“All causes shall give way: I am in blood

Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

—William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“A single bureaucrat pushing a button is stepped in more blood than your entire generation. Why, by modern standards, you’re practically a saint. Or at least you would have been, if you didn’t whine so much.”

—Von Schmidt, side notes in

Shakespearean anthology

“Take me back to the servant’s dormitory,” the Princess told Martin.

“That would not be advisable,” Martin replied, his eyes never leaving his immobile reflection in the mirror.

“Do as I say, or I will make you wish you did,” the Princess threatened.

“That would not be advisable,” Martin repeated.

“Since when do butlers advise nobles?” the Princess asked.

“I believe there is a rich history of precedent going as far back as the ancient monarchs of Ur and Uruk, who—”

“I don’t care,” the Princess interrupted.

“Very good, mein fraulein,” Martin said and resumed his usual I-am-a-rock-that-talks demeanor.

“So where are we going?” the Princess asked after a short while.

“To your quarters, mein fraulein. You will be called to dinner at noon.”

After a pause, the Princess asked, “Do you realize I can kill you right now without any consequences?”

“My observation thus far indicates this course of action is unlikely on account of—Ugh!”

Just as the elevator reached its destination, the Princess elbowed Martin in the solar plexus with all her strength, depriving him of the opportunity to complete his meticulously crafted reply. Despite his general disregard for the limitations forced by Euclidean geometry, the man was no Tanaka or Ivanov. He doubled over, his haughty expression replaced by the expression of a man trying to maintain the illusion of haughtiness while finding it difficult to breathe. His bearing still felt too haughty for the Princess, so she kicked him in the shin with the sharp tip of her boot. He comically jumped on one foot and then collapsed to the floor, cursing in German.

The Princess stepped into the corridor over the moaning butler, grabbing Audric by the collar as she passed, and hit the manual lockdown. As soon as the double doors closed, she twisted her EMP button. The corridor went dim as the fanciful electric illumination died and the chemical emergency lights activated. There was no alarm, which was a pleasant surprise.

An instant later, the Princess heard the metallic clamor of a collapsing guard droid. She ripped her topmost button, squeezed it, and dropped it by the fallen drone as she passed. Exactly 2.7 seconds later, a deafening explosion scattered the remains of the drone all over the corridor and indented the elevator door a good ten centimeters into the wall.

She was not concerned about the butler coming after her. Even if the man were quicker to recover than she gave him credit for, it’d take a blowtorch to free him from the elevator. With all electronic circuits in a thirty-meter radius fried beyond repair, he had no way of calling for help. The Princess doubted that even Von Schmidt could afford to have a nanobot repair crew attached to every circuit in his mansion. Her uniform, on the other hand, was swarming with these high-tech brownies, so all her electronics would be fully functional again in a matter of minutes.

“Do not presume to dictate my objectives,” the Princess said to no one in particular, and started toward the staircase.

She kept expecting people to jump from behind locked doors and dark corners, but either no one heard the explosion, or no one wanted to face a person capable of producing explosions, which is a sound policy under almost any circumstances, but particularly when the source of the explosions is a furious teenager of royal blood. There was no greater crime against the monarchy than standing between a princess and her desire. Anyone who failed to respect her uniform, either for practical or hierarchal reasons, would learn to do so for ballistic reasons.

The Princess realized her fists and teeth were clenched and her mind was wandering. She forced herself to calm down and focus on her present objectives. This was, after all, a mission of mercy, not mischief. That being said, if an opportunity for some mischief presented itself, she wouldn’t refuse it.

However, it seemed that fate had conspired not to tempt her with the possibility of justified damage to persons or property. That is, there was a lot of property on her way, some of which seemed like it would be extraordinarily pleasurable to destroy, including an object that was literally a priceless Ming vase, but random destruction was simply not her style. Truth be told, no manner of destruction was her style until fifteen minutes ago, but poisonous times call for explosive measures.

Having reached the staircase without incident, the Princess found the door locked and unexploded, which, unfortunately for the door, was not the right state of being in the current political climate. Thus, the door ceased to be with a spectacular burst of sparkles and debris that illuminated the corridor and left the Princess short one more button.

The first flight of stairs presented her with no challenges except for almost tripping over Audric who circled her like a satellite that wasn’t quite sure how to properly follow the rules of astrophysics. She grabbed the ferret and shoved him under her armpit.

The second flight of stairs informed her that she was trespassing and urged her to reconsider her course of action in a polite but firm tone. She responded by detonating her second EMP device, darkening the staircase and silencing this level’s protestations.

The third flight of stairs presented her with a footman who stared at the Princess like a chornoi at an incoming starship, if chornoi had expressions and starships ever came to them. The Princess activated her shield and walked past the footman. “Good morning,” she said as she passed. The footman said nothing, much like a chornoi.

