No, no, don’t panic. This is not bad news for the eight or nine folks out there who are following this ridiculous saga. (Well, that is unless you were looking forward to only having four more chapters to slog through.)

The thing of it is, is, the structure of this last third had been really bugging me. There was something out of whack in chapters nine through eleven and it finally dawned on me what it was (After- what?- a month? Yes, I’m just that intelligent.)

Any road, I think I’ve got it fixed now so what’s going to happen is this. I’m still going to post Chapter Nine mostly on schedule – within a day, I think – but I’ve got to fix the ending since I’m moving some junk to Ten. There’s a whole lot more rejiggering I know you’re even less interested in so I’ll cut to the chase:

• Three parts instead of Two (Part Three is titled “Fête Galante” today. We’ll see if that sticks.)
• Fourteen chapters instead of twelve
• 60k words instead of 50 (We’re on 40 if that’s any help.)

Chapter Nine onward will be a little shorter, but that means I can post them faster. Also they’re now chock-a-block with h/w. (Except a little bit in Twelve.)

As promised on HolmesSlash yesterday, Chapter Nine still boasts sex, drugs, and waltzes but now you’ll see all those things in Ten, too. Except the waltzes.

So I’ll… What’s that you say? “Shut up and get back to writing?” Well, it’s your funeral.

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I’m actually having an awful lot of fun with this story and I’m glad there are a handful of folks out there who’re enjoying it, too.

For the couple of you who’ve shown interest in these things I’m going to post another run down of the characters. Yeah, Séraphie is original and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to those who’ve taken the time to tell me you like her. She’s got a few surprises still in store for John and I’d hate to think she was completely annoying.

Thanks for reading. I’ll try to make it worthwhile as we head on into the mist.