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“Then why are you…you, and why a around completely

“Because I gave up trying to please him, and you never did I honestly don’t think you ever cared about any of this” I wave to the walls around us “With every new endeavor, there’s always the hope that you will find happiness, be less lonely Let n, you become loneliest person in all the worlds, because there is no new endeavor, no new height to which you can ascend Whatever loneliness is already inside you is h to have anyone understand you before, they won’t understand you after you sit in the Morning Chair Only one person alive at a tin”

He traces the lines in the lance back at the flowers There could be one alive on the other side of the vase

“Do you knohy I did this?” he asks “I did it because Lilath told me it was the only way I could see you You would kill me if you were not at my mercy, I know You think I a to esture, even if it isn’t a kindness”

“Do you hate her?” I ask him “Lilath”

He replies with a slight pause and no inflection in his voice “On the day she took ht I asked Lilath to build me an iron cow She built me the iron wolf instead, as I knew she would One day soon, I will melt her inside it”

I forget the flowers and stare at him “Why?”

“Because she doesn’t understand irony”

He means it, and he doesn’t sound upset, proud, or even excited about it “And doing that would make you feel happy?” I ask

“It doesn’tIt is just an opportunity for novelty”

To do that to Lilath, who gave birth to hiht when he cried as a baby, who trained him to walk, to speak, to read, seems in the moment to be the cruelest act I have ever heard My brother wasis just bored

“Just likethe Republic eat itself?” I ask

“Indeed” He smiles, pleased “I knew if anyone could understand h he may have been So I could see this cruelness Look in the eye Sly breath To see if I felt it”

“Felt what?”

“Evil What precipice of thethan a cruel father?”