Fuzz hesitated. “Hm. Yes. Um, but it’s far, far away. Yes, too far for you to go. Too bad.”

God, it turned out, was a terrible liar.

Kelsier seized him, and the little man cringed.

“Tell me,” Kelsier said. “Please. I can feel myself stretching away, falling, being pulled. Please.”

Fuzz yanked out of his grip. Kelsier’s fingers … or rather, his soul’s fingers … weren’t working as well any longer.

“No,” Fuzz said. “No, it is not right. If you touched it, you might just add to his power. You will go as all others.”

Very well, Kelsier thought. A con, then.

He let himself slump against the wall of a ghostly building. He sighed, settling down in a seated position, back to the wall. “All right.”

“See, there!” Fuzz said. “Better. Much better, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Kelsier said.

God seemed to relax. With discomfort, Kelsier noticed God was still leaking. Mist slipped away from his body at a few pinprick points. This creature was like a wounded beast, placidly going about its daily life while ignoring the bite marks.

Remaining motionless was hard. Harder than facing down the Lord Ruler had been. Kelsier wanted to run, to scream, to scramble and move. That sensation of being drawn away was horrible.

Somehow he feigned relaxation. “You asked,” he said, as if very tired and having trouble forcing it out, “me a question? When you first appeared?”

“Oh!” Fuzz said. “Yes. You let him kill you. I had not expected that.”

“You’re God. Can’t you see the future?”

“To an extent,” Fuzz said, animated. “But it is cloudy, so cloudy. Too many possibilities. I did not see this among them, though it was probably there. You must tell me. Why did you let him kill you? At the end, you just stood there.”

“I couldn’t have gotten away,” Kelsier said. “Once the Lord Ruler arrived, there was no escaping. I had to confront him.”

“You didn’t even fight.”

“I used the Eleventh Metal.”

“Foolishness,” God said. He started pacing. “That was Ruin’s influence on you. But what was the point? I can’t understand why he wanted you to have that useless metal.” He perked up. “And that fight. You and the Inquisitor. Yes, I’ve seen many things, but that was unlike any other. Impressive, though I wish you hadn’t caused such destruction, Kelsier.”

He returned to pacing, but seemed to have more of a spring to his step. Kelsier hadn’t expected God to be so … human. Excitable, even energetic.

“I saw something,” Kelsier said, “as the Lord Ruler killed me. The person as he might once have been. His past? A version of his past? He stood at the Well of Ascension.”