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Devilish Impulses	By : Arianawray Category: > Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji ???) Views: 13948 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 1-Unwanted
- 2-Whim
- 3-Trust
- 4-Taste
- 5-Scheme
- 6-Command
- 7-Competition
- 8-Advice
- 9-Enlightenment
- 10-Sustenance
- 11-Caught
- 12-Breath
- 13-Arms
- 14-Inflammation
- 15-Imagination
- 16-Intent
- 17-Compromise
- 18-Sacrifice
- 19-Despair
- 20-Compassion
- 21-Interest
- 22-Equality
- 23-Mentor
- 24-History
- 25-Disorder
- 26-Reputation
- 27-Gifts
- 28-Admission
- 29-Watching
- 30-Bonds
- 31-Revelations
- 32-Confrontation
- 33-Struggle
- 34-Separation
- 35-Duty
- 36-Change
- 37-Together
- 38-Love
- 39-Epilogue: Heaven
- 28
- 29
- 30
Watching

Henry Ridley, whose underground operation specialises in the smuggling of contraband goods, drugs and people, feels both optimistic and afraid tonight as his men unload a new type of opiate from the Indian subcontinent. The legitimate workers at the storehouse holding cargo from the freshly docked ships have been bribed to be absent from their posts for a while. This entire area is empty of everyone who would normally be there, allowing Ridley's people to swiftly remove what they need from amongst the crates of otherwise innocuous fabric goods.

He feels optimistic because his competition in the London underworld is dwindling. Lau, who supervised a sprawling kingdom from his network of opium dens, is rumoured to have died after turning against the Earl of Phantomhive, and failing to topple him. The Easton group has been shattered since their bosses were stupid enough to anger the royal family – but then the Easton gang's areas of interest never overlapped much with Lau's. It is really Lau's absence that has left a void in the world of drugs and illegal goods. Other gangs that tried to muscle in on the vacated turf made headway along with his own, but one by one, they have fallen away. Just last month, Paulie Woodcock and his people vanished, leaving behind only a blood-soaked smuggling den.

Ridley feels afraid, because he does not know what happened to the others with whom he used to scrap for Lau's crumbs in petty territorial warfare. It cannot be the Phantomhive boy; he has been lying low, and has scarcely shown his one-eyed face in the more unsavoury parts of London for months. Neither have any of his paid runners and informants been scurrying about poking their noses into anyone's business.

Something else is going on, and Henry Ridley has no idea what it is. He only knows he might be in a position now – especially with this large shipment of new drugs – to wrest enough position and power to challenge the Earl of Phantomhive. He will do a hell of a lot better than Lau (what would a Chinaman know about the underbelly of England?), and Sophia Easton (what would a woman know about anything?). Once in position, he will face the Aristocrat of Evil himself across his bloody fine chessboard and knock all his ridiculous pawns and knights off it. Then he, Henry Ridley, will rule the underworld and scoff at the impotence of Scotland Yard while running circles around them.

"Get those boxes loaded into the carriages, and get out of here – we haven't got all night," Ridley growls at his right-hand man, Jim, from his shiny new brougham.

The police might stop and search carts, but a group of fine carriages drawn by handsome horses will not be obvious targets for those who stupidly attempt to maintain law and order in the open – when everyone knows that real power is grasped in the dark.

"We're just about done," Jim observes. "The guards aren't back yet, anyway."

"That's odd," Ridley frowns. "They're always back before we're ready, hurrying us out of here."

"Well, I don't see 'em–"

Jim's words are cut off as he crumples to the ground, blood gushing from a ghastly wound that Ridley suddenly sees splitting him open from face to hip, by the light of the lamp on his carriage. A dark shadow flashes past.

Ridley pulls a pistol from his belt and points it this way and that out of the carriage window, but he no longer sees the shadow, so he yells at his coachman to drive away. There is no answer from the man, so he cautiously leaves the carriage at last, stumbling over Jim's corpse. The coachman is slumped dead over the box seat, and the men who had been working to load the other carriages only a moment ago are all slain, wide-eyed with terror in death, their bodies ripped open.

He starts to panic. This must be what happened to the other gangs who vanished in recent months. His gun hand begins to shake. A shadow glides by at his back, and he whips around, firing off a round with a horribly loud report, only to put a hole in the polished wood trim of his own carriage. No one is there that he can see, but someone did this to Jim and the others...

"Good evening, Mister Ridley," comes a silky voice behind him.

