I will have something beautiful. And I will have revenge.

The people of the light have rejected Roscuro, and he honestly hates himself at this point.

“A rat,” he said. He put a paw over his heart. “I am a rat. And there is no light for rats. There will be no light for me.”

The king’s men still bent over the queen. The king was still shouting, “Save her! Save her!” And the queen was still dead, of course, when Roscuro encountered the queen’s royal soupspoon lying on the floor.

“I will have something beautiful,” he said aloud. “I am a rat, but I will have something beautiful. I will have a crown of my own.” He picked up the spoon. He put it on his head.

“Yes,” said Roscuro. “I will have something beautiful. And I will have revenge. Both things. Somehow.”

But, like the red tablecloth, this beautiful thing, too, will lose its beauty in the dark. But that will only make his desire for vengeance stronger…

There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong,

“Where is the rat?” shouted the king. “Find that rat!”

“If you want me,” muttered Roscuro as he left the banquet hall, “I will be in the dungeon, in the darkness.”

He’s being sustained more by thoughts of vengeance than of beauty, because he thinks that beauty could not possibly be (rightfully) his.

Next time: the fallout…