He was here for a Completely Unrelated Reason, but he's forgotten it now.

It's not something he doesn't Understand, really. He's got a Sense of why there are pages upon pages of writing on this desk, why there are familiar Names scattered through them and where the Impulse to craft a more perfect world comes from, although he himself had never been able to take pen to page about it.

But he's got his own Stories. He's got a whole Universe in his mind where Isaac and Urania have lived Happily Ever After in their very own Castle in the stars, where Victor and Zoë have their own beautiful Children, where his Father and Mother are Very Much in Love.

That doesn't make this tale involving himself and Zoë any more Sensible. That's why he's here puzzling over the pages rather than Whatever he came here to do, barely paying attention to the door.

Declán was the firstborn son of two young Twos employed in the kitchens of the Spades Castle. As all Spades do, they had ambitions--they were simply not the traditional ambitions of ascending to the top of the ranks. Declán's parents simply wanted to be the best Twos the kitchens had ever seen. For their son, however, the bar was set a little higher.

He would be head butler.

He was four years old when his younger brother, Feilim Chives, was born. It cemented something in Declán's mind. The current head butler was a Four. His parents, two Twos, amounted to four. At age four, his family became a unit of four. If he took rank at 12, it would take him an estimate of four years to attain the rank of Four to fulfill his ambitions.

Four was special.

At age 8, he looked for something special. He found a strange little boy in the Diamond Castle. It didn't seem important until he looked back, realized that in the year of being eight, he'd seen the boy four times. Isaac became important.

8 was also the age at which his parents began their proper grooming. There was less time outside, less time with other children, less time doing anything but studying diligently under his mother's tutelage. It made meeting Tegan at age 10 a bit special as well.

Ten was the end of the tetractys.

Declán took the rank of Two within the Castle Spades at the age of 12, as he was meant to. It brought him further into contact with human beings again-- notably with Andrea, the Thyer twins, and Annie; less notably with the first iterations of persons who held loose definitions of the word 'service.' At age 14, a bayonet challenge brought him to the rank of Three without fatality. He began helping his parents groom his younger brother. The current butler ascended to Five. It wasn't a problem.

Age 16 was meant to be the Special Year. He challenged just after his birthday to avoid leaving the fourth month--on the 16th of April, he attained the rank of Four with a butterfly knife and his first ever corpse. He cleaned it up without hesitation or complaint. It caught the head butler's attention. He began looking after more important clean-up assignments. Disposing of bodies from challenges began to involve disposing of 'accidents' as well.

He was still 16 when Feilim moved into his quarters in the Castle, away from their parents, embarking on his own quest to becoming Declán's second-in-command. The plan was falling into place.

He was still 16 when he was called to clean up the 'accident' that had become of Feilim's body. It was carried off as efficiently and quietly as any other body. It was also the first time he scrubbed his hands to the point of being covered in his own blood. Age 16 was not the Year he had intended it to be.

17 brought Andrea's disappearace for life outside the Deck, followed not long after by Tegan. 18 was meant to bring the final challenge to Five, to becoming head butler. The pressure was unbearable. He turned to the last friend he had left. Isaac offered him the solace of a spider. Declán crushed it in a fit.

His Most Important Friendship ended. Lots of things ended.

Finally, at age 19, a carving knife dispatched the Five standing in his way of being head butler. And now? Things will be Perfect.