He jumps and swings his gun wildly at the tall figure clad entirely in black who has appeared out of nowhere. In the light of the lamps from the carriages, and on the crates in the storehouse, the man's figure and face look familiar. In another moment, he places him.

"I know you! You're the Phantomhive boy's butler. So all this is his doing?"

"Oh dear, no, the Earl of Phantomhive doesn't know a thing about this," the man replies smoothly.

"Th-then why are you doing this?"

"Do you really want to know?" the butler asks, taking a step towards him.

"Stay where you are!" Ridley roars, firing the next round of his pistol at the other's left knee. The bullet strikes the knee – he is sure it does – but the man keeps walking as if nothing more than a pebble had bounced off his leg. Ridley fires again, and again, at the closest range imaginable, without the least effect on his adversary.

"My turn now," purrs the butler as the pistol in his face clicks emptily.

The tall figure moves his right arm in a swift stroke that Ridley does not even see, and suddenly, he is on the ground, clutching his useless gun, lying in a heap, his mind not comprehending why he is down here and not on his feet.

"Why are you doing this?" he screams, as sharp pains begin shooting up from somewhere in the region of his legs to the rest of his body.

"Because if I don't, you will engage in a struggle for power against the Earl of Phantomhive. If he is not to let it pass, he will be obliged to destroy you. I don't want him to have to do that."

"So you are doing this on his orders!" Ridley bellows, wanting to howl from the agony of whatever is broken and torn in his body. He can't see where the wound is... can't feel where...

"No, not on his orders. Only on my own. Only in my name. And I will kill you in my name alone."

"Y-y-you've already destroyed me!" Ridley shrieks, tears of naked fear pouring down his face. "You've killed all my men! I have nothing now – I'll never hurt the earl again – you don't have to kill me!"

"I'm afraid I do, Mister Ridley," the devil smiles coldly. "I must and will kill you in my name, so that the power that would have been yours will now accrue to me."

"Power?" Ridley cries, desperately trying to crawl away but finding that his legs will not move. "What are you talking about?"

"Less than a year ago, I too would not have known what this was about, but I have read some interesting papers about a spell cast by someone, or a few someones, in the court of King James I. It was created to bind the power of Phantomhive, the powers of the underworld, and several other powers that do not concern you specifically, to an invisible weighing scale. When the underworld loses power, the scales tip and the Phantomhives gain it, often to their detriment. The spell cannot be destroyed without harming Phantomhive, but I have found a way to divert the power that would otherwise go from one party to the other, to myself. Diverting the spell requires the deaths of those in the underworld like you, who would seek to challenge the Earl of Phantomhive. It requires your death to be at my hands, in my name. It's all about magic."

"Magic? What magic? A-and... y-you're doing this for yourself? F-for g-greater power?" Ridley stutters hysterically. He wets himself as the devil moves closer to him, till his glowing red eyes are no more than two inches from his.

"It is of no consequence to you why I am doing it. But know, as you die, that you have served a greater purpose. Goodnight, Mister Ridley."

Ridley's chest bursts open as the demon thrusts his hand through it, shattering his heart and lungs, accompanying the final dispatch with words of magic that suck in the power of the underworld that would have fallen to the man who is nothing now but a heap of broken flesh and bones on the ground.

Ridley is no longer alive to see the devil lick the blood off his hand with satisfaction. He no longer has eyes to see that with his growing strength, the demon only needs a sweep of his arm to pulverise the bodies scattered about him, till the carriages and horses are the only things outside the storehouse standing on this ground that runs streams of blood toward the river.

But other powers notice, and other powers see, as the cosmic scale does not shift a fraction in either of its usual directions, but as it has in recent months, once more tips to shift the elements passing over it into the burgeoning force contained in the single person of the devil who goes by the name of Sebastian Michaelis.

They notice. They watch. They wait.

***

For a moment, Lizzie does not know what to say after hearing what Ciel has to tell her. But that moment is all she needs for the message to sink in, and in the next second, she is throwing her arms around him, crying out: "Oh, Ciel! Is it really true? That your eye might heal?"

Tears of joy are already spilling from her own bright green eyes, because it seems that all the pain her fiancé endured four years ago is starting to heal, both emotionally and physically.

