Yes, yes, the world is my stage, and all that.

Lace measured out the delight on her face, and perfectly tuned the glee in her voice before she responded. "Gladly, Mother. She'll learn the price of trifling with her betters."

"She will. She will give her silk."

Lace understood when she was dismissed. She bowed again, and took her leave, her stride just as measured and graceful as when she arrived. Still she kept going after she left her mother's chamber, down past her flowers, down into the lower part of the Cogwork Core past the tempting bite of the gears. It was a fantasy of hers, that she might fling herself into them one day. But she would not be granted this release yet, and if things kept on this way, her chance would never come.

Instead, she took out her frustrating on the various cogwork creatures as she descended.

Now where did She hear that?

It hadn't been from Lace. She was well-practiced at guarding such blemishes of thought, and if she had made an error here, she would have been called to face her mother for a very different purpose.

That little fool of a spider…

The shell of a cogwork choirbug crunched as her pin pierced it.

What does she expect, truly?

It wasn't as though Lace had hoped. Not truly. But the spider had climbed so far—

At least this farce would be over soon enough.

* * *

Lace examined the contraption without real curiosity. She prodded it with the tip of her pin. Tilted it, tipped it up and around without touching it directly. This was what the spider and that spiral-shelled fool had wrought.

She felt her mother's gaze behind her own. Felt her own derision, and her triumph, as her closest-bound puppet stood before her enemy's only hope. Any of Lace's own sentiments were insignificant compared to these, and so Lace let them wash over her own.

Already the spider had arrived to challenge the Mother of Pharloom. Over her head, Lace heard her mother awaken.

Was she sorry to be here, alone in the dark, while the spider witnessed the very moment that Lace was born for?

Instead of considering the matter further, she brought her pin down on the trap. Once, then again, and again, until it was a mess of broken parts and wasted effort. This, she told herself, would ease any jealousy, and settle any resentment. This was her mother's victory.

Lace had, of course, been correct from the beginning.

So the spider began a battle that had already ended. She was truly pressing the monarch. As the fight went on, Lace was called upon wordlessly to wait in the wings The monarch had been reduced to tugging on the threads of her creation. It gave Lace a wonderful view of the proceedings, where she watched as the little spider dodge the blows she could and weather what she could not, and then return with twice what she had received. It soothed Lace's ego following her own loss. If this creature could force her mother so far, then perhaps—

Perhaps, if only—

Lace adjusted her grip on her pin. No. She had been correct. Whatever experiences the spider claimed to have, they were no good to her here, in this kingdom so long ensnared.

The spider struck what could have been a final blow soon enough. Lace watched as she sprang to land on the monarch's shell, and raised her needle.

And began, as she sometimes did, to strum a song. Lace had to choke back laughter.

It wasn't as though she didn't understand the intent. She recognized a rune-trigger at once. But the thought of the poor spider, plucking away aimlessly at her instrument, was nearly too much for Lace to bear in silence.

The spider was no — well, she was, demonstrably, a fool, but she was a quick study. The moment she realized something was wrong, she plunged her needle down to pierce the Grand Mother's shell instead. Silk lashed around her; power stirred the air. Whatever desperate ploy this was, it drew a beastly roar from her mother.

Lace had not been told, but she recognized her cue. She leapt from her hiding place, and her pin pierced the spider's back cleanly as she sailed forward, knocking her from her divine perch and sending them both to the walkway.

Lace landed in a neat movement, pulling her pin from her foe's shell and brandishing it to remove the worst of the blood. She had gone through a few sheets of lung tissue, if she wasn't mistaken. Hornet scrabbled at the ground, gasping, choking as her own blood filled her throat. Still she fought to stand, fought for purchase on her needle.

Lace sighed. She leaned down to meet the spider's gaze. "This is goodbye, little spider. I can't say it was a pleasure to meet you, but you were entertaining, so I suppose I ought to thank you for that."

Then her mother's claws came down, and plucked the spider from the ground. Lace bowed to her.

"Child… Daughter."

Lace remained, frozen. That was her mother's voice. A real voice, speaking aloud.

"You have done well."

Lace almost forgot to respond. But then she recalled what was expected of her, what would be wanted as that impossibility still reverberated along her threads. "Thank you, Mother. I wished only to serve you."

She received no answer. Instead, her mother — the body of her, the full being of her — withdrew higher into the Cradle, with the Weaver-child in her grasp.

