From the Private Papers of Vlad Dracula
Sealed Addendum — Not Entered Into Court Record
Kade Litrel’Mi was not meant to be present.
That is the only fact of consequence.
The Musketeers performed according to doctrine. The engines behaved as they were built to behave. The failure was not mechanical. It was contextual. An uncontrolled variable entered the equation and the outcome changed.
I survived because the world did not finish him first.
He did not act with loyalty. He did not act with foresight. He did not act to preserve me. He acted to remain alive, and in doing so disrupted a sequence that should not have been interruptible. This is significant. Systems endure betrayal. They do not endure irrelevance.
The genie-contract bound to him is incomplete. This is not incompetence. It is refusal. The pact resists closure not because it is weak, but because neither party accepts hierarchy. Such arrangements normally collapse. This one persists. I find that… instructive.
He treats power as an inconvenience rather than a destiny. He does not sanctify it. He does not aestheticize it. He uses it and resents it simultaneously. This is rare. Most men either kneel or burn. He walks.
His disdain for chivalry is not cruelty. It is consistency. He does not confuse protection with ownership. He does not confuse reverence with restraint. This places him outside nearly every moral performance structure currently in use. It also makes him socially poisonous. Useful things often are.
The Court wishes him erased. The Musketeers wish him corrected. Both impulses are predictable. Both are wrong.
I have extended the invitation. He has refused. Repeatedly. This is not an insult. It is confirmation. Anyone eager to serve is already owned.
He will not join the Musketeers as they exist. That is acceptable. Institutions can change. Individuals who refuse completion cannot be manufactured.
Kade Litrel’Mi is not loyal. He is not stable. He is not safe.
He is unfinished.
Unfinished things interest me more than perfected ones.