They stood in a loose circle around the throne. Wings crested monstrous shoulders. Aev, nearest, looked down at the human arrivals with the same composure Tara’d seen on Abelard’s face praying, and mistaken for haughtiness. Shale, at the circle’s rear, watched Tara, uneasy, trusting. A year ago Tara couldn’t have identified the meaning behind his fangs. She could now—and the other gargoyles’ expressions too, the determination on the face of tusk-toothed Gar and the haughtiness of scale-skinned Scree, the nervous twitch in great Grimpen’s cheek.

None of which mattered beside the light that occupied the throne.

The goddess wore a cloak of majesty. There were many faces within her face.

Tara stepped out of Jones’s way. The Crier emerged into the light. Her pen rested against notebook paper. Ink seeped from its tip.

Tara tried to conceal her satisfaction. She thought she did okay.

Jones lowered the notebook and approached Aev. Tara followed, flanking, in case of ambush or gonzo journalism.

“Ms. Jones,” she said, “this is Aev, who leads Seril’s children.”

“We’ve met.”

“You are in much better health than when last we spoke,” Aev said with a wry rumble.

“Is this the part where you give me instructions? Don’t offer or accept anything? Don’t make any bargains?”

“The Lady is eager to meet you,” Aev replied. “Any deals you make with her are yours to keep. She will communicate in your mortal tongue.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Can I get you anything before we start? Water, coffee? Doughnut?”

Jones blinked. “Water, thanks.”

“Water will be found.”

Shale walked to the rooftop’s edge and dove into space.

“Of course,” Jones said. “You don’t need water yourself.”

“Our few needs are met by moonlight, earth, and rain. He will return.”

“Thanks.” Jones flipped forward in her notebook until she reached a page not blotted with the ink of her surprise. “Let’s go.”

Aev ushered her toward the throne.

32

32

Abelard, fire-flooded, spread through his city, burning in ecstasy of communion, remembered his confession to Tara in the temple boiler room. And Kos remembered it too, because Abelard was part of him as he was part of Abelard.

Yet Abelard was still the man he had been a year before, tumbling into darkness, dead, only to learn the darkness into which he fell was burning. That fire buoyed him up. The Lord caught him, time and again, as Abelard caught Him in turn. They fought for each other.

Cardinal Gustave burned in the Temple of Justice, full of rage and futile hope, hair blown in smoke and hurricane winds. Cardinal Gustave fell. Cardinal Gustave, Abelard’s anchor, who held church and faithful in his iron conviction’s grip—dead, after betraying his Lord for a reason he thought was right.

Peel off the old man’s face like a player’s mask, and Abelard saw himself.