Were Sebastian to have been asked about the matter entirely, he would have said that December 14 was the last day he was expecting to feel the pull. It had been months since his informal dismissal, months since he heard his master's summon and yet it's a welcome sensation. Like an itch you'd been longing to scratch but just couldn't reach.

He comes without any tip-off. A blink and you'll miss it moment. One minute Ciel is alone and the next minute his butler is kneeling before him with his head lowered in the most perfect form of submission. "Your orders, my lord?" he asks, never once raising his head from the ground and acting as if their time away never happened. It's the old routine again, the old ways and means.