The last flight of stairs ended at the servants’ quarters, which was much as it had been when she left, including Sarah and Namibia sitting by and on the table, respectively, and discussing dumb and dumber subjects, respectively.

“Yo, anotha’ extraterrestrial attack?” Namibia asked.

“No, this one is quite terrestrial,” the Princess said without slowing.

She went straight to Martina’s room. She reached to turn the handle, but the door opened by itself, presenting her with a somber young boy.

“Martina is waiting for you,” he said with the same mild accent as the rest of the footmen.

“Thank you,” the Princess said, and entered the room.

Martina was still in bed, a flexipad by her side. She was morbidly pale and her brow was sweaty. “Judging by the blackouts and explosions that have preceded your arrival, I trust you found my adjustments to your uniform satisfactory,” she said by way of greeting.

“Extremely so, though I fear that by arranging them for my use, you have inadvertently created a considerable amount of work for the evening shift and possibly disabled the butler for a day or two,” the Princess said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

“Oh, we were prepared for this,” Martina replied. “Von Schmidt says that if an explosive is introduced in the morning, something is bound to blow up in the afternoon. He also says that no one but a lord likes a butler, so we were all expecting some injury to befall him. I’m sure he’ll be all right. For the most part, we’re very hard to kill and he is a particularly hardy specimen.”

“This is good to know, since my current objective is preserving you for future use. I am afraid this will require draining some of your blood,” the Princess said.

“You can have it all. I fear I won’t have much use for it in the near future.” Martina was too calm for the Princess’s liking. Do not go gentle into that good night and all that. Then again, the Princess tried to imagine the demure woman raging or expressing any other emotion except mild discomfort or attentive dutifulness and found that she lacked the imagination to accomplish this feat of mental legerdemain.

“Now, there’s no need for this sort of negativity, my dear. I’ll have you know that I have a cunning plan that will restore you to full health and deprive my enemies of theirs in one perfect maneuver.”

“Very good, mein fraulein,” Martina said.

With a rapidly increasing sense of unease, the Princess realized that all her medical equipment remained in her space suit. “I don’t suppose you have any medical equipment down here, what with you being a genetic superwoman and Von Schmidt being a generic ass?”

“I am afraid not. Would you like young Martin to fetch a polyethylene bag and a sushi knife from the kitchen?” Martina suggested.

The Princess felt queasy. “I think a laser incision would be safer and cleaner, medically speaking.”

“Lasers cauterize wounds,” Martina said. “Also, I do believe we’re presently more in the realm of black magic than medicine.”

“Right,” the Princess said. “Knife and polyethylene it is, then.”

The boy returned from the kitchen holding a large knife with a bluish blade engraved with Japanese characters and a transparent bag with no particular markings. He handed the two objects to the Princess without a word and left, shutting the door behind him. Martina sat straight in bed, sighed, and presented her throat to the Princess.

“Oh bloody hell! Now, you’re just being mean!” The Princess grabbed Martina’s wrist, pulling her sleeve up to her elbow. The maid’s skin felt cold and clammy and the Princess could swear her veins crawled, as if swarming with tiny ants.

“Terribly sorry for this,” the Princess said, though she suspected she was the more strongly inconvenienced party in this affair. “Can’t practice black magic without cutting a few wrists, eh?”

“Indubitably, mein fraulein,” Martina said, not showing the slightest sign of fear, a statement that sadly could not be used to describe the Princess.

Steeling herself for what was doubtlessly the least enjoyable activity in which she had ever been forced to engage, the Princess pressed the blue blade to the maid’s pale skin. She focused on the hand, trying to disassociate it from the person. This turned out to be a mistake, as her imagination soon started running rampantly, and she found herself sweating profusely and nearly gagging from the mere thought of what she was about to do. Then she decided to try performing the incision while looking away. However, this caused some malfunction in her nervous system as none of the orders her brain sent to her hand seemed to pass through. Her hand simply wouldn’t budge, despite receiving royal commands to do so. Wondering what the proper procedure was to deal with an unruly hand, the Princess was interrupted by feeling Martina place a cold palm on the back of the Princess’s hand and roughly jerking it to the side. Blood started trickling down Martina’s wrist and into the polyethylene bag. The Princess threw the knife into a dark corner of the room, again surprised by the unruliness of a hand that had been, with a few rare exceptions, her most loyal companion for the better part of two decades.

“I do believe you have collected enough material for what you have in mind,” Martina said, flexing her fingers. The bleeding stopped instantly.

“That is very impressive,” the Princess commented on Martina’s ability to stop bleeding at will. The genes of the Princess were a far cry from those of her wild ancestors, and she couldn’t do anything even remotely similar to this. She had to sit patiently and wait for the bleeding to stop like everybody else.

“Thank you for your kind words,” Martina said and leaned back unto her pillow, wiping blood from her forearm with a nearby handkerchief. “Good work is its own reward, but praises from such a lofty personage make it all the more rewarding.”

