For three days, I had gone floor by floor, pulling monsters aside in an attempt to gather information on Ayla's vulnerabilities. I looked for psychological weaknesses, fears, dislikes, and anything I could use against her.
The issue was that everyone adored her.
"Oh, Moon?" Sable nestled closer on her couch, grinning. "She's a sweetheart. Why would I help you torment her?"
I tried Yuki. "No," she said, and went back to eating.
I tried Nyx. "I like her," the head said. "She learned sign language for my body. Do you know how few people do that?" The body gave a thumbs up.
I tried Ren, who I thought would be a sure thing because Ren was mean to everyone.
"She lent me a romance novel," Ren said as she examined her nails. "We're thinking of starting a book club. Find someone else."
Even Ooze refused. "Drip loves his auntie."
I couldn't bear it. She had infiltrated my entire operation through the devastating power of basic interpersonal skills.
But then I tried the 98th floor.
Korvin, the skeletal knight, was encased in black armor that hadn't been polished since the Second Age. He also kind of smelled. I held my breath.
"The mage," he spoke. His voice was like coins in a tin can. "The one who runs through my floor every day?"
"Yes, her! Do you like her?"
"Now why in the name of the Lower Hells would I like that girl?"
My heart soared.
"She ain't even pureblood," he said. "I can smell it on her. Mixed. Probably got all kinds of common stock runnin' through her veins. In my day, we didn't let mixed bloods past the twentieth floor. There was a pedigree. You had to prove your lineage goin' back six generations before you even set foot on a guardian's floor, and if your blood wasn't right, well." His jaw made a clattering sound. "You got escorted out. And that's not even gettin' into the other business."
"The other business...?"
"Don't play coy with me, Queenie. You know what I'm referrin' to. The girl's got that energy about her. Certain... inclinations. Unnatural ones, if you take my meaning. In my day," he continued, settling into his throne, "we had ways of dealin' with that sort of thing. You'd take 'em out to the Scorching Wastes, you'd chain 'em to a pillar of volcanic glass, and then you'd let the fire drakes have at 'em for three, maybe four days. Purified the deviance right out. And if it didn't purify 'em, well, at least it purified the gene pool."
"Oh! That's not—"
"Now the Bone Mill was more of a community event. You'd bring the whole village out, pack a lunch, and the youngsters would work the crank while the elders supervised. It was good for morale."
"Okay, thank you for your time—"
"And another thing." He leaned forward, what remained of his eye sockets narrowing conspiratorially. "And I don't mean no disrespect by this, Queenie, but I'll say it plain. A lady demon runnin' floor 100?" He shook his skull. "It ain't natural. In my day, the top floor was a man's post. A proper demon lord. Someone with the authority that comes from—"
"From what? From having a dick?"
"I was gonna say 'from tradition.' But since you bring it up—yeah, it don't hurt. The tower's got a natural order to it. I think things ran a little smoother when the chain of command wasn't so... delicate."
"Goodbye, Korvin."
"You come back anytime, sweetheart. And you tell that girl to keep her mixed blood off my floor."
I made it back to my floor and collapsed on my bed. I was out of ideas. Every monster loved her. The only one who didn't was a four-hundred-year-old bigot with a bone mill fetish and opinions about my qualifications. So a dead end didn't even begin to cover it.
My little janitors were scurrying around cleaning the room. Spite and Malice had taken it upon themselves to hold a formal naming ceremony one afternoon while I was napping, and by the time I woke up, the decision had been made, a vote had been cast: two to zero, and they were now officially named Pebble and Dewdrop.
"Meeeeemory," Spite sang from somewhere behind the throne as he dusted a shelf. "All alone in the mooooonlight..."
I sat up.
Holy shit.
Holy shit!!!
The memory hit me like freight truck.
New York, 2023. It had been Ayla’s birthday, and I’d bought tickets to Cats on Broadway.
The idea made perfect sense in my head. Ayla liked all that weird furry shit. Cats featured people wearing complete cat suits, singing about a mystical junkyard. That was basically DnD!
I was showing an interest in her hobbies. I was being a good girlfriend. I was making an effort, which was more than I could say for her most of the time.
Apparently, I had been very wrong.
"Are you having fun?" I whispered.
"No, Lilith. I am not having fun. What the fuck is even happening?”
"Just give it a chance. The second act is supposed to be —"
"Why did you bring me here?”
"Because I thought you'd like it.”
"Why would you think I'd like it?"
"You like this kind of stuff! It’s like those weird cartoons you watch. You like nerdy stuff. This is nerdy stuff."
"Lilith, I have told you, specifically, multiple times, to your face…that I hate musical theater! I have said the words 'I hate musicals' to you at least five times. I said it when you made me watch Grease. I said it when you played the Hamilton soundtrack in the car for three hours. I said it last month when your mom asked if we wanted to see Wicked and I said 'I would rather eat glass.’ What part of that gave you the impression that I would want to watch a fucking musical about cats?"
"I thought you were exaggerating!”
