yes…yes of course…only…for anyone else, the cost of over a year of personal in-house care would amount to over a hundred pounds…” his voice trailed off.

Edmund watched as the doctor squirmed. He was asking a member of the landed gentry to pay their bill. It was all happening so fast. Was Edmund too late?

“Well, I will…you obviously need time to…to…yes…”

Edmund watched as the doctor backed down the hallway, bobbing his head in proper conciliatory fashion. When he was out of sight, Edmund turned with the confidence of an employer of a well-trained servant to see Enga standing behind him.

While it is of common opinion that the smooth operation of any house is purely the duties of the head butler, modern science has given us the tools to reveal that it is, in fact, the mutual responsibility of the entire household to ensure proper and effective household management.⁵ “How are the others?” Edmund asked, in a scandalous display of employerly concern.

“Mrs. Kippling is currently in the kitchens, sir,” Enga said, her steady tone colored with only the hint of concern. “She has been inconsolable ever since she heard the news. I am led to believe she and Matron were quite close.”

“And your uncle?”

“I believe Ung is currently tending to the garden.” Her voice softened. “I know he wanted to be finished before Matron finally passed on.”

He had failed, then, Edmund thought. How painful that must be for him. Mrs. Kippling, as well; hadn’t her job been to keep Matron alive with her cooking, in a way? They had both failed, and Edmund…

Illnesses of the heart are as powerful a danger as any more familiar disease. Grief is as natural a process, if viewed more shamefully, as bleeding. Allowing a reasonable period of time for the patient to express their grief in a proper fashion can prevent later complications, such as irreparable cardiovascular damage.

Until this moment, Edmund had never realized what such “proper fashion” might entail. There were a great deal of books on proper emotive behavior for the upper class,⁶ but Lord Whainsburight’s Compleat Doctorat was perhaps unique in the medical lexicon in its treatment of the working class as anything more human than sausages.

Thankfully, Edmund had explored the Melancholic humors at Grimm’s, and was lucky to have seen their influence in the trenches of Harmingsdown. As a result, he had developed several expressions of grief that were codifiable, universal, and effective; though, sadly, there was no single prescription that were all three at once.

Edmund gave Enga a nod. “They may carry on, then.”

It was an option born from no options. While it hurt Edmund deeply to be unable to provide The Solution to his employees’ suffering, it would be irresponsible to intercede on their grieving without more preparation. He could trust Ung and Mrs. Kippling. They were solid servants who knew their place. They knew many things that Edmund didn’t know, such as how to cook and garden and clean and more besides. He had to trust that they knew how to grieve in a proper manner better than he did.

They had known their place, when Matron was alive. Now, she was gone. Had their place changed? What was Edmund’s place now that Matron was gone?

Edmund blinked. Enga was still looking at him.

“Was there something else?”

“Yes, sir,” Enga drew herself up again. “Mr. Shobbinton, your solicitor, arrived while you were in Matron’s room. He is currently waiting in the East Sitting Room to speak with you. He impressed upon me that it was a matter of great urgency.”

---

Mr. Shobbinton, the squat little solicitor who handled every legal issue for the entire Moulde Family,⁷ was more nervous than Edmund had ever seen him. His hands, normally so steady, moved back and forth across his bowler where he clenched it in front of his chest. His briefcase sat on the floor, while the man paced back and forth across the large room. It wasn’t that there were no places to sit; the Eastern Sitting Room was packed full of sofas, chairs, chez lounges, and any number of other exotic sitees. Nevertheless, the man’s legs worked furiously across the plush carpet.

At the sound of the large doors opening, the solicitor spun grabbed his briefcase and pulled out three pieces of paper. Whipping a pen from his vest pocket, he thrust both towards Edmund like a feeble sword and shield.

“Sign these! Now!”

“Mr. Shobbinton,” Edmund began, properly reciting the greeting he had practiced on many peers, nobles, and other visitors over the years. “How nice to see you again so soon. Can I get you a drink, or —”

“There is no time,” Mr. Shobbinton dropped the papers onto the nearest table and with a the practiced skill of a true solicitor. Taking Edmund’s arm, he guided him to the table. “You must sign this document at once. I came as quick as I could, but there were…unavoidable delays in acquiring the paperwork.”