Ciel feels a twinge of guilt that he is deceiving Elizabeth to an extent, because like everyone else, she thinks that he either lost his right eye, or had it so badly disfigured that it is too hideous to be seen, when his parents were murdered and he was kidnapped. She also does not know that this matter of "consulting a surgeon" is merely a means for him to eventually remove his eye patch without making the sudden "recovery" of the eye seem improbable.

He and Sebastian have agreed that it would not serve much purpose to keep his eye covered when the mark of their covenant has all but disappeared. His right iris has only the faintest of magenta traces left in it; that will be easily explained away in future as slight discoloration and damage remaining from the injuries he sustained at the age of ten. Lizzie knows none of that, and he feels he is somehow cheating her of the joy she is so freely giving him.

"Yes," he mumbles awkwardly. "I've seen a surgeon in Harley Street, and there is a chance that some of the clouding that has marred the eye can be reduced, or perhaps removed. There are new medical drugs..."

"I'm so happy for you, Ciel!" Lizzie cries. "So, so very happy. I want you to always be well, and full of joy, and delighted with life. I only want all that is good and bright and... and perfect for you!"

"I know," he replies, touched by how she genuinely wants nothing to blight his life. "Thank you for caring so much for me."

"Of course I care for you!" she exclaims, hastily wiping her tears away with her sleeve and smiling at him through their glistening traces on her lashes and cheeks. "Who else would I care for if not you?"

She blushes, realising she is being a little forward with her speech. They are engaged to be married, but that was only an agreement between their parents – it is not as if it is a binding contract under the law. So she should not presume that he will ever actually ask her. She sobers further as she realises that he will probably never have to ask – the reality is that one day, when they think she is old enough, her father and mother will simply say to Ciel and herself that it is time, and they will proceed with a wedding as if it were an appointment for tea...

"Where is Sebastian?" she asks quickly, to turn the topic of conversation away from the awkward matter of what she and Ciel are to each other. Asking about the butler's whereabouts is not as odd a thing to do as it might seem, considering how he is always there to open her carriage door whenever she visits, if he and his master are at home. He is nowhere to be seen this morning.

"Oh, I told him to leave me to greet you," Ciel mutters, a little sourly. "He's seeing to elevenses."

He is slightly disgruntled with Sebastian, because the demon came home at an obscene hour of the night... no, it was the early hours of the morning by then, his gloves and right sleeve covered in blood. Ciel had waited up for him, but he had flatly refused to explain what he had been doing, or who or what he had just killed, even when they retired to Ciel's bedroom.

"Sebastian, you have to tell me what the hell you're doing!" Ciel had raised his voice as much as he reasonably could without waking Soma, whose room was at the other end of the wing.

"No, Young Master. I will not do that," had been the plain reply.

"Are you feeding to sate your hunger? If that's it, I will understand..."

"I have not been feeding tonight. Not much."

"Damn you! What are you playing at?"

"Nothing you ought to know about."

There had been no intimacies after that, with Ciel angry and Sebastian obdurate. Dressing and grooming at sunrise were done in silence. The chill thawed a little at breakfast, with Sebastian making quiet overtures and Ciel willing to let go of some of his frustration. But it is not back to normal just yet.

The earl takes his fiancée into the morning room, where they start by playing draughts, but end up poring over the newspaper instead. Lizzie is fascinated by what she reads. Most women and girls in respectable families are not allowed to read the newspapers, for their husbands and fathers consider serious or scandalous reports unfit for their eyes. Some are permitted to read parts of the newspaper only after their menfolk have removed the pages they do not want them to see. Lizzie's father, having been "trained" by his terrifyingly competent, exceedingly well-read marchioness, is not foolish enough to try to keep the newspaper they subscribe to from her or any of his female relatives. But Lizzie is still not permitted to read all of the newspapers on account of her age, rather than her sex. Many of the pages she looks at now with Ciel are therefore quite new to her.

"Oh... what does that mean?" she asks, not really understanding a certain item she is looking over.

Ciel colours when he realises that she is looking at a report complaining about how the American press is spreading completely untrue rumours about the involvement of a certain royal personage in the Cleveland Street matter. Of course she would know little of the matter; no detailed talk of it would have been permitted to reach her ears.

"It's just a scandal that American newspapers are trying to turn into a bigger thing than it really is," he tells her. "False rumours are truly matters that are unfit for the eyes of anyone with good sense."

They turn the page, and look at other things. Ciel is pleased to find that when the news and editorials are factual rather than sensational, and written logically, Lizzie understands the reports as well as he does, and can speak of them intelligently. Even when she does not fully grasp the significance or meaning of something political or legal, she asks good questions, and absorbs the answers well.

