Place · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

The Nothing

A double spot on the Desperado Club's wheel of fortune — 'the Nothing sure is something' — and a trapdoor under the roulette table that drops a losing player into a hole full of screams. Carl's spin stops just short of it.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 24 — The rock chucker
• Chapter 34 — How to kill a mantis
• Chapter 62 — A squirrel with antlers
• Chapter 65 — The Oak Mother's sacrament
• Chapter 66 — The Sugar Cube
• Chapter 67 — Slate Butterflies
• Chapter 68 — Off-worlders
• Chapter 69 — The prize counter
• Chapter 73 — Wonderwall, again
• Chapter 74 — All Eyes on Me

Progression

Samantha says a beaver god is in it, Capa, whom Hehaka wears as a hat (ch. 24); being abandoned was worse than the Nothing (ch. 34); something she once did there (ch. 62). Imogen tells the masquerade's founding story — Yarilo exiled to it for breaking the peace — and promises that the ground will open and feed peace-breakers into it, an eternity in the realm of darkness and gnashing of teeth (ch. 65); the warning at the door repeats the price, and a footman describes the fall (ch. 66); the pet show is an hour of nobody being banished (ch. 67); Signet says the Nothing is fed every time, and Apito awards no boons (ch. 68); Zabit applauds Carl for nearly angering Vrah into breaking the seal (ch. 69). Imogen dares Signet toward the realm of mumbled screams (ch. 73), and the floor rends open and takes her (ch. 74).