Heated bricks beneath their feet warmed the carriage as it rambled through the city to the Hall of Lights where Marga Isalka would present herself to her fellow wardens and her son Grigori would be apologized for -- ill, as they always said, and regretful in his absence.

Ivan noticed his wife's brooch coming undone and fastened it for her, keeping her shoulders swathed in mink. Each time he interfered with her person he felt he was disturbing an artist's still life with ( apish hands. )

He fell down a fetid rabbit hole that smelled of death and the damp of surrounding earth -- of funerary beds and sickly-sweet lilies that had rotted away with the memories of the long-forgot. The Prince avoided this place -- at all costs, with little difficulty -- but at the behest of his brother’s silence, at the urging of his Uncle’s strange and stilted visit, he made his way downdowndown, deep into the darkness that had engulfed his brother, his cousin -- one and the other until it had beckoned him in turn, promising the souls of family who had once been fearless, kind --

once been ( more than monsters. )

In shadows they met, brothers by blood and bounty. In their hushed discourse was disclosed truths disproven -- a man alive, a beast -- nothing more -- remaining, and the fragments of the family psyche being pressed together with bloodied fingers and heavy trepidation.

"You're certain?"

"I must be. For now, the catacombs were ( the only solution." )