Page 54 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

In matters of her prince,

her monsters

her queendom

A queen hoped to never believe in immortality.

H umans screamed and cried and begged. Rags barely covered them, but mud and sand surely did.

Such was a saved world. From all accounts, the humans appeared to very much like not washing very often, having released their convention of dressing a certain way for others.

We had pulled them from their caves and sand huts and rooftops for this haunt, though some did still dwell in the luxury of apartments, obeying their more gluttonous and sloth vices.

Most humans appeared to crave a connection with nature, though aside from that uniting factor, not much else connected them other than that they were human.

Some liked no hair .

Some liked as much hair as possible.

Some like to wear mud on their bodies, while others liked foliage. Some humans snarled and some danced. Some hugged, and some spurned other company.

Some mothered and some led.

All in all, humans were rather monstrous these dusks, ten years after The Real Beginning.

More and more, humans freed the exquisiteness of their potential.

In another ten years, I could only imagine what wonderful hunches and slimes and extra limbs that may emerge.

Humans were powerful, after all, in their own monstrous way.

Too ruinous before, but the world had not known how to fight back.

A queen had not always existed, and we had not known exactly how to fix their conventional tendencies.

I watched my pawns terrorize the humans, and then clapped my hands as to cheer on simple monsters doing their worst.

A grand haunt. We had discovered that such nudges a few times a year greatly helped humans recall their values and priorities. They tended toward fighting without such frights to stir up their gratitude.

“There is no ‘we’ about it,” I murmured, dressed in a white gown and ready for my Mistress Stitch appearance.

A rather unfortunate choice of name, as it had turned out, for now my stitches were gone and white scars welded my patches together.

A lack of stitches was nothing that Valetise could not rectify with black paint and a brush, though, especially when this gown covered most of my body.

My prince joined me on the edge. “No ‘we’ about what?”

I looked up into his milky gaze. Mine. “All knowledge gained on the relationship between monsters and humans has been thanks to your efforts.”

He did not deny this. He was not needlessly humble. “There is much to explore. ”

And so there may be . But my prince consort was using his time most wisely to support his queen, the world, and monsters.

As Earl Bring threw curses down upon the gathering mass of humans, See said, “They have started to say ‘no’ more often than not, did you hear? A human often saying ‘no.’ That is progress. Their numbers swell, and they display anger freely and without lasting shame. There is an upward trend of vice, and admitting to their vice, and that appears to have a positive effect of their acceptance of one another in a community.”

The changes were vast. To think that such joy and happiness in humans had awaited our victory against ruin and evil.

The victory of fifty mothers. That was what I had termed our triumph over ruin. As the queen of monsters, no one dared to call it otherwise.

See lifted my hand to his lips. “All thanks to their belief in Mistress Stitch.”

Yes, that had proven to be very integral. Our first haunt together had been important, and these days, all monsters joined in on the haunt.

“These moments that we can all gather warm my heart,” I confessed. Such gatherings were not regular occurrences, and they could not be until we learned the exact monstrous effort required to counterbalance the natural tendencies of humans.

See retreated as the humans’ horrified, frozen focus was swept to me. I lifted my arms and whispered on the air, “ I am Mistress Stitch. Know me. ”

I slammed my power back into place to protect their minds. Not as much as I used to—for See had found that humans were happiest when they were a little insane.

With some blurring and blinking and blobbing, monsters soon reconvened in my queendom. Picket shut the wall of bars, laughing with Valetise.

Candor’s teeth bones were spread wide as she floated in her armchair beside the padding Huckery, who had only awoken six nights prior.

Duchess Raise bowed, stroking the rim of her fedora. I looked for a crease on her suit and found none.

“My queen,” she said. “I am due for midnight slumber, but I wished to report that I forged another fifty contracts last night.”

“Magnificent, Duchess. Thank you, and happy slumber.” Countering humans’ tendencies was not all fun and haunt.

Their positivity and willpower and morals must always be raised against their minds’ natural sway to everything negative.

