Bare feet padded away at the never-ending flight of spiral stairs. Up, up, up, always up. Always chasing after the whims of its master. For it was an it, now. Once a person, torn down piece by infinitesimally small piece one day at a time, until all that remained was the crooked, wretched form of the elf who once was.

It only just barely remembered his name, if only to better serve his master. Hard to perform the duties required if he had to constantly address you as 'thing' or 'wretch', it supposed. The name, too, was there for the master's sake, rather than its own.

None of that mattered now. News had arrived, and the master must hear of it. So, he climbed the stairs of the clock tower, up and up in a neverending spiral that ticked ticked ticked away at the last scraps of his sanity ohgodthetickingmakeitstop-

It's sanity slipped momentarily, only to snap back like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point. As it had many times before already.

A door appeared before it, and without hesitation it entered. This building was a maze, a tomb twisted by its master to torture it for its own amusement. It mattered not which door it took, only that it kept going until it was done being played with.

Fortunately, that time would come sooner today than it did most days. News had a way of bringing precious respite to its madness. News days were good days.

If it didn't deliver the news, the ticking would not stop.

Door after door crashed open, the wretch nearly breaking out into a four-legged sprint in its haste. Clockwork halls everywhere it looked, unfathomable machinery of brass and steel moving with a synchronized purpose beyond its understanding. Stopping it would not work. It had tried to, once. That was the day it learned to fear the ticking.

His rush was aimless, but getting closer. The master willed it to be so. Soon, it would reach the blessed presence-

…

-And there it was. The throne which he found salvation in. The precious, singular floor of safety he could find within this entire cursed clock tower. The room where the master observed his kingdom from on high.

"Ah, Quincy," a low, baritone voice addressed him. "You seem eager to arrive, as usual."

It was eager. This room was safe. The clock in this room did not tick. It tolled, and only in times of great upheaval for the outside world. The master could see it all from his throne, facing the far wall, peering through the clock face as he always did to the city streets outside.

If he could just break the glass, he could be…

No. The master would do more than hurt it for breaking his precious clock. Hurt it almost as much as he might for failing to deliver the news promptly.

"I-it's the Omen Stones, sir," Quincy rasped through crooked, scarred lips. Strands of greasy white hair fell in front of his eyes, and he hunched low in submission to the back of the throne. Between the pallid tone of his skin and the knobby ridges of his spine protruding from his bare hunched back, one would be forgiven in mistaking him for a vampire at first glance.

It was no vampire. It was the master's servant, and would be for… for…

Quincy shook off the thoughts, continuing to give the news.

"The Interstice has lost contact with one of them entirely, and another has been…"

"Has been what?", the master demanded. There was a visceral noise of loud chewing from the far side of the throne, where the master's body and face were obscured.

"W-well, at first it looked like another would be returned, too… but… we were only able to intercept the passage of one soul…"

"...Quincy."

"Y-yes, sire?"

"Are you telling me you let a Devil slip through our grasp?!" The master bellowed in rage, casting aside the remains of its meal. The remnant stump of a pale, bony arm hit an alcove on the far wall with a wet splat, black blood oozing from the severed limb.

"N-no, master! I-I have been vigilant as always, I promise! The window for it to return closed before a second soul came through, I swear!"

The master chittered angrily, a sound that felt like insects crawling in the folds of his brain. Cowering even further, it fully expected his wrath to be forthright, but to his surprise he calmed down.

"If I come to discover that at any point, you have hidden a failure from me," it threatened, "then I will ensure you spend a full month locked away in the Heart."

If Quincy could have gotten any paler, he would have. "No, please, your Princeliness! Anything but the Heart!"

Tremors shook its entire body, which the master silenced with a dismissive wave of the hand.

"Be still. I will trust you, for now," he declared reluctantly. "Now, which Devil has the Shroud subsumed?"

"T-the Eighth one, sir. Yes. Very clearly, it was the Eighth one."

The master let out a noise of unbridled curiosity. "Guillaume? I would have thought him too shrewd to bond with his Omen Stone. Cared about keeping his options open too much, from what I remember."

"T-there might be a reason for that," Quincy continued, still trembling. "The other Devil who'd been affected was the Fourth, the one supposedly working for him."

