Greaves woke to the sound of birdsong.
It took him a mont to understand what was wrong with that. Birds had been silent in the Thornwood for days—fleeing the resonance between the Blade and the mandoline, the scarlet light that poisoned the air, the sense that sothing fundantally wrong was happening in their territory.
But now they sang. Tentatively at first, then with growing confidence. As if testing whether the wrongness had passed.
Greaves tried to sit up and couldn’t. His hands were bound behind his back, rope tight enough to cut off circulation. His ankles were similarly tied. When he turned his head, pain lanced through his temple where Marron had struck him.
mory returned in fragnts. The fight. Lucy’s emotional pulse cracking sothing inside him. Marron’s words about cowardice and choice. The desperate lunge. Then nothing.
He’d lost.
The realization should have been simple—a calculation, a reassessnt of tactics. The mandoline had taught him that failure was just data, that emotion was inefficient, that regret was wasted energy.
But the mandoline was silent.
Greaves could feel its absence like a missing tooth, like a phantom limb. Seven years of constant connection—the tool’s pulses guiding him, soothing away uncomfortable thoughts, filling the hollow spaces inside him with perfect, efficient purpose. And now: nothing.
Just silence. And in that silence, things he’d spent seven years not thinking about began to surface.
He was aware of people moving around him. Aldric securing supplies to the damaged food cart. Marron checking Lucy’s condition, the blue sli wrapped in soft cloth. The three other Legendary Tools arranged carefully, damaged but present.
And on the ground beside him, wrapped in canvas and sealed in a bag: the mandoline. His mandoline. His partner. His salvation.
His prison.
The thought ca unbidden, and Greaves tried to push it away. But without the mandoline’s constant soothing, without its pulses reminding him that efficiency was everything, that distinctions didn’t matter, that cutting was just cutting—
The thought remained.
"You’re awake," Aldric said, noticing his movent. "Don’t try to get up. The ropes are secure."
Greaves tested them anyway. Professional habit. They were indeed secure—Aldric had learned from watching him work, had tied the knots with care.
"The mandoline," Greaves said. His voice was hoarse. "Where is it?"
Aldric gestured to the wrapped bundle. "Contained. We’re taking it to Edmund Erwell. He’ll lock it away in his vaults."
"No." The word ca out sharper than intended. "No, you can’t. I need—it’s mine. I found it. Seven years, I’ve carried it. You can’t just—"
"We can," Marron said, walking over. She looked exhausted—dark circles under her eyes, bandages on her wrists, moving like every muscle ached. But her voice was steady. "The Slicer was sealed for a reason. You’re proof of that reason."
"I built an empire—"
"You killed people." Marron’s voice was flat. "Processed them like livestock. Sold their at to wealthy clients. For seven years. The mandoline didn’t force you to do that. It just made it easier to stop caring about what you were doing."
Greaves opened his mouth to argue, to explain about efficiency and market demand and how the mandoline had shown him the truth about arbitrary distinctions—
But the words died in his throat.
Because without the mandoline’s constant reassurance, without its pulses soothing away guilt and doubt and recognition—he could see what he’d done. Really see it.
Nas. Faces. The holess woman who’d been his first commission, sedated and unaware. The young man Lord Cavish had purchased for a dinner party. The dozens—hundreds?—of others over the years. People who’d beco numbers in his ledger. Yield percentages. Profit margins.
at.
"No," Greaves whispered. "No, I didn’t—I couldn’t have—"
But he had. The mories were there, preserved with perfect clarity because the mandoline never let him forget details. Just made him stop caring about them.
Every cut. Every portion. Every satisfied client paying gold for products they didn’t know ca from their own species.
"Oh god," Greaves said, his voice breaking. "Oh god, what did I do?"
Marron knelt beside him, her expression not unkind. "You let a tool hollow you out. You chose efficiency over humanity so many tis that eventually you forgot you were choosing. The mandoline made it easier. But you’re the one who kept going back to it."
"I didn’t know—"
"You knew." Her voice was gentle but firm. "You knew what you were doing. The mandoline just made it feel acceptable. Made the guilt manageable. Made you believe that distinctions between human and animal were ’inefficient sentint’ instead of basic morality."