"I didn't think you had any interest at all in the great matters of the world around us," he remarks.

"I won't pretend that I have any great interest in terribly serious matters," she admits. "But I do like to know about the things that will affect my life, and the lives of the people I care for. Mother knows all about these things. I want to know as much as she does when I grow older. I won't want to be as fierce as she is, but I do want to be as accomplished, and strong."

"I'd like to see you grow into that woman you want to become," he tells her.

"You really wouldn't mind that?" she asks with a brilliant smile.

"I wouldn't expect anything less of you."

Ciel means it, because he was raised by strong women, and has no place in his life for mindless, flighty, spineless creatures. His mother may have been very gentle, not at all the intimidating sportswoman Aunt Francis has always been, but she was perfectly well-educated, capable in an understated manner, and quietly determined in her own way; his Aunt An of course was a doctor, and the life of the party as Madam Red; and Aunt Francis is a marchioness like no other. Even the sole woman currently living in his house, Mey-Rin, is a deadly shot with her sniper's rifles.

Really, the Phantomhive manor is unsuitable for someone who can be a goddess of the hearth and nothing more. In any case, no one can be a more perfect housekeeper than Sebastian.

Sebastian.

How is Ciel to create a world where Lizzie's existence as his countess will not mean the termination of all that Sebastian is in his life? As he thinks that, he feels a surge of forgiveness for his demon, and suddenly wants to see him. Happily for him, Soma steps into the morning room then.

"Soma, will you play a game of draughts with Elizabeth while we wait for elevenses? There's something I need to do. It won't take very long. I'll be back in a little."

Leaving them to amuse themselves, Ciel makes his way quickly to the kitchen. He peers in to find that Baldroy and Agni are in there with Sebastian, but his devil senses his presence at once, turns around from the stove to lock eyes with him, and in a few seconds, casually finishes up what he is doing, and walks into the passageway without drawing attention from either the cook or the prince's manservant. He snatches Ciel into his arms without a word and kisses him deeply, bringing a blush of desire and relief into the boy's cheeks.

"Did I say I'd forgiven you?" Ciel whispers fiercely when they break apart at last. He is still clasped tightly in his demon's arms.

"You didn't have to. I knew."

"Bastard," he hisses, but with a smile. "Whatever you're doing out there, just don't get yourself into trouble, do you hear me?"

"I shall be as careful as I can reasonably be, Young Master."

One more quick kiss, then Sebastian sets him down on his feet, and strokes his cheek with the back of his gloved hand. Ciel puts his own hand up to clasp Sebastian's, and as he does, Agni, who can move every bit as silently as Sebastian, steps into the passageway and sees them. Ciel drops his hand at once. Sebastian lets his linger on the boy's cheek, unashamedly, possessively. Both lock eyes with the Brahmin man.

Agni looks from one to the other for a second, then returns to the kitchen without a word.

***

While Lizzie, Ciel and Soma enjoy their elevenses, and later their lunch, it is inappropriate for any of the three who encountered one another in the passageway outside the kitchen to speak of what happened. But after lunch, Agni says what he has to say.

Sebastian has long attempted to advise the Brahmin that here, he is a guest. But Agni never sees himself that way, and continues to help out around the manor in every way he can. As Sebastian clears the plates and cutlery from the dining table while Ciel, Soma and Lizzie disappear into the recreation room for card games, Agni comes up to him to assist him, commenting: "Last week, when Prince Soma dined with the Prince of Wales, His Royal Highness confided in him, in my hearing, how upset he was that his son's name had been dragged into the Cleveland Street affair. But it seems that Her Majesty refuses to allow any kind of intervention, to teach her grandson to cultivate a better reputation for himself over time."

"Is that so?" Sebastian replies in non-committal fashion.

"It is," Agni says firmly. "The conversation drifted to similar scandals of years gone by, and how the law used to punish the people involved much more harshly. Prince Edward mentioned an incident in 1810, about a place in Vere Street where men used to meet other men to engage in intimate acts. A 16-year-old boy – a child in my eyes – was sentenced to death by the courts and hanged that year for being associated with that house. Prince Edward disapproved greatly of such harsh punishments being meted out to young people, and expressed his relief that times have changed. But while the sentences passed by the courts may have altered, the times have not progressed that much, Mister Sebastian. People, and the way they judge other people, have not changed at all."