A Moulde, Edmund knew, never admitted ignorance. At the same time, a Moulde would never sign anything they didn’t understand. Normally, this would result in a duel of words and wits as Edmund tried to suss out the facts without revealing his ignorance, but Mr. Shobbinton was too forthright a solicitor and too much in a hurry for the practice to seem worthwhile.

“What do you need me to sign?”

Mr. Shobbinton flushed red for a moment before taking a deep breath and linking his fingers together. “Matron Moulde has passed. In so doing, she has created a void at the apex of the Moulde Family. Sans atriarch. While monarchies and other similar hierarchies result in a natural progression from leader to heir, the Nine Founding Families have more legal, social, and personal responsibilities than any Monarch. The complexity of this arrangement is compounded by your…unique situation of not being a Moulde by birth or blood.”

“How did you know Matron was dead? I haven’t told anyone.”

“Any doctor worth their bag,” Mr. Shobbinton’s eyes narrowed, “will always contact the Family Lawyer before the next of kin when a Matron or Patron of the Nine Founding Families dies. It was only because of this professionalism that I was able to acquire the requisite documents so speedily. Please, sign.”

Edmund picked up the paper. He had only just started to read when the pen was shoved into his hands.

“I’m reading.”

“Master Moulde,” Mr. Shobbinton snapped, before taking another breath, “Sir…There are traditions, expectations, behaviors that you simply must follow. They are intricate, complex, and in many cases arbitrary to the point of absurdity. By all means, once the papers are signed you will be at liberty to peruse anything you like at your leisure, but leisure is precisely what we do not have at this moment.”

Edmund stared at the little man for a moment before taking the pen from his fingers, and signing each of the three pages.

With each paper signed, Mr. Shobbinton relaxed further and further. By the time Edmund had finished, Mr. Shobbinton was back to the familiar stoic solicitor that had saved Edmund from reprimand at his Military Tribunal.

“There,” the man plucked the papers and pen from Edmund’s grasp, slipping them into his briefcase.

“Was such haste really necessary?” Edmund cocked his head.

Mr. Shobbinton colored again before speaking. “In the thirteenth century, King Gustav the First of Germane was slain in a military campaign against the hated French. Due to the chaos of the battlefield, the haphazard nature of their book-keeping technology, and the King’s distressing habit of losing his Royal Helmet, this death went undiscovered and the Kingdom of Germane went without a Monarch for a year. People thought there was a King, they behaved as if there was a King, but there was no King. For an entire year dignitaries, officials, and nobles were turned away because the King ‘must have just stepped out for a moment.’ Crisis and catastrophes came unabated, rumor and assumption taking the place of edict and law. Their army split and fought three battles against itself, each side thinking they were fighting to protect a King that had died seven months earlier. If the crown prince had become king at the beginning of the year, instead of the end, the whole of European history might be changed for the better.”

Mr. Shobbinton leaned forward, placing his hands on Edmund’s. “The chaos of a year without a King is nothing compared to what will happen if the Moulde family goes without a Matron or Patron for a week.”

Edmund was about to press further when he realized what Shobbinton was telling him.

Mr. Shobbinton stood up from his chair, and replaced his bowler hat on his head. “I am certain you will find your condition greatly changed. If you require my services, please contact me as soon as possible.”

That had been it? Just signing three papers? Edmund had never asked anyone what becoming Patron entailed. He had expected a ceremony of sorts, or a ball. He had assumed there would be food and decorations and letters, always letters.

He thought he would have had more time to prepare.

“What do I do?”

Mr. Shobbinton stopped at the door, and looked back at Edmund where he sat in the middle of a maelstrom of furniture. “Be Patron,” he gave a pristine shrug. “As to what that entails, I cannot begin to imagine. For my own purposes, all I request is that you contact me first before you do anything…legal.”

The solicitor had almost closed the door when a moment of etiquette burst unbidden through Edmund’s lips. “Thank you, Mr. Shobbinton. You are free to go.”

“Yes,” Mr. Shobbinton’s eyes flashed to Edmund’s. “Farewell, Patron.” With a twist of his heel, the little man vanished as the door slammed shut behind him.

Silence.

