The Dying of the Light
didn’t launch into a full-blown babble, which was unusual. Very unusual.
    “What did you do?” Scapegrace asked.
    A series of expressions flitted across Clarabelle’s face. First, there was indignation, then there was resignation, followed by hope, chased by confusion, and finally knocked down and sat upon by innocence. “Nothing.”
    “Did you set fire to something again?”
    She shook her head.
    “Are you sure?”
    She frowned, then nodded.
    “Where were you just now?”
    “Up in my room,” she said. “I was sorting through my favourite socks. I have seven. Snow White had seven dwarves, did you know that? I have seven socks. In a way, I’m kind of like Snow White.”
    “Snow White cleaned the kitchen every once in a while.”
    “She had little birds and squirrels to help her. All I could find was a hedgehog, but he was useless. I had to do everything myself.”
    “Moving things is not cleaning them.”
    “Do you want to know what I did wrong?”
    He sighed. “Yes.”
    Clarabelle scrunched up her mouth, like she did when she was figuring out the best way to say something. Before she could confess, the front door opened and Thrasher walked in.
    “I’m home!” he called, even though he could see them both standing in the kitchen.
    “Gerald!” Clarabelle said, bounding over to him. Thrasher hugged Clarabelle, wrapping her in his massive, muscular arms. “Did you have a good day? Did anything fun happen?”
    “Every day is a fun day when you’re doing what you love,” Thrasher said, and flashed an eager smile at Scapegrace. Scapegrace ignored him, walked to the fridge and left them to their chit-chat. He poured himself a glass of milk, leaned his hip against the cooker and drank.
    It was sad how quickly he’d got used to normal things again. Life as the Zombie King, as self-deluded as he’d been, meant that magic had sustained him and his steadily-rotting body. But after Doctor Nye had placed his brain into its new home, he’d had to deal with the gradual reawakening of natural bodily functions. Normal things like eating and drinking had become astonishing adventures in sensation. A glass of milk was a delight. But now? Now it was a glass of milk again. How quickly it had lost its thrill.
    Thrasher and Clarabelle came into the kitchen, still talking. He ignored them. He did that a lot lately. He just couldn’t summon the anger he used to direct Thrasher’s way. It was … gone. It had slowly evaporated these past few weeks. Thrasher had noticed, of course. Thrasher always noticed things like that. But where he had assumed that it was as a result of living a normal life, maybe even of a softening of attitudes and a growing fondness, Scapegrace knew better. The anger was gone because the anger was beaten. There was no point to it any more. It had lost.
    Scapegrace was living in the suburbs of a city full of sorcerers. He was no longer deluded enough to call himself the Killer Supreme. No longer dead enough to call himself the Zombie King. He was just another citizen, just a regular guy who’d had his brain transplanted into the body of a beautiful woman. He was normal. He was average. And this was his life.
    “Master?” Thrasher said.
    Scapegrace brushed his luxurious hair from his face and looked up. “Hmm? What?”
    Thrasher and Clarabelle looked at him with real concern in their eyes. The old Scapegrace would have heaped scorn upon them. The new Scapegrace didn’t see the point.
    “I was saying that I washed the floor in the pub, just like you asked,” Thrasher continued.
    “And I was saying you shouldn’t get Gerald to do that every time,” said Clarabelle. “He’s not your slave.”
    “I don’t mind, really,” Thrasher said, blushing.
    “You should mind,” said Clarabelle. “Scapey, it’s just not nice, the way you treat Gerald. He’s your best friend in the whole entire world and you two are
my
best friends in the whole entire world and best friends shouldn’t treat each

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