The Emperor's Peace

My dearest Fransicique, most beloved among women; grace to you and peace, by the grace of Throne and the fates.

Forgive this garish haste, love above all, I beg you.  To morrow, I will depart with the White Rose for Gothic with the brothers of my house.  We were needed long, long ago and it is almost too late.  For the sake of your sanity I will spare you but the barest of detail; that one we thought gone is no longer, he is returned from the Eye.
    My love, I fear this will be the last you will hear of me.  Do not trust to hope in my returning.  I will try to send word when I can but I doubt I could even do so, what with the whole sector at war... Oh, Fransicique, please don't speak to the lady Silenzi of our love, she cannot understand, she must not.

But... But how can I break this to you... My love, but Sir Loman Silenzi, my grandfather, he is wishing to take us into the Eye.  I fear his spiritual purity... yet so have I done for many years, I have awaited his fall, but he hides it, he hides it and none have seen it.  He still bows to Brillig's old masters.



There next was a great blank space where no words were written, then the next paragraph was in some scrawling text that did not match that above.


He will return and Brillig will return to the Old Ways; I am certain of it and for this reason I have left you my last possession; in the basement's basement under the manor, down where none have walked in centuries since it was left there to rot, once a shameful blot on our name, I give you now permission, fair Fransicique, to open the cell to the emperor's peace-- but my love, I implore you, open that cell only at the very, very, very end of need-- and when that end is most dire.
At the least your own suffering will be put to an end.

Do not blame yourself for my death, my love above all, and please, PLEASE do NOT take the White Rose as your own.  She is far too old and her fusion reactor is too unstable for anyone except ME to hope to control, I beg you LEAVE her corpse on the field where we fall.

I remain yours alone, my dearest one.

Seppo


P.S.  While being your ally, it is NOT your friend.  Listen for the footsteps in the hall, can you not hear it even now?
If you see it, even if you think you see it, or if you don't, you cannot escape it.


RUN.
RUN NOW.