“Tell me, Peruere, daughter of my hearth if not my blood, if I were to extend that same soft hand to you, what would you do? Would you succeed in rising above the instinct, the bait, and escape the web as Clervie continues to fail to? How do you think your nature would react to my design if I were to put you in her position?”

Peruere met Mother’s eyes, stomach warm and full with meat freshly butchered and tenderized by Peruere’s own hand, as befitting Peruere’s own nature and design.

“I would bite the hand.”

Mother smiled, pleased and satisfied like a beast, settling back into the shadows of the evening. Content to be right.

“And as you are, you would lose. Do you understand, Peruere?”

Peruere, not yet ready to become the Knave and not realizing that this is what she was going to become, nodded, settling back into her own shadows. Not content. But slowly beginning to grasp the shape of the design needed to get there.

“Very good. Finish everything. Mine is not a house that tolerates waste.”