Some humans had mastered this, of course, but they were in the vast minority, according to the Raises.

Duke Raise bowed to me, then trailed after his duchess. He liked to watch her slumber unless I required him. Which I made sure to, often.

Marquis Take swept toward me, such a noble figure in his heavy cape fixed with silver brooches at each shoulder. The Takes had lasted their year in physical abstinence, and had maintained a diversity of emotion and feeling since.

“My queen,” he declared. “I depart for taking.”

“Go with my thanks, sir. Will you take your marchioness?”

He bowed low. “If you might spare her?”

Take had irritated me with his whims before, and these nights, his noble demeanor and dramatic flair achieved the same. There should always be a monster to improve my tolerance, and he was that monster. “I might, sir.”

The Takes worked in tandem with the Raises. While the Raises raised hopes and dreams, the Takes were in the business of taking hurts and worries and pains. Taking did not need to be such an all-or-nothing thing in a saved world, and the morals of the marquis need never suffer agony again.

The Brings slimed forward together, and they were already shivering with anticipation of the night ahead.

Indeed, Toil, Hex, and Sigil were already out exfoliating in the sand.

The combined efforts of blobs, not just of the earl, were needed yet to cleanse all the grains of sand of the remaining grime and lifelessness.

Countess Bring was breathless, damply so. “My queen, do you require anything of us tonight?”

“The haunt is done. You are free to cleanse the sands.”

They tended toward addiction in their purpose, but I had long pondered the natural ways of monsters. If kings had not existed before me, how would monsters have behaved and worked? Far differently was the answer.

Like humans, since The Real Beginning we had settled into our instinctual purposes. The natural purpose of the Brings was to clean the world. They delighted in pulling all that was filthy and damaging into their blobs to rub it about. The feeling was like nothing else to them.

The Brings moaned wetly and departed in blinks of six feet.

See chuckled, and I threw him a grin. The Brings got rather more from cleansing the world than delight, and they were showing no signs of relenting in their efforts. I could not blame them.

The monster who had been Princess Change approached next and curtsied. “My queen.” Her voice was disused, for aside from these gatherings, she only whispered and cooed to plants and soil.

Princess Change had no king, and she never would. Instead, ancients had married her to her single reason for being. To nature. The world had lost its Mother Nature long ago, and here we had been gifted a new one.

Mother Change moved through the world, tending to her flock with her power, and in this, the monster had found her peace.

Whatever shock and pain she had felt over me ending her king’s immortality had quickly crumbled against the joy found in her new purpose.

She radiated with it, and the force tended to swirl the long skirt of her flowing gown more often than not.

Her garden apron, of course, remained, and I had never seen her wear the bridal gown since the night of King Change’s death.

“I will return to my calling if there is nothing more,” she rasped.

I stepped forward and embraced the monster. “Only that I miss seeing you often, dear Change. If you were not so happy in soil and life, then none of us could part with you so often.”

She colored, and curtsied in lieu of answering.

My new baron was next.

Huckery padded over. “My queen, tonight my purpose has awakened in me.”

“And what is your purpose, Baron?” I murmured, feeling See listening.

We had theorized as to Huckery’s purpose for ten years, so I could easily forgive his curiosity.

He extended a foreleg. “My queen, I am the baron of beasts. With my brother werebeasts, I am called to tend and shepherd the living creatures of the world and see them take flight and form again.”

I would gloat to See later, for that had been a theory of mine that he had laughed at. “Huckery, this is a great calling, and you are magnificently and uniquely made to uphold your purpose. Go forth and return when you must and can.”

Candor dipped her head in my direction, then left with Huckery.

They would split on their paths somewhere in the world, for Candor worked on humans, not beasts.

She had already trained monsters into truth, and so she was free to do the same with other creatures.

Humans did love to lie so—to themselves most of all.

Candor was a balm to a towering source of corruption and deceit that humans had never managed to figure out themselves. The human leaders could no longer lie. They could not make hidden deals drenched in vested interest. Candor’s power simply would not allow them to.