But she heard it still: You have done well.

Lace found that this was enough satisfaction, for the moment.

* * *

The awakened god leaned in to examine the figure in the rune cage, who stared back into her blank face with open defiance. She had been relieved of her needle and her cloak. Her wound had been healed, after a fashion. Not bound. A seal had been placed over it instead; her blood contained behind a bright rune of silken light. It was enough to keep her alive, but the surrounding flesh began to throb as shock wore off.

"At last. The child returns."

The voice rasped, rough from disuse, but it held power. A mortal would have been grovelling, pleading for mercy or perhaps promising worship, depending on their nature.

Hornet was of a different character entirely. She answered, her own voice bold and her tone even, "I am no child of yours. I know you. False mother. They called you a liar, when they spoke of you."

"Liar? Oh…" The monarch sighed. "They were cruel to me. Did you not see… Weaver-child? Their workings…"

"As cruel yours over those in your power."

The monarch did not move, and continued as if Hornet had not spoken. "They bound me, too, child. Confined. Controlled. The cage where you reside is their make, not mine. But my children were clever… As much as they were treacherous…"

"You and they made your choices." Hornet extended a claw, testing the bounds of the cage. It glow, bright and steady. "Enough. I care not for your ruminations. What is it you want from me?"

The monarch sighed again. "You care not… As they… You are…"

"Answer me. What do you want?"

"You are as they."

A long, rattling hiss. One arm unfolded at last, claws reaching down to hook into the top of the cage and yank it aloft. Hornet staggered, falling into the back of the cage. Vertigo swept through her, her head ringing from the impact, but she gained a grip on the ornamental curve of a bar and steadied herself to glare into the face of her captor.

"You are as they. Cruel creature. Uncaring. Ungrateful."

"What gratitude would you expect, Old One?"

"Impertinence. Impertinence. Why…? Was I… truly… such an unworthy mother?"

"So it appears, by the state of your children."

A shriek, a great crash, echoing on and on together. Metal on stone, shell on metal as the cage struck the ground with all the force the god could put into the throw. Hornet landed on her back, stunned. The cage, with its rune-seal, was undamaged. The crash echoed on and on discordant with the monarch's shriek, vibrations ringing through Hornet's battered shell, such that the impact never seemed to cease.

She wailed, "You dare…? You do not know. Did not see. They were unworthy. They were ungrateful. They did not deserve my gift. Daughterhood. You do not…"

A sharp, breathy sound, not unlike a sob.

"Spawn of theirs. You are no daughter."

A silence, too long. Hornet righted herself, and faced her captor again. When Hornet failed to react, the monarch said at last, "You are no daughter… You do not deserve the gift, either… What to make of you, then?"

"It matters not. Whatever you do, whatever you try, this I vow: I will be your end."

"We… shall see. Come, beast."

All silk, and all creatures of silk, were the Grand Mother's in truth. This much, the Weaver-spawn would learn. And that would be the end of the false daughters' dreams of power. At last.

At last.

* * *

The moment did not last. Such was in the definition. At first, it was as though nothing at all had changed.

Pilgrims climbed on and up toward the Citadel, ignorant that only more terrors awaited them there. The kingdom's slow strangulation progressed. Pharloom ground on in the Haunting's thrall.

It took Lace longer than she would have cared to admit to notice that something had changed, beyond the realm of her own personal upended world. Though she'd been left to her own devices again, the praise she had received still rung in her head, more persistent in its rhythm than any bell forged in Pharloom.

Once she spotted the change, she wondered if any pilgrims had noticed: no one had been afflicted with the Haunting since her mother awoke.

That wasn't to say the kingdom was safe. No victims had been released, and the puppets that prowled the kingdom were as vicious as always. But more and more made it to the Citadel, and their minds remained their own. They wandered in, alert and afraid and elated all at once, through the gate that the spider had so rudely left open.

And, of course, as far as the dangers of Pharloom were concerned, Lace remained. She picked off a few of the louder pilgrims, those whose echoing voices grated on her the most.

It brought her little pleasure. With each fool she felled, she saw the spider's broken shell before her again. The blood on the walkway. The scratching of claws on the stone. The limp shape of her — small, pathetic, and utterly helpless in her mother's grip.

As they all were. The spider had thought herself above it, and learned otherwise.