"Working… is a clumsy way of putting it." The master hummed again at the revelation. "Strange that Dufresne's would be destroyed, and not the Harpy's, though. I would have expected whoever it was to have done those the other way around."

"I… I cannot begin to speculate, your lordship."

A grunt in concession. "Very well. You've done well today, Quincy. Check the webs on your way out, and do try to see if we've caught anything better than vampires this time. I know options have been limited while we bide our time, but these creatures are too lean and stringy to be of any real substance."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Y-yes sir! At once, sir!"

Quincy scrabbled away into the tower immediately. The master heard the door shut behind him, and he pressed two fingers to his brow as he ruminated in the blessed silence once again. In the peace of his own throne room, The Mad Prince let out a groan of equal parts frustration and relief.

"Finally," he lamented to no one in particular.

"I thought those layabouts would never gotten anything done, at this rate. At least some parts of the grand design are paying off."

An intricately carved bronze mask, molded into the shape of a face, was lifted off the armrest at his side and affixed tightly. Fitting like a second skin, it attached to his own face, staring lidlessly down at the ruined world around him like the tragedy it was.

"You'd think that they'd all have more than enough reasons to kill each other. I haven't been slowly encroaching on their territory for nothing, after all. But no, there's only ever been half-hearted attempts to poke and prod each other, more worried about their own fiefs than any actual claim to rule. Evidently, resources are less scarce than I'd previously assumed."

He stood up, walking to the edge of the glass pane that comprised the clock face. The frosted pale white lost its opacity as he approached, providing a clear view of the empire he'd created.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have killed so many in the Kennel… that might have allowed them to stretch their stashes much further..."

Below, a blanket of white silk threads spanned a considerable stretch of the riverbank. The glass flickered, and next was the view of Buckingham palace, torn asunder by his escape and covered in much the same morass of spiderweb. As far as he cared to extend in any direction, London City was his.

One question gnawed at the back of his mind, as he turned away from the view. Pacing over to the alcove he'd discarded his meal to before, he picked off the remains of the severed arm and wiped the smeared blood off the surface of the object of importance inside.

Exactly who was the first in Hallow London to kill a Devil permanently?

A few options, he immediately ruled out. Himself, though that one was obvious. Suicide was also quickly crossed off, and considering the Harpy was most likely attacked, too, that meant there were 10 Devils – and maybe a few powerhouse beasts or that infernal suit of armor the humans paraded about – who might be the culprit.

Was it the Constable? Perhaps… Though the level of collateral damage would suggest the Ammokhan, or… maybe the Pharaoh has emerged from hiding again? It's been a while since I've seen any trace of that old…

There it was again. That odd sensation of forgetting something, but remembering that there was something you forgot. Leaving you floundering as you tried to grasp the loose threads of the memory, only to slip through your fingers like cobwebs in the wind.

Who else have I not seen recently…?

Truthfully? Not many of Hallow London's prominent figures. Most didn't willingly go seeking out the so-called Mad Prince, despite the infamy that title provided. The only frequent visitor in recent memory would be…

No…

He traced a finger along the edge of the perfectly smooth, coffin-shaped gemstone the alcove contained. Coffin sized, too. It was made of a flawless, semi-translucent stone, similar to sapphire in coloration but impervious to everything he'd thought to throw at it thus far. Even his true, glorious non-human form had been unable to even scratch the surface of it. An interesting test, but one he went to great lengths to ensure that his outcome was final.

Because, also like a coffin, there was a body contained inside the seamless gem, too. One of his most valuable possessions, the key to holding the Shroud in place for far longer than its original creators had intended.

Long enough to uplift him to the undisputed King of Hallow London, and later the world.

"Surely, it wasn't you who killed him…"

The still body inside remained motionless, of course. It lay in perfect, peaceful rest within, sunken eyes closed beneath a messy mop of raven black hair. His hands lay clasped on his chest like an open casket funeral, and peeking out from beneath the bottom-most palm was the treasure he must keep away from its rightful owner at all costs.

Thirteen-sided, malformed, and pulsing pitch-black with ominous energies. The Omen Stone of the Last Devil.

< -|- -|- >

3 days after the battle...

"Good evening ladies and Gentlemen… whoever might be left, anyways… but it would seem a lot has happened in the past half week or so.