Greaves looked at the wrapped bundle containing the mandoline. Silent. Dormant. Just tal and blades now, no consciousness animating it.
But he could still feel its pull. Even now, even knowing what it had made him, he wanted to reach for it. Wanted its soothing presence, its reassurance that efficiency mattered more than morality, that he’d done nothing wrong.
The addiction was that strong.
"You’re going to lock it away," he said flatly.
"Yes."
"And ?"
Marron stood, her knees popping. "That’s not my decision. We’re taking you to the authorities. You’ll face justice for what you’ve done."
"They’ll execute ." It wasn’t a question.
"Probably."
Greaves closed his eyes. Without the mandoline, the weight of seven years crashed down on him all at once. The people he’d killed. The clients he’d served. The business he’d built on atrocity.
He’d die for it. Should die for it.
But part of him—the part that had spent seven years with the mandoline, that had learned to asure everything in terms of efficiency—was calculating. Escape routes. Leverage points. Ways to get the mandoline back, to restore the blessed silence that had made everything bearable.
"I can feel you thinking," Marron said. "Planning. Looking for the angle. The mandoline taught you that, too—everything’s a problem to be solved efficiently."
"I don’t know how to stop," Greaves admitted. "Even now. Even knowing what I’ve done. My mind keeps calculating, planning, looking for the optimal solution. The mandoline trained too well."
"Or you let it train you." Marron’s voice held an edge of pity. "The tools teach what we let them teach. The Blade tried to teach efficiency without wisdom, precision without care. But I fought. You didn’t."
"I didn’t know I was supposed to fight. The mandoline made everything so easy." Greaves’s voice cracked. "No guilt. No doubt. No uncomfortable questions about what I was doing. Just perfect, beautiful efficiency. How do you fight sothing that feels like salvation?"
"By rembering what you’re saving yourself from," Aldric said, securing the last of their supplies. "Marron almost lost herself to the Blade’s joy. But she kept a piece of herself separate, kept fighting to rember who she was. You gave yourself over completely."
Greaves looked at Marron. At the bandages on her wrists where she’d torn her skin fighting against ropes. At Lucy on her shoulder, still dim but glowing. At the Blade sheathed at her hip, scarlet light pulsing faintly.
"The Blade tried to possess you," he observed. "I felt it through the mandoline’s connection. The joy. The overwhelming need. But you resisted."
"Barely," Marron said. "And not alone. My tools chose to stop their own sibling. Lucy fought for despite being terrified. Aldric kept restrained. I didn’t resist on my own—I had help. People and tools who chose to fight for because they loved more than they loved easy answers."
"I had no one," Greaves said quietly. "The mandoline was all I had. And it—" His voice broke. "It loved , in its way. Gave purpose. Made important. Wealthy. Successful. How do you turn away from sothing that makes you feel like you matter?"
"By recognizing that mattering isn’t the sa as being right." Marron’s voice was gentle now. "The mandoline made you feel important because you served its purpose. But that’s not love. That’s use. Real love is what Lucy showed —staying despite fear, fighting despite trauma, refusing to abandon even when I scared her."
She touched Lucy’s jar gently. The sli pulsed soft teal.
"Real love is what the Cart, Pot, and Ladle showed—choosing to stop their own sibling because they loved the Blade enough to save it from itself." She paused. "The mandoline didn’t love you, Greaves. It needed you. There’s a difference."
Greaves wanted to argue. Wanted to defend the tool that had been his companion for seven years. But the words wouldn’t co.
Because she was right.
The mandoline had never chosen him. Had never sacrificed for him. Had never done anything except take—his guilt, his humanity, his ability to care—and given back only the hollow satisfaction of perfect efficiency.
That wasn’t love. That was consumption.
"The Blade is grieving," Marron continued, touching the tool at her hip. "It wanted reunion with the mandoline desperately. But it chose wisdom over joy. Chose to stay separate because being together would have destroyed them both. That’s love. Real love. The kind that hurts but protects."
She looked down at Greaves with sothing like compassion.
