No one knows how to mourn. Almost everyone in the world thought Mycroft deserved death, except those who knew life was a harsher punishment. We’re not allowed to call this feeling ‘sadness.’ MASON, Vivien, none of them can look me in the face now, because I remind them too much of how dirty they feel for missing Mycroft Canner. We have no ritual for this, no stock phrase. If we had a funeral, they might at least get some closure from pointedly refusing to attend. As for the Prince, J.E.D.D. Mason, when humans mourn we need the words and hugs of friends and equals, but, in the Godly language spoken by Them and Their Peer, World War seems to be the word for ‘Hello.’ I shudder to imagine how They would ask Their Peer, “Why did You kill My angel?” ‘Angel’ is the right word. Others would say pet, or slave, or friend, or monster, but I know what Mycroft was. The Prince came here alone, so Their Host lent Them what all Gods need. And what They lend They take away again. I should not wish Mycroft rest; they would not want it, both because they left so much undone, and because they believed a universe would be unjust which granted Mycroft Canner mercy. But I must wish them something. I know what they wanted. It’s impossible, but the impossible doesn’t tend to stay impossible when humans are involved. Times change because we change them, and therein there is hope, even for Mycroft. I cannot reach them, but perhaps somehow, someday, someone will read this who can. If progress continues, time must someday stop being a barrier. Perhaps science will crack Bridger’s legacy and replicate the resurrection potion, or make a time machine, or a portal to the underworld. Perhaps Utopia will finally finish disarming Death, or we will pierce the veil enough to get a message through, if not into the afterlife, then at least through time, beamed back into a long-dead person’s final living thoughts. I believe we will achieve this someday, and if this chronicle survives, and you, who are reading it, have these arts, perhaps you can reach back and grant the one prayer Mycroft Canner dared pray for themself. Tell them the seeds have flown. Tell them the Great Project continued, that the destruction of this world did save a better one. Tell them that this war, that Utopia’s sacrifice, did not turn humanity back toward Earth’s safe, complacent harbors. Tell them that you have walked on worlds which make Mars seem a stepping stone. Tell them that, whoever won this war, the human race did not stop here. If you are out there, distant, distant reader, reach back, for pity’s sake—you are the only one who can—reach back and tell Mycroft: “The seeds have flown.” Tell them, and tell me, too.

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