Carlyle collapsed at once and vomited into the trash can, which waited by the door for victims such as we. She convulsed over it, wriggling like a half-crushed maggot as her body usurped the mind’s control in its desperate need to purge itself. Hot tears followed the waste, forced out by the violence her muscles did to themselves. She fought, not to rise, not even to stop retching, but just to breathe.

‘She,’ Mycroft? For Carlyle thou meanest ‘he.’

No, reader, I refuse. It is wrong, this pronoun they commanded me to force on her, they who are so proud to number the prince and heir of la Trémoïlle among their playthings, but it is wrong. Look at this kind and tender Cousin, her giving smile, her flowing wrap, her courage strengthened daily by the knowledge that her existence helps so many others. Has Carlyle made one choice in all this history that does not declare the strong and beauteous ‘she’? I will not erase Carlyle’s choices anymore, not in deference to this mad law, revived in Madame’s antique pageant world, that only penises inherit. Let censors change the pronoun later if they wish; I shall lie no more. And you, reader, you need Carlyle to be ‘she’ here too. Do you remember when you first smelled the rot? When alien Danaë, armored in the extinct pelt of ‘woman,’ drew forth my secrets? Perhaps your better age is finally past it, reader, but my society—despite our neuter efforts—still shoves gender down our throats, imbibed in toddlerhood when a child whom the adults label ‘girl’ gets chided just a little more for getting her nice clothes muddy than a child we see as ‘boy’ and associate with snails and muddy puppy tails. The residue of ancient archetypes embedded deep in Mycroft Canner knew that I was supposed to become the shining knight when Danaë presents the tearful princess. That learned, unconscious chivalry made me helpless before her, and you would not have understood why if I had not given Danaë her ‘she.’ Just so you need it here, Dominic’s overwhelming ‘he’ as Carlyle’s ‘she’ responds with that tender, honest, feminine goodness which makes this fell bloodhound smell prey. Carlyle is a thousand times stronger than I, fights back where I surrendered, but it is still millennia she battles, the learned detritus of millennia, deep inside her.

Are these thy true motives, Mycroft? Thou claimest that this sudden switch to ‘she’ is for my better understanding, but this feels more like thy prejudice, that, because Carlyle is the victim here, thou seest suddenly the ‘weaker sex’ and concoctest these excuses to justify thy change.

I wish I could prove you wrong, reader. When I ask myself why I reach for ‘she’ here it feels as if it is for you, your better understanding, and for Carlyle, respecting her choice to be a Cousin. Those motives feel so real. But I cannot be certain these are not veneer over some grosser instinct. The poison of millennia is in me too.