The parameter of her patrols shrank. She stayed nearer and nearer to the Cradle, even as she rarely dared to enter, and certainly never climbed higher than the flowerbed. She did not expect to be called upon again. But she wished to know her mother's plans, if she could find out. At least she could be nearby when her mother acted at last.

So Lace found herself on a shorter leash than she'd known in an age, by her own claw. Strangely, however, she did not want for company. Each cycle, for at least a toll and sometimes longer, the same pilgrim came to the Core. He would sit at the base of the gilded Conductor to pray or play his chimes.

She considered killing him each time, of course. He didn't seem like the type who would fare well in what was to come. One cycle, she slipped closer, leaning against the back of the statue as he sang, ignorant of his own impending demise, unaware that he should be grateful for the mercy she might grant.

But then, all the worse for him, she heard his song clearly. A little nonsense rhyme asking the kingdom itself to protect his dear friend: the Red Maiden. Lace had to stifle her giggling with a claw, and it still wasn't quite enough.

"Oh? Is someone there?" The little pilgrim peered about, pushing himself up from the floor.

Lace scoffed silently at her own idiocy, and leapt back up into the elevator shaft.

Still, isn't that interesting?

If the bugs of the kingdom had noticed the change in the Haunting, none of them mentioned it in her hearing. The absence of a certain red-cloaked beast, however, was often remarked upon. So many had placed their hopes in her, and she had unwittingly betrayed them all. Now, here was one who came all this way, each cycle, for her.

He couldn't know she wouldn't be returning, poor creature. She wondered how long he would he would wait.

* * *

He endured better than she had expected. She lurked out of sight, as was her wont, listening to him. Sometimes she still ventured out into the kingdom herself, and see what there was to learn — did part of her hope she might discover something worth bringing to her grand mother's attention, to bring her own wait to an end? To loose some of this tension tangling in her strings?

Nothing arose, but the pilgrim would be there when she left and, more and more often, was still there when she returned. It seemed that the spider's lengthening absence only made him more determined. He just couldn't give her up for dead, when most of the whisperers had accepted it by now: the fabled Red Warrior was no more. Some had even started to wonder if she had ever been.

Finally, the cycle came when she had to admit he'd outlasted her — not by virtue of will or strength, but because she couldn't take another beat of those chimes, nor stand his futile prayers at her doorstep any longer. She called down to him.

"You're wasting your song, pilgrim. A sinful thing, in this kingdom."

"What? What do you mean?" He looked up this time, following the sound of her voice, and asked what really should have been his first question: "Who are you?"

Lace slipped down from the statue to land gracefully before him. "Who am I… To you? The bearer of a terrible truth."

"And what is that, white spirit?"

"Spirit?" She laughed. "How charming. Heed me, then, little mortal. I bring news of your precious red maiden."

"What are the tidings, then?" His tone was more subdued now, and yet the question was real, as if he could have missed the implication of her words. He truly still hoped. She pitied him for it.

"If you are to pray for her, you would do better to pray for her death. That is the kindest fate she might have met, by now."

He was silent for a long moment, weighing her words. Then, he said, "So it may be that she yet lives. Though it was not your intent, how could I hear that and not take heart?"

She considered him in return. "How? You've seen this place. You've walked its halls. Unless you've been robbed of your sense by some malignance beyond even the Haunting's power, you know its cruelty."

"Yes," he admitted. "As well… I know many who have chosen to do all that they can in the face of it."

"Such as your Red Maiden?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "Though not only her. I have climbed beside my siblings and seen them strive."

"Is that what you think?" Lace pressed, "And do you think she's out there somewhere, even now, striving?"

"I do. If she does live. So… though I appreciate your advice, I'll continue to pray for her."

"Oh, dear. I see…" She sighed theatrically. "Why does no one ever listen to me?" She raised her pin, and tested the tip with one claw, thoughtful. "I was going to kill you, but I'm not feeling so merciful, anymore. I'll let you live — perhaps you'll have a chance to learn your own folly."

The pilgrim swallowed heavily, and stepped back, bumping into the Architect's frozen form. "I suppose I will, then. But I hope… I hope you find something that lets you take heart, too."

Lace laughed. Her voice echoing coldly from the metal all around, and the little pilgrim flinched. She offered him a mocking bow. "Why, thank you, thank you. You truly are very charming. I hope… Hm. I hope your death is swift, when it finds you, though I fear you've missed your chance."