“No Lilith! Jesus Christ, you just don't listen. You hear me talk and you decide what I said based on what's convenient for you. It's all 'nerd stuff' to you, isn't it? One big category. It’s never once occurred to you to ask me what I actually enjoy, and the worst part is you don’t even care.”
"Of course, I care. Ayla, I wanted to make tonight special for you. These tickets were 500 dollars!"
"All I wanted was for you to watch Lord of the Rings with me!”
"At least I'm TRYING! At least I'm making an EFFORT—"
"Ma'am." An usher was standing at the end of our row. "I'm going to need you both to lower your voices or I'll have to ask you to leave."
Ayla stood up. “Don't worry, we were just leaving.”
"We are not leaving, I paid—"
"Then YOU stay. I hope you and the cats have a great time together.” She climbed over three people without looking back.
I sat in my seat, 500 dollars lighter. Surrounded by strangers who were not subtle about staring, while a cat sang memory on the stage.
I climbed over the same three people and followed her, because that's what I always did.
We fought for 20 minutes on the sidewalk outside the theater. She said I didn't listen to her; I said she was ungrateful. She said that I only engaged with her interests on my own terms. I countered that she couldn't accept a kind gesture without turning it into a fight. A man selling hot dogs moved his cart to the other side of the street.
Oh, Ayla, you should've been nicer about Cats.
I wrote the script myself. It consists of 12 scenes, 3 acts, 5 original songs, 2 dance numbers, and an intermission that I never planned to honor. The tentative title: "Victoria Must Die: The Musical." Spite and Malice were my cast, my crew, and my orchestra. Pebble and Dewdrop were my stagehands, lighting crew, and smoke machine operators (thanks, Sable).
"A musical, Your Wickedness?" Spite's whole body was quivering with excitement when I told him what we were doing. "We get to perform with you? This is the greatest honor of our miserable little lives!"
"What roles do we play, oh Glorious Ruination?" Malice bounced on his toes. "Can I be the hero? I’ll gouge my own eyes out for authenticity if the part requires it!"
"Nobody is gouging anything. Spite, you're playing Ayla. Malice, you're Victoria."
"I'm the MAGE?" Spite clutched his chest. "I will study her mannerisms, inhabit her essence, and become so thoroughly her that you'll want to explode me by instinct! Should I sleep outside to understand her journey up the tower? Should I not eat for days to capture her desperation? Should I—"
"You should learn the songs and hit your marks. We have two weeks to get this right."
"TWO WEEKS!" His eyes grew bigger. "We'll need to rehearse around the clock!"
"I'll build the sets during my shift!" Malice said. "I'll build them until my fingers bleed and then I'll build them with my stumps!"
"Gentlemen, I need to be honest with you. These next two weeks are going to be the most challenging period of your existence. It will be hard and intense, and I'm not going to be nice about it."
"We wouldn't want you to be!"
"You might cry," I cautioned.
"We cry at your beauty daily! Artistic tears will be a welcome change!"
They meant every word of it and never once complained in two weeks. They never asked for a break or questioned why they were spending eighteen hours a day rehearsing a three-hour musical designed to psychologically torture one woman.
When I told Spite that his first take was terrible, he thanked me and did it again. When I forced Malice to rehearse an entrance 43 times, he emerged on the 44th attempt, tears of gratitude flowing down his cheeks.
I was not a particularly kind director. I was exacting and what some might call cruel. If a note was off, I pointed it out. If a dance move was incorrect, I made them start over from the beginning. If a costume didn't look right, we reworked it from scratch at 2 a.m.
"That entrance is weak, Spite. Give me delusional confidence. Give me unearned swagger."
He puffed his tiny chest and strutted.
"Better. But the wig is crooked."
"I'll sew it to my scalp, Your Wickedness!"
“Remember, you're obsessed with this woman you think murdering the demon queen will make her love you. She's a slut, Spite. Give me proud slut.”
"I don't know what being a slut feels."
“Fake it.”
Spite nodded. He clutched his staff to his chest, widened his eyes, and staggered onto the stage.
"Oh, Queen Victoria!" Spite warbled and hopped across the stage towards Malice, who was standing very still with a dead-eyed expression. “Your hair is like a waterfall and your crown is like a shinier waterfall and your face is like a face I want to look at! Forever! From increasingly close distances! I have memorized your schedule and I know which bra you wear on special occasions!”
Malice threw himself into the role of Victoria with a commitment that bordered on method acting. He honed Victoria's walk and manner of speech while mastering the art of stillness and blinking.
Pebble and Dewdrop built the sets. I helped them paint a backdrop of Muir. They rigged a curtain from dyed bedsheets.
Without exaggeration, they were the most professional production crew I'd ever worked with. Personally, I think they were thrilled to finally direct their skills toward a creative outlet.
"Spite, less jazz hands."
"At once!"
That night, we ran through the full show six times. By the third time through, Spite had memorized all the songs and was performing them with genuine commitment. By the sixth, Malice had learned to operate the cymbals and play Victoria simultaneously, switching between the paper crown and pot lids at a speed that was frankly impressive for someone with such short arms.
It was the greatest thing I had ever made.
The only thing I needed now was an audience.