The Princess squeezed the maid’s shoulder, or else used it to steady herself, she wasn’t quite sure, then started up the stairs with the intention of returning to her quarters to her armor with its built-in chemical lab, but stopped after one flight. This is what she’d be expected to do, which strongly decreased the odds of her equipment remaining in the same position and condition as Martina had left it. Instead, the Princess headed back for the kitchens.

A footman coming up the stairs looked at the Princess as if about to object to her return, but the Princess returned his gaze as if about to object to his objection by means of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation, which is really just a fancy way of referring to frying a person’s face. She entered the kitchen and found a cook and a scullery maid admiring a fat ginger cat that sat on a pedestal with the expression of a deity accepting the venerations of its lessers.

The Princess said, “Good evening.” The cat jumped off the pedestal and was gone in an instant. The servants started for the door.

“I would like to order a special dish, if I may,” the Princess said, presenting the blood bag to the kitchen staff.

Both stopped and the cook replied, “We’re at your service, mein fraulein”—he sniffed the air a few times—“but I do feel it is my duty to inform you that cannibalism is generally frowned upon in this establishment.”

According to Von Schmidt, the Princess was already a cannibal by virtue of her social station, the Jeans would refuse no dinner as long as it was scandalous, and Tanaka was ironically vegetarian, so it was not particularly clear from whom the frowning could come. However, the Princess was not presently inclined to engage in philosophizing with the kitchen staff.

“Duly noted. I would like you to use this ingredient to cook some blodplättar and use whatever remains in coq au vin. Both of which should be served at dinner.”

“Very good, mein fraulein. However, before I start, I feel obliged to inform you that it is my duty to inform Von Schmidt of this culinary transaction.”

“Do your duty then. Should he request further information, kindly inform him that the purpose of this exercise is to spare him the loss of a maid.”

“Very good. Will there be anything else?”

“No. Good day.”

It was not until the second flight of stairs that she ran into Von Schmidt, still in his dressing gown but with an unmistakable air of heaviness about him. Since it was unlikely that he had gained several kilograms since last they spoke, unless he’d swallowed that silly elephant, it was reasonable to assume he was roughly as well equipped as she was. Tanaka and Ivanov both treated the man with respect, so the Princess decided that any attempts to challenge him on a physical plane were doomed to fail. In fact, even considering this eventuality brought an unpleasant itch to her throat where his cruel claws had earlier nearly choked her.

Von Schmidt smiled with an unmistakable hint of violence. “It seems that my butler failed to show you to your room. I apologize for the inconvenience. He will be reprimanded for his lack of attention.”

“I hope he won’t be sanctioned too severely. He was blinded by my royal beauty, I’m sure. You can’t fault a man for having eyes.”

“Oh, I rather think I can,” Von Schmidt said. “To quote a censored work known for its fondness for the cruel and unusual, ‘If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.’”

The Princess could swear she’d heard her father using the same quote in a similar context. In fact, now that she gave the subject further consideration, it seemed that even the tone with which Von Schmidt said the words reminded her of her father. The Princess sighed sadly. She’d give everything and more to be with her father instead of this ghastly antithesis.

After climbing the remaining flights of stairs at a leisurely pace, the two turned left and soon passed by the indented elevators doors, both of which were now lying on the floor. Two footmen were fast at work replacing damaged electric components within the scarred walls, while a parlor maid was gathering debris with archaic mechanical tools the Princess recognized from illustrations to a fairytale.

“With all these people working not ten steps from my door,” the Princess complained, “I cannot imagine how I’d get any rest until dinner.” In truth, her bedroom doors were soundproof, ensuring that no amount of work outside could disturb her in the slightest. However, suspecting her room was optimized for the needs of parties other than herself, she felt getting a new room would be prudent.

“We will seal the door and window most thoroughly,” Von Schmidt said reassuringly. “If anyone, and I do mean anyone, disturbs your rest in even the smallest measure, they will be punished most severely and creatively by either Tanaka or the Jeans, who are somewhat better versed in these affairs than myself, and are no less concerned about your recent overtaxing than myself. Now, and I say this not as a critique of your appearance, which is indeed above any criticism, I do believe it’s time for your beauty sleep.”

The Princess shrugged. She still had many tricks up her sleeve, and in many other locations on her person, but a girl has to know her limitations.

Even though the Princess’s bedroom was outside the effective range of her electromagnetic pulse, the door was pushed open by two footmen who groaned with exertion as they struggled to move the massive metallic plate. Cut off from electricity, the only way to enter or leave the room now was by using physical force. How clever of them to exploit her chief weakness, which was her weakness. For all intents and purposes, she was being led into a dungeon cell.

However, it was a lavish dungeon cell with a lovely view and a flexipad with millions of offline books, one of which was bound to be relevant to her situation.