First and foremost, I would like to announce the official dissolution of the Gentleman's Club. Yes, you heard that right, Gentleman Pirate Radio is no more. Well… technically. Robb Huxley and his selection won't be gone for good, don't you worry your pretty little heads about that.

That being said, we will have to once again go off the air in short order, here. Only temporarily, mind you. We at the station apologize that we are unable to meet the unwavering standards of the BBC, the generous unwitting sponsors we boosted this equipment from, but hey, you can't win 'em all, right?

So, before we leave once again, this song goes out to all those who managed to make it through a night that brought low such prominent figures as Mr. Guillaume Dufresne and his trusty subordinate, the Harpy of Woolwich. Tonight, we have all weathered a great storm, and with any luck, we will live to weather many more. Here's 'Float On'…"

As it turned out, the mysterious figure who'd stuffed himself in a locker had been none other than the radio host himself. They'd each given each other a proper scare on finding each other – Robb because he thought he was about to die, Henry because Robb really hadn't lied about the whole having a face for radio thing – but they'd somehow gotten through the surprise meeting with only a little bit of panic.

So, at the end of it all, he found himself seated on one of the spare chairs in the radio station, watching the man responsible for the best selection of music in Hallow London work his magic. It didn't involve enchantments, inscriptions or any flashy lights past what could be provided by good old-fashioned electricity, but… it was captivating nonetheless. Even as shocked as the man was to still be alive, he continued his work like nothing had ever happened. Carrying on simply because the audience didn't need to know the details.

At long last, Henry felt like he was in an environment where he had a proper chance to unwind both physically and mentally. The past week had taken a serious toll on him, one that would take some time to recover from fully, but… he could manage, in the meantime. There was plenty left to sort out between now and their planned exodus with Martin's crew, after all.

He let out a deep, contented breath. Things were still far from okay, no doubt about it, but… they were better. Just a bit.

Martin actually had swung by the day after the final battle, after he'd broken the news to them all that Evelyn had died in the fighting. They'd insisted on coming up to the roof the moment word got around, and there'd been a small, but tasteful funeral for her with what little they could manage to scrounge up.

Unfortunately, with the state of the building making condemnation look like a mercy killing, they currently had no way of moving her to be buried at street level. Instead, they'd improvised, making something like a planter box on the roof to lay her to rest in, before the few gathered Earth mages summoned layer after layer of loose, piney soil over her for the one Flora mage in the group to bring a singular rose to bloom within.

The 8-Ball really had done wonders for their innate talents. That same mage could barely make a seed sprout when she'd first introduced herself. The level of finesse she'd managed to work out of it, if this artifact were applied on a vast scale, could probably put the Liverpool Institute of Domain Magic out of business in a year flat. Conservatively.

After the mages had finished their work, they'd said a few prayers more and left her to rest. Her body still lie just outside the radio station, at the closest point to the sky that Stratford had to offer. Part of him couldn't shake the feeling that she would have liked that. He had no reason to be so certain, but every time he thought about it…

His hand wandered to the crystal pendant around his neck. The four-sided black stone had been carefully encased in a glass coating and attached to a thin chain by getting Martin to pull a few strings, but it had been… worth it? The loss didn't feel so bad, when he'd decided to take steps to bring that small piece of her along with him.

After all… it's the least I can do…

Henry yawned. He was getting tired. And, frustratingly, still short a proper night's sleep. Maybe this time, if he just closed his eyes and nodded off…

His eyelids began to droop, and before long he was snoring peacefully, leaning back in the chair.

…Only for one of the various hodgepodge machines near his ear to begin hissing loudly with static. Henry woke with a start, realizing that he actually had managed to doze off, because Robb had retired for the night and the inside of the station was completely dark. A single red light, with a sticky note attached to it lit up.

The note, in blocky handwriting, simply read 'Caller on hold'.

What?

Save for the radio slowly churning through the queue, and this one console with a headset attached, nothing else was running. And, if he listened carefully enough, it almost sounded like he could make out…

...Voices?

Cautiously, he puts the headset on and adjusts the microphone so that he could speak into it properly. Unsure of what exactly he was doing, he thumbed a red switch simply labeled 'BROADCAST'.

"...Hello?"

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