"I am aware of that, Mister Agni."

"I do not know what you are doing, precisely. But I sincerely hope you are not putting that boy in danger. You were careless, or reckless, enough to be seen by me interacting in an unusual way with him, unusual for a butler and his lord, at least. May you not have been careless enough to be seen by anyone else – I won't talk, but others might."

"I have no intention of endangering him."

"I hope not, or we shall find ourselves duelling again, Mister Sebastian."

"I must tell His Lordship that he has more than one male ready and willing to do battle for his honour," Sebastian remarks wryly.

"This is not a laughing matter," Agni reminds him.

"Of course not."

"You may think me hypocritical to speak to you thus, when we all know that before Prince Soma spared my life, I was the worst human being in my world. I killed, raped, mutilated, stole... I was filth, worse than the worst. But precisely because I have crawled through the mud of humanity and sunk lower than beasts, I know what people are capable of. I would never want Lord Ciel to go through any more suffering than he already has."

"Nor do I, Mister Agni."

"If I so much as suspected that you were hurting him, or endangering him in any way, I would stop you. But I sense no fear from the child, no ambivalence in him concerning you, and nothing but genuine affection and untainted love for you. So I will leave things as they are, and I shall say no more, unless you put him in harm's way."

"You sense love in him, you say?" Sebastian asks curiously.

"Of course. Can't you tell?"

"I can't say that I can."

"Perhaps you should, Mister Sebastian."

They load the plates from the table onto Sebastian's wheeled tray, then Agni bows and withdraws from the room.

***

Ciel draws his silver-backed hairbrush through Sebastian's deep-black locks, darker and glossier than the earl's, which is a softer onyx with hints of blue when it catches the sunlight. It is bedtime, and the earl has just had his bath and been dried and combed and fussed over by his butler, so he now wants to groom him in return.

"Are we cats, to be licking and grooming each other's coats?" Sebastian teases Ciel.

"I'm not licking your hair," Ciel replies. He is on his knees on the mattress, behind Sebastian who sits at the edge of the bed in his nightshirt. "I like brushing your hair. It makes it softer."

"The Earl of Phantomhive brushing his butler's hair. What would Agni say?"

Ciel blanches. "He's not going to tell Soma about seeing us outside the kitchen, is he? We'll be questioned and nagged and ranted at forever if Soma gets wind of this."

"I don't think he will mention it to the prince unless he has to."

"Under what circumstances would he have to?"

"If he were directly questioned by Soma. Or if he believed I was doing you harm, and needed to explain to the prince why he was attacking me in your defence, as another example."

"Why would he believe you were doing me harm?"

"If he saw me sinking my teeth into you like this, for instance," Sebastian suddenly whips around and pins Ciel to the mattress, playfully taking a pinch of the flesh on his shoulder between his fangs.

Ciel laughs and smacks Sebastian about the head with the hairbrush, only to have his arms pinned down too, and his left ear nibbled by those sharp teeth.

"Shall I bite this right off?" the devil murmurs in that very ear.

"Do that and I shall bite something else right off," threatens Ciel.

"You couldn't get your mouth around it."

"Then I shall just have to tear and chew."

"What a disgusting thought."

"Oh, indeed, a thought worthy of a demon."

"Well said," Sebastian agrees, leaving off the ear and giving him a tender kiss on the mouth.

Ciel returns and deepens the kiss for half a minute, then arches his neck in a silent command for Sebastian to kiss him there – he likes having his devil attend to his throat and the sides of his neck with his lips, like a gentle predator who never makes the final kill.

Sebastian obeys, purring as he explores the tender throat: "I shouldn't have awakened such desires in you for my selfish reasons."

"Shut up," Ciel orders.

But he speaks on: "If I had not desired you first, and tempted you, you might never in all your life have looked at a male as a possible lover. You would by now be begging Lady Elizabeth to marry you at once."

"I would not," Ciel growls.

"You would be dealing me stinging slaps for daring to so much as look at you with a single dirty thought in my head."

"I slapped you then because you were still no more than my butler and my hound. It was most improper of you," Ciel chides him, then softens. "But even at that time, I thought you the most dangerous, most beautiful creature I knew."

"Hmm," Sebastian smiles. "And I you, considering the degree of control you had over me at the time, under our contract."

"But not now?" Ciel asks, gently pushing Sebastian back so he can see his face.

