“And why am I to remain? What possible reason could there be? Am I being punished because I didn’t finish my peas last night?”

Dray appeared to wince at her sharpening temper, or maybe he was just squinting after the fashion of his sewer-dwelling cousins. “The emperor did not say.”

Farilane was all but certain that was a lie. Not that she felt her grandfather and the rat were so close that no secret could squeeze between them, but rather how Dray’s squinting eyes slipped off her own as he answered. Shadows couldn’t face direct sunlight, and falsehoods couldn’t bear the weight of a stare.

Again, his nose twitched, and this time he reached up and rubbed it. His fingernails were dirty, edged in black as if he’d been digging in fertile soil. Perhaps the enchantment followed the fabled sort where the rat-man did a periodic switch following some arbitrary lunar cycle. Dray might have been out running with the pack the night before, digging for choice morsels of garbage. Perhaps this was how he had landed the esteemed position. Maybe the entire Imperial Council was one homegrown rat pack summoned in disguise, called to balance on two legs in order to employ their particular expertise in service of the empire.

He’s just so odd.

His peculiarity was not restricted to his appearance. His voice was a raspy, nasal drone emitted from behind a dominant set of central incisors that were hemmed in by a tiny, puckered mouth. At frequent intervals, he licked at his lips and sucked on those massive front teeth, producing a sound not unlike a baby bird’s cheep. And he blinked as if she were blowing smoke in his eyes. Even after drawing himself up to face her with as much dignity as he could muster, the man remained hunched with his arms slightly bent as if they were incapable of hanging straight. His hands were in constant motion since she entered the office. He rubbed thumb against fingers, as if trying to eliminate some awful substance on his skin.

How did one such as he get appointed to such a principal position?

Farilane couldn’t recall when Dray had been appointed. She remembered that the First Minister before him was a fellow named Blaine, or some such. She couldn’t keep up with all the names, as each served for only a few decades before being replaced. She also had no interest in the careers of the Imperial Council, the handful of administrators who oversaw the actual running of the empire. Their lives were a miserable gray drag of meaningless words and invisible martyrdom. They were weathervanes that followed the current wind direction, stood for nothing, and created only obstacles both for themselves and others. Bureaucracy was built as a bulwark against change, as shelters for bureaucrats to hide behind.