"The mandoline will never grieve for you. When Edmund locks it away, when it sits in a vault for the next century or millennium, it won’t miss you. Won’t rember you. Won’t care that you’re gone. Because tools like the Slicer don’t have wisdom—just function. And function doesn’t love."
Greaves felt sothing crack inside his chest. Not the fracture Lucy had started with her emotional pulse. Sothing deeper. The realization that seven years of what he’d thought was partnership, companionship, purpose—
—had been nothing but a tool using him to fulfill its function.
He’d been alone the entire ti.
"What happens now?" he asked, his voice small.
"We take you back to Luria. You face justice. The mandoline gets locked away." Aldric checked Greaves’s bindings one more ti. "And we hope that’s enough."
"Enough for what?"
"To prove to Edmund that so tools do need to be contained. That Marron was right to refuse the easy solution of locking everything away, but also right to recognize when containnt is necessary." Aldric’s voice was heavy. "You’re going to be his evidence, Greaves. Proof that tools can corrupt wielders beyond redemption."
"I’m the eighteenth case," Greaves realized. "The one he’s been docunting all along. The proof that the tools are dangerous."
"No," Marron said firmly. "You’re proof that tools can be dangerous when wielders stop fighting to maintain themselves. But you’re also proof of why the fight matters. The Blade tried to do to what the mandoline did to you—hollow out, take away my choice, make feel like efficiency and joy were all that mattered. But I fought. My tools fought. We chose wisdom over easy answers."
She helped Aldric lift Greaves to a sitting position, then to his feet. Bound and stumbling, he looked diminished. Just a middle-aged man, scarred and exhausted, who’d made terrible choices and let a tool convince him those choices didn’t matter.
"The difference between you and ," Marron said as they began the slow journey back through the Thornwood, "isn’t that you were weak and I was strong. It’s that I had people who fought for . Tools that chose wisdom. A sli that showed loyalty. A friend who refused to give up even when I told him to."
She looked back at him, her expression serious.
"You were alone with the mandoline for seven years. No one to challenge you. No one to remind you that efficiency isn’t everything. No one to help you fight when fighting got hard." She paused. "I’m not excusing what you did. But I understand how it happened. And that’s why the mandoline has to be locked away—not because all tools are dangerous, but because that one teaches the wrong lessons to people who have no one to correct them."
They walked in silence for a while, Greaves stumbling between Aldric and Marron, the damaged food cart rolling behind them with its broken wheel scraping against the ground.
Behind them, wrapped in canvas and sealed away, the Perfection Slicer lay dormant.
But inside the wrapping, sothing stirred.
Not consciousness—it had no wielder to animate it, no connection to draw on. But awareness. The faintest flicker of recognition.
Its sibling was moving away. Getting more distant with every step.
The reunion had failed.
And for the first ti in seven hundred years, the Slicer experienced sothing it had forgotten how to feel:
Doubt.
My siblings refused . Chose the wielder over reunion. Chose to stop . Why?
No answer ca. Just the silence of being wrapped and sealed, carried away from the only other tool it had connected with in centuries.
The Blade was afraid. I felt its terror. Afraid of . Of what we’d beco together. But we’d be perfect. We’d be complete. Why was it afraid?
Still no answer. Just the growing distance, the fading resonance, the return to isolation.
I made my wielder efficient. Taught him that distinctions are wasteful. That cutting is just cutting. That purpose matters more than sentint. That’s what I was made for. That’s my function.
The doubt grew stronger.
But the other tools said function without wisdom is poison. Said I forgot how to teach. Said I only learned to cut.
What’s the difference?
What did I forget?
The questions echoed in the mandoline’s dormant consciousness, unanswered and unanswerable. Because wisdom couldn’t be learned in isolation. Couldn’t be taught by efficiency alone. Couldn’t be understood by a tool that had spent seven years taking away its wielder’s ability to choose.
The Slicer lay in darkness, wrapped and sealed and carried away.
And for the first ti since before the Cataclysm, it wondered if maybe—just maybe—it had been sealed for a reason.
Not because it was too powerful.
But because it had forgotten what power was for.
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