"Oh, you are still perfectly beautiful."

"Dangerous, I mean."

"Dangerous? Especially now. When you no longer have control over me, but so very much more power instead."

Ciel stares at him, not understanding, but wanting to trust that he will. As Sebastian gazes deeply into those eyes of the deepest blue, he remembers what Agni said as they were clearing the dining table.

"I really shouldn't have awakened your desires so early," the devil whispers.

Nonetheless, with a soft exhalation that is nearly a sigh, he bends his head to kiss Ciel again. Ciel meets his tongue with his own, and for the first time after so long of never being able to scent Sebastian at all, he tastes the power and danger of his demon, with the warmth of fondness, and a bittersweet touch of rue.

***

"Somerset will return to England no more, Your Majesty," the Prince of Wales says to his mother. "His fears of punishment are very real, with the warrant for his arrest issued ten weeks ago."

When the prince was younger, he had still called the queen "Mama", as his sisters continue to, but that time has long passed. Between them, there is natural loyalty, and the attachment between mother and son, however their views may differ; but the easy family intimacy is no longer there. At most meetings between them with the least touch of formality, she is always "Your Majesty" to him.

"Well he deserves it, the predator," is the queen's reply. "Those poor boys. The acts they engaged in were horrible, but surely they would never have done such perverted things had men like Somerset not offered to pay them for it."

"I understand that one of the boys has already been released from prison."

"Good. It is to be hoped that he and the other young people will repair their lives and redeem themselves," she says.

"Unlike them and their patrons, however, my son was not involved with the brothel, yet he has been drawn into the scandal. How can he begin to redeem himself when he did no wrong to begin with? How are we to deny his involvement at this point in time when every denial will sound like a lie?"

"Lord Phantomhive was right to advise you as you told me he did then, but you did not heed him. If you had, this matter of Eddy's would not be under discussion at all. But since it has happened, some good may come of it. Eddy would not even have been whispered about had his conduct been more proper all these years."

"I can only hope, Your Majesty, that Eddy will have the opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of the world, although in this instance, he should never have had to repair his reputation, as he did nothing wrong."

"He is young yet. There will be time. I am not worried about that. What worries me at present is that when the Earl of Phantomhive offers good advice, those who ought to listen do not. I have determined a course of action that I hope will have him taken more seriously by you and Eddy in future. He will be named an advisor to the throne upon his attaining the age of twenty-five years. Even before that, I shall do more for him. When he marries the Lady Elizabeth Midford, I shall bestow upon him the rank of marquess. It will give him greater power and authority to protect Eddy, and Eddy's children to come, from the shade they could be cast into through their foolish actions."

"Your Majesty, Ciel Phantomhive has more than enough responsibility, as it is. Making him marquess in itself would be a fitting wedding gift, but making him marquess in order to make him a larger shield for us, and everyone after us, would not be right."

"You have hardly merited enough authority of character to tell me what would be right."

"No, indeed, Your Majesty," Prince Edward admits. "I have not. But I have done all that I can in the past year to be what you regard as the manner of prince fit to be your heir, and I shall pursue that path from here on."

"That may well be so, Edward," Queen Victoria agrees, casting a glance at his portly figure, so different from his father's trim silhouette. "But Somerset's exposure as a patron of this distasteful brothel, and the consequent besmirching of Eddy's name, has confirmed my belief that it is right to give greater authority to Phantomhive, and his children after him. I shall not let you reverse this decision, even if in the secret compartments of your mind, you picture the possibility of my dying before the boy marries. That may well be so, considering his youth and my age. But I shall write my decision down, in the form and with the words that the queens and kings of England have been advised to use in all formal decisions that affect the Phantomhives. It is a tradition. My Uncle William, remarkable individual that he was, told me that it was magic. But of course that is ridiculous – no rational person, and certainly no good Christian, really believes in magic. But it is a strictly followed tradition, nonetheless."

So the queen sits down at her desk and writes, as her uncle, William IV, taught her to through the private documents he left to her – the private documents every monarch leaves to the next.

As she writes, the magic of the old spell Ambrose learnt of, and which he told Sebastian about, releases a little more power into the person of Ciel Phantomhive. Unlike the power from the underworld that Sebastian has learnt how to divert, that which comes from the formulaic decrees of the royal family in relation to Phantomhive cannot be so easily channelled away by him. It enters the earl. The scales tip. The imbalance of power grows.
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Devilish Impulses