She left him with these words, springing onto the Architect's head, and from there, back to the Cradle and her flowers.

* * *

True to his word, the bug continued to make his own miniature pilgrimage to the Red Maiden's last known whereabouts. Lace left him to his empty prayers, but the cycles were beginning to gnaw at her.

What is Mother thinking?

She was tending to her garden when the monarch chose to reveal this to her.

The flowers, in truth, required little attention. They were no more alive than Lace was, but their fragile petals were vulnerable to tearing, or being ripped from their stems in gusts of steam. It did not require much silk to repair them, only a deft touch, and so it had been given to Lace to keep the garden beautiful for her mother.

It was her mother's garden, really, but it was one of a few things that Lace couldn't help thinking of as her own. Did she not have a claim to it, as its keeper? And so it was not only for her mother's sake that she gave the flowers at least the minimum of attention required to maintain their beauty.

She knelt among them, bent over one that had lost some of its petals. She cupped the bloom in her claws, weaving it back to fullness as the thread unspooled from her wrists. She concentrated on the warp and weft of a single petal at a time, ensuring the perfection of each.

She despised the task, whoever she did it for. But the focus and time it required was nearly a welcome respite, by then.

What is Mother thinking?

The answer startled her from her work.

"Daughter."

Her mother had come to see her.

The only sign of her shock showed in the unspooling threads; they yanked on her wrists when she stopped suddenly, and the petal's edge cut off raggedly. She snapped the threads quickly, and plucked the petal off in the same movement. Better a complete absence than a visible imperfection.

She rose to her hindclaws, and bowed. "Grand Mother, it is an honor to know your magnificence."

She had planned the words carefully, long ago, though she had never thought to speak them here — indeed, she'd come to doubt she would speak them at all.

They seemed to please the monarch. "Rise, Daughter."

Lace did, and looked into her mother's open eyes. Six of them, softly glowing. It took all of her will to stay standing, and she wondered if perhaps she should have let her knees give, if she should have allowed her mother to see her own force and revel in it. But Lace had risen at her command, and she received a nod of approval.

"Yes… it is… wonderful. To see you." She extended a claw. Lace held perfectly still as the tip caressed her face. Lace felt acutely the pit in her chest. Under her mother's touch, surprisingly delicate, she understood just how hollow she was.

You've not once seen me— But it would not help her now to dwell on it. Her mother had come for her. Should she not be grateful? She knew what it meant that she wasn't, too, but that knowledge would serve her even less.

It was clear her mother was focused on her own intent, anyhow. She was already speaking, "I have a gift for you, Daughter."

"Oh!" Lace gushed, and the vibration of the sound in her throat allowed her to imagine what it would be like to vomit. "Truly, Mother? For me?"

"All for you. Yes. For your service, a reward." She drifted to one side, revealing a figure standing in her wake.

Robed in white trimmed with gold, long horns cowled and face veiled with the symbol of the Citadel — that enemy sign her mother had claimed for herself. A thick golden collar circled their throat, with a heavy chain gleaming along its length from them to her mother's claws. And in their claw—

A weapon. A needle.

But gilded now, not unlike Lace's pin.

"Oh, Mother…" Lace did not conceal her disbelief. Easier to let it be known as wonder, than to fully mask her revulsion.

"Present yourself, Beast."

The spider stepped forward. There was no need for the monarch to use the chain. She came willingly, stopped in front of Lace, and dropped onto one knee before her. The spider said, "My lady. It is my honor to serve you."

"Yes. She will serve. She has been… most useful… And now I bestow her power unto you. Your whims will be her will. Your protection… her purpose. She is your Knight."

"Oh, Mother," Lace repeated, forcing her gaze away from the creature poised obediently before her. "A grand gift, indeed. You have my most ardent thanks."

The monarch reached out, and patted Lace on the head. Lace curtsied, but the touch descended with her. The claws were removed only when Lace straightened. Then, her mother offered the end of the chain to Lace. Lace took it, curled her claw around it and let it rest at her side. So the gift was given. So the spider was to be hers, now and, she could only imagine, always.

The monarch proclaimed, "Good… Daughter… For your service. For your loyalty. If she dissatisfies you… you have only to tell me."

"Of course. Thank you, Mother. Thank you."

The monarch nodded again. Lace's fawning had been accepted. "We will speak soon. We will tell you of what is to come."

With these parting words, the monarch took her leave.