Slowly, drawing out the moment as long as he could, Edmund pulled his ever-wound watch from his pocket and checked the time.

9:22 in the evening.

Two and a half hours. It had been two and a half hours since Edmund had stepped out of the carriage outside Moulde Hall, and walked up the steps. In two and a half hours he had gone from a war veteran, Grimm’s graduate, and Heir to one of the Nine Founding Families, to Patron.

Patron Edmund Moulde.

The minute hand quivered before the interlocking mechanisms deep in the watch gave way, allowing the hand to click onto the three.

It had all happened so fast.

Not even a quarter of a day. Not even an eighth. If he lived to be as old as Matron, he had over eighty years worth of full days to fill, and the past two and a half hours had felt like ninety.

The watch ticked loudly in the empty room. He had found the watch in the tomb of Orpha Moulde, the first Matron. The first Moulde, come to that. It was a watch invented and created by Plinkerton Moulde, the last great Moulde before the family began its decline. It never needed winding or repair. It ticked away, as steady and regular as a heartbeat, as it had for over a century.

It had been an inspiration for Edmund. It had shown him what a sharp mind and clever hands could create. Something that lasted. It had given him every idea for what to do with the Moulde Family.

But he had grown. He had learned. He had become a better scientist, a better poet, a better Moulde. Everything was different, now that he had grown. Everything was smaller.

Even he was smaller. When he was Heir he was a member of one of the Nine Founding Families. There were a lot of them; cousins, siblings, parents, grandparents, nephews and nieces. Now he was one of only nine: Nine Patrons and Matrons of the Founding Families. One of each. He was not just a Moulde, he was the Moulde.

And Matron? He had just signed her out of existence. Mr. Shobbinton had him put his name on a few papers, and he had replaced Matron as head of the Moulde Family. Now, he was alive and she was dead. He was Patron, and she was gone. Nothing.

He wasn’t ready.

In his room, sitting on his desk, was the skull of the first Moulde, Orpha. He had taken it from her tomb when he found the eight Writs of Investment that held the entirety of the Moulde Family’s fortune. He had used four of them already as leverage to insure his arranged marriage to Googoltha would be accepted. Four more remained, each worth its own fortune. Since Grimm’s he had known exactly what he was going to do with them once he became Patron…

He wasn’t ready.

He didn’t want to fail. Staggering through dark tunnels and catacombs, bumping his knees and scraping his hands; this was no way to find sanctuary. This was not how you plotted your way through a maze. This was no way to escape. You had to plan. You had to have a system. You needed logic and science and poetry to find your way out.

He wasn’t ready.

“Sir?”

Edmund looked up. Enga stood in the doorway.

“I expect you to knock before entering,” Edmund repremanded the stout woman.

“All due respect, I did, sir,” Enga said. “Three times.”

Edmund closed his watch again and returned it to his vest pocket. “What do you want?”

With a slowness that edged on glacial, Enga extended her arm. Gripped in her fingers was a small letter. “I was given instructions, sir. Once the papers were signed and Mr. Shobbinton had left.”

Edmund took the letter from her hand. It was sealed with black wax and the Moulde Family seal. Turning it over, Edmund’s name was clearly spelled out in a steady spidery hand. Matron’s hand.

Had Matron written to him? She had never sent Edmund a letter in his life; not while he was at Grimm’s, nor at the War. He had written her constantly, of course — it was expected of dutiful sons — but she had never returned the favor.

Matron had never written a casual letter in her life. She had told Enga to give it to him. She had given instructions. She had known she was dying, and would not see Edmund in time. Her biting comments to the doctor notwithstanding, it was this letter which held her final words.

Letters. Always letters. He ran his finger over the black seal.

“Would you like me to open it for you, sir?”

Edmund looked up at Enga, her face a perfectly placid face of calm and, above all, subservient attention. “I will read it later.”

When I can bear to read her words again. When I am ready to hear her voice again. When I have completed the task she set for me. When I have saved the Moulde’s once and for all, set our Family on the right path, and done everything she wanted of me to her satisfaction. When I am no longer afraid. Then will I open the letter, hear her voice, read her words, and stand in front of her proud and unashamed.

Edmund slipped the letter into his pocket.

Maybe someday, but not today.

He wasn’t ready yet.