The Anonymous faced the others. “This is why the police have had me in protective custody the last four days. They found this letter in Mycroft’s things and thought I might be targeted as well.” He backed away from my cage, and, with a clearer view, I recognized Andō Mitsubishi on the couch beside Ganymede, his black hakama stark against the sumptuous hall.

“That’s why they wouldn’t let me see you?” The voice let me recognize Cousin Chair Bryar Kosala, hoarse with tears. She was huddled on a couch, resting against Gordian’s Headmaster Felix Faust, as a niece rests against an uncle. “That’s why you’ve been locked away?”

“I’m sorry, Bryar, they wouldn’t let me tell you.” The Anonymous went to her and lifted her into his embrace. “They didn’t want anyone to know that they knew Mycroft knew.”

The Anonymous still wore his outside clothes, tiger-striped with the wrinkles of his captivity, which Kosala ruined further as she pressed against him.

My mind raced as I counted: the Anonymous, the King of Spain for Europe, Chair Kosala for the Cousins, Headmaster Faust for Gordian, Duke Ganymede for the Humanists, Director Andō for the Mitsubishi… six of the seven pillars of the Earth stood before me here, in black together like a bash’ in mourning. It was wrong. I had been in the Twenty-Fifth Century that morning, yet here I found myself in a world of petticoats and incest. I was not some amateur. I was trained by the Mardi bash’, by Senator Aeneas Mardi, by Deputy Censor Kohaku Mardi, by Felix Faust’s prize pupil Mercer Mardi, by Apollo. I knew more of the world than the world did, its trends, its fears, the currents churning beneath the ripples of property and population. Yet, of these secret relationships between the Powers—Ganymede and Andō, Kosala and the Anonymous—I had no idea. My teachers, my great teachers, had known nothing. In another life, I mused, I would want to study this, to see what other secrets lie behind these frills and petticoats. But I was a dead man, and nothing would make me miss my appointment with the executioner who would carry out the General Will and make the whole world murderers.

With Kosala warm against him, the Anonymous relaxed enough to let his own tears fall. “You can’t kill Mycroft Canner. I know what they’ve done, I know the public wants it, but you can’t. I’ll take it to my Proxy if I have to.”

“When did they realize?” Spain asked, grave as a portrait on a coin. “When did Canner figure out your true identity, what year?”

The Anonymous swallowed hard. “The letter’s dated twenty-four thirty-five.”

Felix Faust let out a long, delighted whistle. “Before even our Donatien? Spectacular.”

Ganymede rolled his murder-blue eyes. “Please, Faust, in ’thirty-five Canner was what, fourteen years old? Much less impressive than the Prince’s six.”

The Anonymous shook his head. “First is first.”

“The next Anonymous?” Kosala held her lover’s eyes. “No! I know the rules of your succession, but you can’t make Mycroft the next Anonymous, they’re a monster!”